Xbox Series X will have backward compatibility 'from day one,' says Xbox chief

Microsoft’s Xbox chief Phil Spencer recently affirmed the company’s commitment to offering backward compatibility in its consoles. Spencer made the comments in an interview with GameSpot regarding next year’s launch of the Xbox Series X.

“We wanted to make sure we had that, day one, we could deliver on the compatibility promise, and so I’ve been playing quite a few [Xbox 360] games on my [Xbox Series X] and Xbox One games on the [Xbox Series X] and that’s just to ensure that we can be there day one,” Spencer said.

Scarce on specifics for now — While Spencer said backward compatibility is a sure thing, he didn’t say to what extent. The current generation of console, Xbox One X, is only partially backward compatible with games made for the Xbox One and original Xbox. Many titles will work, but many others won’t. Backward compatibility is key for playing old favorites without needing to hang on to old hardware, or shelling out for remastered versions.

To its credit, Microsoft has continued to add support for more titles over time. And Sony’s PlayStation 4, on the other hand, doesn’t support PS3 games at all.

Bringing the focus back to gaming — Microsoft will hope to regain some luster after the company saw its Xbox One outshined by the PlayStation 4. Sony managed to release a console that was more powerful than the Xbox One for a lower price, and gamers complained that Microsoft focused too much energy on making the Xbox One an all-in-one entertainment hub rather than improving its core gaming functionality.

The company has spent a lot of time as of late talking up the new console’s powerful GPU and CPU, saying the Series X will be four times more powerful than its predecessor.