If you’re reading this, you can play 13 original Xbox games, including Ninja Gaiden Black, on the Xbox One gaming console you have sitting in your living room today. And you don’t have to risk damaging your coffee table with a Duke controller to do it.
Microsoft began adding original Xbox games to the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility program today. Black, BloodRayne 2, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, Dead to Rights, Fuzion Frenzy, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, King of Fighters Neowave, Ninja Gaiden Black, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Psychonauts, Red Faction 2, Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Star War: Knights of the Old Republic are all games Xbox One owners can play today.
Getting access to these titles is easy. You can insert your original discs if you still have them or buy these titles through your Xbox One’s Store app. Anyone with an Xbox Game Pass subscription gets access to Ninja Gaiden Black for free. Game Pass is the subscription service that gives gamers access to a large and always changing library of Xbox 360 and Xbox One games for $9.99 a month.
Because the original Xbox Live is shut down, you can’t enjoy any of these game’s online multiplayer. However, you can link two consoles together for direct multiplayer and take advantage of any co-operative play they offered back when Batman Beyond looked like it might be the best rendition of the hero yet. These games are four times better, graphically, than they were on the original Xbox, according to Microsoft. Expect them to have 16 times their original resolution on the upcoming Xbox One X.
If you don’t remember any of these games, don’t worry. Microsoft has another batch of games that it plans to release in the spring, according to a news post about the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Program update on the Xbox Wire news blog.
Sure, it’s crazy, but I’m holding out for an updated version of Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup. I was an original Xbox owner of very limited tastes.
