In a whole list of cool announcements at Microsoft\u2019s E3 show this summer, one of the coolest \u2013 even if it was pretty low key \u2013 was the announcement of original Xbox backwards compatibility coming to Xbox One. Since the announcement, though, we haven\u2019t heard a thing.<\/p>\n
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The feature is still coming this year, though, Xbox box Phil Spencer says, and even implied there\u2019s something we don\u2019t know yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a little dashboard I go to and I can see all the games, where they are in getting approvals in the pipeline. I know the games that are coming for the original Xbox, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve announced them all. We have to do this in partnership with partners, but we\u2019re still on track,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Regarding the Xbox One X, he added that \u201cthere\u2019s some stuff we\u2019re going to talk about in that space in terms of how compatibility\u2019s going to work [Xbox One] X specifically that I think people will find pretty interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spencer acknowledges that games don\u2019t always age well, but says that one of the few announced games,\u00a0Crimson Skies,\u00a0<\/em>is \u201cfantastic, and the game actually looks really good even though it\u2019s obviously been around.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot to unpack there. Only a few games have been announced for backwards compatibility, but Spencer says he has this whole dashboard of games that he can look at. Presumably, Microsoft wouldn\u2019t release the feature with just two games, but we still have no idea whether that number is 10, 20, or what. There was a\u00a0whole host of fun games on the original system, and I have to imagine they\u2019re looking at all of them.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s that comment about the Xbox One X. Depending on how Xbox One and Xbox 360 games are built, the Xbox One X will give those games some extra overhead to perform better regardless of whether they get high-res texture packs or patches. If original Xbox games were built with dynamic performance in mind, it\u2019s possible we could see some of the games looking better than ever \u2013 better than they should be all previous metrics \u2013 without studios going back and prodding at 15-year-old games (which definitely isn\u2019t happening).<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear when the feature is coming, aside from \u201cthis year,\u201d but a big update is coming to Xbox One before the Xbox One X releases that refreshes the menu system and adds features like copying games between Xbox One consoles, so we\u2019d expect to see it then.<\/p>\n The Xbox One X releases on November 7, 2017.<\/p>\n