Top Compatibility Xbox changed my expectations for game consoles

What Xbox back compat creates, for me, is the meaning of a complete digital ecosystem. And perhaps more crucially, compatibility before. Microsoft is essentially committed to future generations of Xbox consoles that offer backward compatibility for older titles. Although we do not know for some short-term if all the Xbox One, Xbox One, and Xbox back-up games will be playable on the new generation Xbox "Scarlett", we've given hints of those who know that will be the case.

The idea that my library of games should travel with me has gradually become a bit of a game.

At a time when Microsoft and others are exploring Netflix mode cloud for our digital libraries Game to any device, the idea that my game library should travel with me has gradually become a bit of a catchphrase for me. I think this is also true for dedicated PC players, where you can launch MS DOS games from the 1980s on a modern Windows 10 PC without any problem. It's this "ultimate" backwards compatibility on Windows that inspired Phil Spencer to the Xbox One, as Gamasutra points out.

"I grew up as a PC player, and what I like about the PC ecosystem, I can still start Age of Empires 2 and I can go play this game It's funny, I was watching the World of Music Hall of Fame Game, there's like Solitaire and Donkey Kong, but the console has this build In fact, the format is so much related to the hardware itself. "[19659010] As someone who plays casually on PC, it's easy to take for granted that Windows has this buildable software buildable for decades that, overall, does not only works from generation to generation. Even though it has kept Windows in some ways, it also remains the biggest strength of the platform.

The Xbox, like Windows, now looks like a continuous ecosystem that could (and will continue to) extend to material generations. It may happen that the Xbox One can not use degraded versions of the latest 4K / 8K 60/120 FPS games on future consoles, but these future consoles should be able to access the deep history of previous generations, making sure that what content did you buy a trip with you. The competitors in Microsoft's main console do not seem to have made the same commitment.

Back Compat expectations

The fact that we have some PC-style backward compatibility elements on Xbox One is really sublime. However, I started to take it for granted. Now that I am financially able to consider adding other video game consoles to my gaming life to go with my Xbox One X and my PC, I can not afford it. prevent from feeling a pinch of "pouah" on the fact PlayStation and Nintendo do not take advantage of their return catalogs anymore. It's perhaps even more blatant on the part of Nintendo, since they've been exploring emulation on previous devices.

The PlayStation 4 is powerful enough to emulate PlayStation 2 titles, and Sony has proven it with a pretty dozen list of titles. There are few games in this list that I would call real clbadics, however, and the list of downloadable PS3 retro-compatible PS2 games is far, far bigger, with over three hundred titles. Early models of the PS3 even came with full PS2 backwards compatibility, but the feature was removed with new model revisions. Sony has also done a great job porting some of its clbadics, such as The Last Of Us, on the PS4, but Microsoft's method of essentially emulating the Xbox 360 catalog while waiting for the developer's approval seems like a lot more efficient.

Nintendo Switch would be the perfect console for backward compatibility, especially given the narrow ownership that Nintendo maintains over its core franchises. The previous Nintendo console, and its line of DS handhelds, benefited from a feature known as the Virtual Console, which brought disproportionate amounts of clbadic games to these systems. The Nintendo Switch however, has, well, almost nothing. This is pretty depressing given the small size of the portable console library (and how much I already have on Xbox and PC).

In an interview with IGN, Nintendo said that its new subscription service will be the successor of the virtual console. Unfortunately, you will not be able to buy the legacy content of Nintendo on the Nintendo switch. Sony is doing something similar with its PlayStation Now streaming subscription service, which offers dozens of PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 titles, far more than you can buy directly on its modern systems.

These two features are a huge difference what Microsoft does, and frankly, that's not what I want. Not only does Microsoft digitally sell Xbox compat games, but you can simply use the disks you already have, buried in a closet. You could argue that this is going to make a lot more money for Nintendo and Sony to go down the subscription route, but as someone who likes to buy to own that will not m & # 's 39, just not interested.

On the back, Microsoft

Backward compatibility does not get the appreciation it deserves, although it is used by millions of people every day. These are games that exceed their peak, and that will probably not be interested in future generations, but Microsoft is essentially preserving history by giving new life to those old record collections that you might have. If you have bought it on Xbox 360, you can read it on Xbox One, as simple as. And of course, maybe Microsoft will suddenly pivot and offer backward compatibility as a premium feature of its cloud streaming service, but I think it's unlikely that this is unlikely at the moment. consoles of the past. Although I can understand the licensing issues that Sony should face with regard to PS1 and PS2 games, Nintendo simply does not have this problem with its first-party programming. When I look at the Nintendo Switch specifically saying that they're going to "maybe" give me "a little" of its existing content on a monthly basis, I can not help but look up and to close my wallet. I think I will stay with Xbox and PC for the predictable.

Related: Full list of backwards compatible Xbox games