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Our Xbox Series X review and our PS5 review are live, and they’re both great machines. But one area where the Xbox Series S and X is ahead of the PS5 is backward compatibility.
While next-gen systems from Microsoft and Sony have it to some extent, backward compatibility is much more complete on newer Xbox consoles.
And it turns out that this is no accident. It’s something Microsoft has been working hard on for the past four years, according to Jason Ronald, the company’s director of program management for Xbox.
“We’ve been working on Xbox Series X and Series S since 2016,” he told Inverse. “Before we even had a processor, we took performance data from existing games and ran it on a next-generation chip simulator. This allowed us to identify potential issues with the process or even before it was produced. “
The company would continue to test games as the hardware evolved, making sure things continued to perform as expected, and even improved them in some ways with features like Auto HDR.
As you can imagine, it takes time. And it’s surprising how much effort the company has made to achieve something that has never been considered a top priority.
“Last year we did tests that could take 16 to 24 hours for a single game,” Ronald continued. “We had a whole army of testers, around 500 people, who went through all the matches in order of priority. If they found any issues, our backward compatibility team would resolve them without the involvement of the developers. We have a responsibility to make sure these games keep running. “
The results are certainly impressive, with a handful of Xbox One games not working due to the lack of Kinect hardware integration.
The solution of the PS5, meanwhile, would be more uneven. While the official list of unsupported titles seems pretty mundane, Ubisoft has hinted that it might not tell the whole story. Also, of course, while the Xbox Series X supports some original Xbox and 360 games, PS5 backward compatibility begins and ends with the PS4.
And Microsoft may not be done with backward compatibility yet. Later in the interview, Ronald is asked about adding new vintage tracks to the mix, and doesn’t rule it out. “Yeah, it’s definitely something we’re looking at,” he replied. “Some of the challenges are technical, but more often than not, it’s licensing. In some cases, the developer or publisher no longer exists. It can even be very, very difficult to know who we need to approve. “
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