We've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the Xbox team has added 76 games to the backwards compatible library today, but the bad news is that there will be no further additions in the future.
Speaking on the official Xbox website, Xbox compatibility program lead Peggy Lo explained that the team has "reached the limit of our ability to bring new games to the catalog" citing various roadblocks that will prevent further additions:
“While we continue to stay focused on preserving and enhancing the art form of games, we have reached the limit of our ability to bring new games to the catalog from the past due to licensing, legal and technical constraints."
Peggy Lo says that although the Xbox team had suggested it was finished adding backwards compatible titles a couple of years ago, this final batch was "only possible through the passion and feedback from the community".
It's a bittersweet moment, then. This final batch is loaded with great titles such as TimeSplitters 2 and Max Payne 3, but it's also sad to know we won't be getting certain other classics in the future. All good things must come to an end!
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know down in the comments section below.
Comments 69
That's sad, was hoping Wet and Homefront would be added. Guess not.
No Jet Set Radio Future is a bummer, but oh well.
Great to see more titles come to backcompat but really disappointed that we wont see any more titles added to the program after today.
It is a sad day, was just a handful of games I was waiting for, hopefully we will get a remaster of condemned 2, dark sector, homefront or singularity
Don’t think I will get a remaster of Clive barkers Jericho or space marine… but you never know
I got Advent Rising, I would ha e lived for X-Men Legends and Chronicles of Riddick, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Sure there are some missing games I would have liked but they’ve done very good with their bc. Got most of my all time favourites (most with some sort of enhancements) so I won’t complain
@Craigyy
Yup. Was also hoping for Condemned 2, but I'm happy with the effort MS has shown regarding backward compatibility.
Eh, a lot better than zero.
My number one pick here - Lego Lord of the Rings.
Good for Xbox to do this. Really irks me that people complain about not getting their game on the list. No other publisher is doing this and Microsoft is doing it for games they didn't even publish.
@xMightyMatt14x still my favorite lego game
I honestly wasn't expecting 70+ and I applaud them for that. Chicken Little's Frame Boost, let alone it's inclusion baffles me they they did it to make the 5 CL fans happy so there's that.
700+ BC games is still a good number. Nothing everything was possible but they tried hard to get as much as they could and I'm happy as the big 360 fan myself to see new stuff that will come to Games with Gold and the weekly sales in due time, this is a big boost for those and will ensure the 360 servers get more lift even if the number of individual servers for games are vanishing every year.
And who knows what will happen by XBox's 25th or even 30th anniversaries. If they are really serious about buying more companies, suddenly all those SEGA games would be more than possible should that impossible transaction ever happen....
Well we have plenty and if it means the teams involved move on to creating new experiences for us on Xbox then I very pleased we have come to the end.
Oh no! Was still hoping for Quake 4 (incl Quake 2 bonus), Return to Castle wolfenstein tides of war and PGR 2.
Figured this day would come and its bittersweet. Are there games I would have liked to see sure but with licensing issues it's understandable why some games are not available. Still MS did a great job giving its fans what they wanted.
Grateful for what we got, disappointed for what we didnt. A lot of what we didn't get are mostly underappreciated hidden gems so i doubt they'll be getting remasters either.
Its so awesome we have so many games playable on current consoles, it just sucks having to keep a 360 and/or OG Xbox on standby just for a couple of games.
I assume most publishers have now learned they can re-sell these old games with "remastered" graphics for $69.99 and no longer wish to allow MS to enhance them.
@Odium I love that I can have the whole lego collection now! The only games I’m sad I’ll never see on my series x are the prince of Persia trilogy and Tony hawks American wasteland.
I for one am glad that i wont have to see anymore news about more backwards compatible games coming or releasing. Bring on the new games and games designed for Xbox Series X!
@OliverOwen
Dont you have anything better to do then to crap on old games it wont be long before thoses designed for Xbox Series X games will be "old crap too"
I will admit I do feel gutted about this. This is something I was hoping they would continue to do anyway and not just for this special occasion.
I am so grateful though that Microsoft did the whole backwards compatibility thing at all. Microsoft certainly did more for it than what Sony ever did.
I wish they'd of added, Lollipop Chainsaw but oh well...
Thank you Microsoft.
@OliverOwen absolutely agree with you. I don't care and won't play any of it. And if I ever do, it will be 5 min launch to remind myself of how bad the good old days actually were. Can we focus on the current gen stuff now!
@Cikajovazmaj
I cant wait till the new stuff becomes crap.
It was a good final list but there was some games that never made it that i was hoping for
We have a great selection available. Just make sure everything that currently runs on Series X/S will run on future Xbox consoles.
@RedKnight34 to be honest, neither can I. I've been a gamer for 25-30 years now, and one thing that has always put a smile on my face is how far video games have come and how surpassed old games have become. Innovation is a beautiful and constant thing.
Booo. Really sad day for me. BC is amazing. Shame they can’t add more. Quite a few still on my wish list.
@Alduin Sony has some PS3 and PS2 titles available via PS Now or for single purchase. But I admit that Xbox has done a way better job though, especially having 600 Xbox 360 games available to play. And the Xbox 360 itself can play nearly all of the OG Xbox library.
Bummer, but they've already outdid themselves with all the support for previous generations. Kudos to the Xbox team.
Was really hoping that Lego Lord of the Rings would have eventually made it, but hey ho, can’t have it all.
Sad that "FUSE" (the 3rd person shooter, with co-op shenanigans) isn't going to get added, but nice that they added more today and even added improvements to ones they already did the backwards compatibility for.
This makes me very sad
I guess now we bug developers to port their games to current gen.
RIP Outrun 2 & crazy taxi 3😡
For OG Xbox games this is a shame but not unexpected. The only real game left to release is JSRF and that's stuck in so much licencing hell I'd be amazed if Sega don't just make a 3rd game first. SSX3 is a much better game than Tricky so that's not a big loss.
There isn't much left from the 360 that isn't out. It would have been nice to see Transformers on the lost but the disks still work. Rez still isn't BC and there is no sign of a non VR port of Rez Infinite on Xbox.
Otogi 1 and 2 are future classics (if not already). Play them before your friends make it a thing.
Honestly I'm a tad disappointed they didn't add the old Forza games. I'm not sure if they would have to get all the car manufacturer's permission, but these would be great to have with improved framerates and resolution!
I like this.. they've appeased the people who wanted it (I could have cared less).. but that's enough free &*%$ they're getting, time to work on next gen stuff...that's how I like to read it anyways.
Got Beautiful Katamari so I'm good thanks
This makes me sad as I always hoped Buffy would be made compatible.
I am stoked that RE Operation Raccoon City was added. Such a great game (for what it is), especially the DLC missions.
I can think of a few games, like Borderlands Pre-Sequel, that wouldn't have legal or technical barriers from a BC release. So I'm guessing the XBox team have just hit a wall, where the number of games they could potentially release just isn't worth the time and money to chase anymore. And they just want to move forward now.
It really is a shame that we wont be getting any more, as there are some great titles that haven't been rescued.
Slightly annoying and sad but they done a great job and have added most of the big ones and the games i wanted to replay most or try out, better then what Sony and Nintendo have been doing by far.
While I’m sad it’s over, I’m excited for the games that made it. I just bought Otogi1-2 off eBay for a hefty price but totally worth it to celebrate Xbox’s past while still enjoying the present. I have Ridge Racer 5, Binary Domain and Nier still sealed and now that those have been added, I won’t have to unseal them. The games I will miss making the jump will be Resonance of Fate, Eternal Sonata, Magna Carta 2, Ninja Blade, Tenchu Z and Ace Combat 6. Oh well at least I still have my Halo 4 edition Xbox 360 to play those on so all is not lost. Overall today was a good day to be an Xbox owner!
They've added 3 years worth of Games with Gold. Chicken Little for Xmas I reckon.
@NEStalgia yes, yes they have learned as much. Tbf, a lot of publishers remaster games okay. It's just easier to notice the ones you don't like.
@Richnj
I'm pretty sure Borderlands the Pre-Sequel is aready on Xbox 1 via the remaster collection.
They weren't just BC games, they were basically ports of these older games, meaning that xbox had to renew and renegotiate every licencing nitpick and stuff. They also had to reprogram the game to be compatible with the amd architecture without emulation, since xbox and 360 games were using intel and powerpc chips respectively, and just putting the old disc was not enough.
Some BC elitists will never understand that, and will obviously cast their rage on xbox for being lazy.
So my thoughts... I just looked over two lists one with all the BC games and the full 360 games lists. If you take out all the old sports games because who really plays old sports games. Old racing games like need for speed because we all know the reason why the aint BC (blame EA) i think the Xbox team did a great job then again im easy to Please. For me the only bummer is we didnt get Batman Arkham Origins but that wasnt really that good of a game anyways.
@FunkyJesuspants i’m a bit confused what you mean by this…? Lego Lord of the Rings is on the list!
(unfortunately no sign of it being available to buy digitally, in the UK, yet at least)
@Alduin to be fair just plainly looking at the statistics, they've now made 20% of all og xbox&360 games backwards compatible. I could understand why people would be disappointed.
@Kingleo31 you've got Binary Domain and Nier STILL in their plastic? I know people have a backlog and can't get around to playing their games but I've never encountered one like this 😂
I mean no offence though, did you buy em for collecting purposes?
I'd like to congratulate the Xbox team in all their efforts in making these games backwards compatible with the Xbox One and Series consoles. A huge list for sure, not all games but a nice selection. Fantastic work by the team.
I had been hoping Binary Domain would make the cut and am very happy it did, bought it right away, I think I had it on disk before and it's long gone. So I'm going to thoroughly enjoy another play through.
No Dark Messiah of Might and Magic from the Xbox 360? That's a damn shame.
The one Xbox 360 game i wanted to play again was Saboteur. It never once got a BC patch. The outfit has been but not Saboteur which was a unique title back in its day.
I’ll definitely be buying all three of Max Payne and maybe Oddworld: Munch’s Odyssey. I was hoping we’d get all three Project Gotham Racing games but can appreciate all the effort they’ve put in to bring the games they’ve brought as well as enhancing them, especially the OG Xbox games.
How soon before we get an updated games list for fps boost and backwards compatible?
Really bittersweet to add so many games and then just end it like this.
I can't lie, this just sucks so bad right now and is a huge mistake for Xbox brand.
They have billions to spend on acquisitions, but can't afford a small BC team?
They just added a bunch of games that are physical only, so rights aren't the issue.
We already own the games that everyone wants, so I'm calling BS on this shutdown.
They just don't want to bother & that's a huge mistake. BC is what made Xbox different.
So what are the games we'll never get to see on backwards compatibility?
@Chaudy wet is a great shout, had forgotten that game!
@FunkyJesuspants Lego LotR did make it. It's one of the new batch of additions.
@CutchuSlow literally 1000s of games but top of my wish list…
Simpsons Hit and Run,
SSX Tricky
Rallisport 1 & 2
Any Project Gotham Racing Games
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy Chaos Bleeds
The Warriors
Midnight Club (any of them)
Any of the Lord of the rings titles.
NCAA Football
College Basketball 2k8
Outlaws Sprint car racing
Any of the Harry Potter games
@GamerDad66 It doesn't quite work that way with the rights. While you can use a physical disc to access these games, you can't actually play them from the disc - when you put it in, your Xbox starts downloading a new version of the game for backwards compatibility.
As I understand it, these are essentially ports. And because of that, licensing issues are a hurdle that the Xbox team has to try and jump over (probably by spending a lot of money in certain cases).
@FraserG Yes that's exactly how they handle it. Xbox has gone above and beyond on this. Porting each of the games themselves without the devs and adding additional features to make them run better. It is a very time consuming process.
@GamerDad66 They're BC team likely isn't going anywhere it will just be refocusing it's efforts. Likely on features like FPS Boost, Auto HDR and other similar tech we don't yet know we need to improve either older games or cloud gaming etc. It's likely they will start to focus on the Xbox One generation as that starts to age.
While it's always disappointing to see the end of a great program like this there is a limited number of dev hours for this sort of thing. They will have the exact metrics to see how much use this actually gets vs costs. It's easy to say 'oh trillion dollar company therefore it's a bottomless well'... but business just doesn't work like that.
I'm glad they do something for backwards compatibility, but so far what's available is less than a third of the 360 and Xbox library. I'd like them to work on making an in-house emulator that could run all the games (or at least most) so you can play the rest of the catalogue.
@Stocksy As a sports degen, I was also hoping a college sports game accidentally got included. Hopefully either the new NCAA player compensation law provides the path for new games or a developer has the common sense to build a quality sports game and allow the community to 'mod players/ teams'
@DrJamesOxford EA are making a new college football game so I assume with the school they don’t sign individually they will have a robust editor…. I need a new one…. Would love. Hoops one too as we’ve waited longer for one…
It’s always been tricky for me as I have to import and even trickier on Xbox as they weren’t multi-region.
I see they did add a college sports football game I’d never heard of but reviews are not good. Might grab anyway for a quick play.
It's a very time-consuming project, indeed. In the beginning, most games crashed or run at 5fps because it's not an emulator but they have to repack all the data. The original Xbox games are more traditional ports because of the architecture (the first port was Grabbed by the Ghoulies) that run at three different resolutions depending on the platform (Xbox One, Series S and Xbox One X/Series X). The Xbox 360 games are fooled and run as-is so it was another great achievement when they introduced the Xbox One X enhancements on top of that. They even introduced Xbox One S enhancements in Final Fantasy XIII. I've been a huge fan of this project since Rare Replay was announced.
A few games needed a lot of optimisation in order to run properly and they ended up running better than on the original hardware (Halo Reach, Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts). It's somewhat sad that there won't be additional titles and there are some weird omissions like Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing but most of the time it must have been a nightmare to deal with publishers and rights. I also imagine that some publishers were reluctant to give Microsoft permission to make games available at no extra cost on Xbox One and to introduce the free FPS Boost feature on Series X/S. Microsoft have done all this just to make Xbox a better gaming platform and for that I'm immensely grateful. Compared to Switch or PS5, Xbox One and Series X/S are multi-generation gaming paradise. Most publishers, including Nintendo and Sony, prefer to re-sell the same games but Microsoft have invested a lot of time and resources in making old games available for free.
@Cikajovazmaj Thank you! Normally I just get people trash talking me because of my opinions. All I want is for this generation to be its best and have all of the support it needs. If that means no more backwards compatible games, great. If that means no more Remakes and Remasters, amazing. Just give us amazing current gen games and nothing more!
@RedKnight34, yes, I do have better things to do... But I am a person who has the right to say what I want as an opinion and I am allowed to voice them. If you dont like it, keep scrolling.
@NEStalgia
I don't know. They got money for doing absolutely nothing and let Microsoft do all the work. Sounds like a win to me. In the end I would suggest the main issues are in the soundtracks, branding, who owns right to what.
@kuliddar My thinking is the problem is now that publishers have been shown the way by Nintendo and Rockstar, they know that selling old games for $20-30 and letting MS upgrade them is less potential profit than letting a franchise stagnate and then re-releasing it for $60 later on. Same reason the Nintendo Virtual Console died out. Back with the Wii, they thought nobody would play old games so it's worth a few bucks at most. Then they realized they could "remaster" games from 1993 and sell them for $40-50 a pop.
Soundtracks, branding, and rights matter for many games, but for many more that's not an issue. But not if the publisher wants to hold onto it, keep it artificially scarce, then reissue it for a premium later. And now they know they can.
@RedKnight34 The game is already backwards compatible. you just have to get the disk.
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