Microsoft astonished everyone attending E3 2015 by announcing that the Xbox One will be able to play the past games of Xbox 360, making the new-gen gaming console backward-compatible with titles originally created for the previous console.
Phil Spencer, Xbox chief, revealed the news at the annual convention and was received with a huge applause. He said that the players would only need their old Xbox 360 game discs to unlock downloadable versions of the game for the Xbox One.
"Your Xbox 360 games, the games you've invested your time and money in, and the games you want to continue to play, will be playable natively on your Xbox One. Our goal is to deliver the largest games catalog ever on Xbox, and Xbox One backward compatibility allows us to do just that," he added.
This gives Xbox One a significant boost with its competition with PS4, since the Xbox One has been losing against the consoles in global sales. This also removes the problem for gamers who are resistant on giving up their old games.
Microsoft is playing it safe by announcing that about 100 Xbox 360 games will be available to download on the next-gen console by December 2015. Digital Xbox 360 titles will show up automatically in their Xbox One's game libraries. Gamers could also insert Xbox 360 discs to download a copy for Xbox One.
Mike Ybarra, Xbox engineering executive, took it a step further and gave a live demonstration of the Xbox' backwards compatibility. He also explained that gamers will be able to play titles on Xbox Live with their friends on Xbox 360, taking advantage of new features such as screenshots, broadcasting and game DVR.
According to Tek Revue, not all Xbox One features will be supported on Xbox 360 games, but Microsoft is focusing to integrate some of the most popular capabilities into its current generation console.
