Just in case there wasn’t enough for you to play on your Xbox One, Microsoft has a surprise for you. It’s bringing games from the original Xbox to the Xbox One later this year.
Microsoft announced it was adding Xbox games to the Xbox One during its Xbox Media Briefing at E3 2017. In effect, Microsoft is upgrading the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Program that brought Xbox 360 games to the console in 2015.
The crux of the system is the same for Xbox games. All gamers need to do is put their original Xbox game disc in the Xbox One to unlock a digital download that gets stored on their console. Microsoft hasn’t said whether games from the original console will support Game DVR and cloud saves. Both feature could happen. Xbox 360 games have them. Unfortunately, it’s still early days for the original Xbox Backwards Compatibility. We only know that Crimson Skies will be part of the program.
This isn’t the first time that Xbox games have come to a new console. Microsoft’s first backwards compatibility program ever brought games from the first Xbox to the Xbox 360. The feature was successful, but required developers to do some work on their end to make it all possible. Developers aren’t needed for the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility program. Publishers just give their blessing. Microsoft’s engineers do all the work. That shift has allowed the amount of Xbox 360 games on Xbox One to blossom. There’s 400 titles in the program right now.
Good on Microsoft for continuing to improve on a clear differentiator for Xbox. Sony received no end of criticism for saying it didn’t create a similar program for PlayStation because it didn’t see the real value. Obviously, there’s some demand for playing older games. Otherwise, it wouldn’t attempt to resell PlayStation 2 titles to PlayStation 4 owners through the PlayStation Store
