I’ve seen backwards compatibility come up in gaming discussions a lot, with the assumption that on Xbox Series S/X you can play a majority of the past of Xbox’s library. Unfortunately only a very small fraction of the past library can be played.
While it’s true that currently the PS5 is only backwards compatible with the PS4 library and the Switch 2 will only be backwards compatible with the Switch library, that doesn’t excuse the poor showing on the Xbox.
There are 2,155 games that were released for the Xbox 360. Of those, you can play 632. That’s less than 30%
There are 989 games that were released for the original Xbox. Of those, you can play 63. That’s less than 7%.
I don’t think people should be pointing to Xbox as a champion of backwards compatibility.
I think the availability of previous-generation games on current-gen Xbox is excellent. Until 2020 I had never owned any Xbox consoles, so getting a Series X allowed me to access to new games, every Xbox One game (minus one or two), a large selection of Xbox 360 games, and a few Xbox games. And I could buy the discs on eBay for next to nothing. I don’t see how this is a bad thing.
There’s a weird entitlement that people have in technology and gaming. Suddenly you can control your lightbulbs with Alexa so now you want them to make toast for you in the morning.
I would imagine that the PowerPC cpus in the PS3 and 360 are why that happened. Essentially, as far as I understand it, Microsoft have to recompile the games for it to work. They actually download a new version of the game for the Xbox One. So it isn’t actually back compatibility as we usually think of it. Microsoft had to do a huge amount of heavy lifting and license negotiations to get the ones they could get. Sony decided, for some very sound reasons, not to bother with that.
I hope someone more knowledgeable will correct my layman’s errors
Yes, but the original Xbox is x86. It would be trivial for Microsoft to make every original Xbox game both compatible with the Xbox One/X/Series S/Series X and stream directly off the disc.
Looking past the fact that the technical work required to do this would be complex and expensive (it’s not just a case of ‘x86 = x86’), offering compatibility with decades-old commercial products on your new commercial product and making sure everybody’s contract is honoured (and that they get paid) is hugely complicated.
I have no problem with a small token selection of ‘backwards compatibility’ (hate that expression). It’s a novelty. And what’s offered on Xbox Series X/S is better than most. Serious ‘game preservation’ (hate that expression too) will always be done best by the hobbyist community who don’t have budgetary or commercial factors to build in to the work.
I’d suggest buying an old Xbox and playing old games on that, or waiting for homebrew and emulation to become good enough. Xemu only lists about 5% of the original Xbox library as perfectly compatible though. Must be difficult.
Difficult for hobbyists. Not difficult for Microsoft, who have the full documentation and source code.
Sony didn’t have to do any backroom licensing deals to make sure the PS2 and PS3 were compatible with PS1 games. They just made the systems play all PS1 discs.
I think this is one of those pointless and un-winnable internet Gamer arguments.
Everybody’s basically saying the same thing - they could have made every game that’s ever been released on one of their machines compatible with the new one, but even with their resources and knowledge there would have been technical, contractual and/or financial barriers to such an undertaking, so they didn’t do it.
To suggest anything else is to suggest they’re just big meanies, or even worse, LaZy dEvS.
Yeah I also wish more games were available, but even the limited library of games that are backwards compatible is enough reason for me to go with Xbox over PS this generation
No, I’d rather say it’s blatant they don’t gauge such a project to be profitable enough aside from the biggest hits and whatever they had on hand. I’m not particularly interested in the logistical issues because the company in question has such an obscene budget that money really wouldn’t ever be an issue. It’s all profit motive under capitalism, it doesn’t make sense to invest.
There’s a valid criticism to be made here but I’d be interested in hearing examples of the remaining 1,523 Xbox 360 and 926 Xbox games we would be interested in playing. Granted that is a huge percentage of the Xbox library and I don’t doubt there are many games worth bringing forward, but even so making this a strict numbers game is a little disingenuous imo. Who among us wants to play the original Xbox version of Big Bumpin’ so badly that you would pay $10 to play it on Series X? Bionicle? AMF Bowling? There are a million versions of certain sports games with associated licensing costs and I’m sure it’s not worth porting every version of every one of those. Looking at just the original Xbox library:
Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2005 Adventures
Pixar’s Cars The Cat in the Hat Deus Ex: Invisible War
Ratbag Games’ The Dukes of Hazzard: Return of the General Lee The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Eragon
Cranky Pants Games’ Evil Dead: Regeneration Fahrenheit The Fairly OddParents: Breakin’ Da Rules Family Guy Video Game! Half-Life 2 Monster Garage MLB Slugfest 2003, 2004, 2006, Loaded NASCAR Heat 2002 NASCAR Thunder 2002 NASCAR Thunder 2003 NASCAR Thunder 2004 NASCAR 2005 NASCAR 06 NASCAR 07 NBA 2K2 NBA 2K3 NBA 2K6 NBA 2K7 NBA Ballers NBA Ballers: Phenom NBA Inside Drive 2002 NBA Inside Drive 2003 NBA Inside Drive 2004 NBA Jam NBA Live 2002 NBA Live 2003 NBA Live 2004 NBA Live 2005 NBA Live 06 NBA Live 07 NBA Starting Five NBA Street V3 NBA Street Vol. 2 NCAA College Basketball 2K3 NCAA College Football 2K3 NCAA Football 2003, 2004, 2005, 06, 07, 08 NCAA March Madness 2004, 2005, 06
etc.
I realize it’s an unspoken rule in games archives/preservation that everything should be available forever, but besides being unrealistic, is that really what anyone wants beyond the principle of the thing? I’m curious to hear about (what I’m sure are many) specific Xbox/360 games which aren’t currently avaiable on current Xboxes which we want to play (besides OutRun Online).
To provide some all-too-necessary context, here’s an article about the work Sony had to (direct its workers to) put in to make the PS2 backwards compatible. Backwards compatibility was hardly an established norm; the PS2 was, as most Sony systems are, a technical nightmare to directly work with; and they only had to make the PS2 compatible with one preceding system. Imagine how much harder your task becomes ensuring backwards compatibility for multiple systems stretching back two and a half decades, and possibly using technology that’s not around anymore (it’s not immediately obvious that Xbox Live in 2025 is the same as Xbox Live in 2001).
Yeah, I’m convinced that the world’s only Jimmie Johnson’s Anything with an Engine fan exists and is a member of this community, so I’ll keep my opinions on what percentage of Xbox games historically could be considered shovelware too so as to not be raked over the coals too badly.
Also, having spent some time earlier this year with the full GBA romset, all I can say is that there are waaaaaaay more games for any given console than anybody can reasonably be interested in, and the lion’s share of them are terrible.
