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Xbox One soon to be compatible with select Xbox 360 games (Updated with video)

By Salehuddin Bin Husin - on 16 Jun 2015, 2:55am

Xbox One soon to be compatible with select Xbox 360 games

 One of the first blockbuster titles on the Xbox 360 will be making the leap to the Xbox One.

Updated 16/6/2015: Added in Toy Soldiers: Cold War video

At its E3 conference, Microsoft has just announced that Xbox 360 compatibility will be coming to the Xbox One later this year. Not all games will be compatible, as Microsoft has stated that the initial release will only have around a hundred playable titles, including Mass Effect.

The interesting thing is that it seems as the games will all be digital versions, as they made mention of inserting discs into consoles and then downloading the game. If the game is running from the Xbox 360 disc, it stands to reason there wouldn't be a need to download anything. The disc being in the drive might just be a simple check to make sure you own the game. But of course, this is just our speculation. No word on whether Xbox Live Arcade titles might be making the leap, though Shadow Complex's logo is show in the trailer, which probably means that it's a safe bet that they will be.

Of course, with Xbox 360 compatibility on the way, it raises some interesting questions. Will NTSC/UC games (US released titles) be playable on the local Xbox Ones? While the Xbox One is region free, the Xbox 360 was not, as US games were released in NTSC/UC format while local titles were NTSC/J. The Xbox 360's Xbox compatibility extended to its region, as local Xbox 360s couldn't play US Xbox games. If the local Xbox Ones are able to play NTSC/UC games, it opens up a whole new list of titles that local gamers might be able to play as some titles like Phantasy Star Universe and Operation Darkness were never released in English locally.

Don't get too excited though. Microsoft promised a ton of compatible Xbox games for the Xbox 360 but only had a small fraction of the original Xbox games playable on the Xbox 360 before the program was quietly shelved. The same thing might happen here too though MS mentions that the only barrier holding an Xbox 360 game from being playable on an Xbox One is the publisher's permission. If that's the case, then expect phenomenal support.

Titles playable on the Xbox One will also come with the system's exclusive capabilities, like the ability to take screenshots. Xbox 360 gamers will also be able to play Xbox One gamers running the same game on Xbox Live with no issues. Here's a list of some of the titles that you can expect to be playable, direct from Microsoft.

  • Banjo Kazooie: N n B
  • Banjo-Kazooie
  • Banjo-Tooie
  • BattleBlock Theater
  • Defense Grid
  • Geometry Wars Evolved
  • Hexic HD
  • Jetpac Refuelled
  • Kameo
  • Mass Effect
  • Perfect Dark
  • Perfect Dark Zero
  • Small Arms
  • Super Meat Boy
  • Toy Soldiers
  • Toy Soldiers: Cold War
  • Viva Piñata
  • Viva Piñata: TIP

If you're in the Xbox Live Preview Program, you can give the backwards compatibility a shot later today when the feature goes live. We'll be back with impressions when it does.

Update: Well, we've just given Toy Soldiers: Cold War a try on our Xbox One and we're proud to say that the game runs as well as it does on the Xbox 360. In fact, all of our achievements, records and scores carried over flawlessly, as well as our saves. The process for installing digital games is simple. Just select to download a game from the 'My Games and Apps' section, download it and run. Your Xbox One will then download the necessary data from the Cloud and when it's done, you're all set to play. Xbox 360 games all can be snapped and also have their screenshots and videos taken, just like an Xbox One title.

If Microsoft does manage to get all Xbox 360 games running without a hitch on the Xbox One, this is a huge coup for the console as Sony's Playstation 4 doesn't have hardware backwards compatibility with any of the previous Playstations. Sony is offering a streaming service called Playstation Now, which streams PS3 and PS2 titles, but the service isn't available locally yet, with no word on if it'll even be coming to local shores.

Via: Kotaku
Source: Microsoft

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