Microsoft have announced that “thousands of games” will be backwards compatible on Xbox Series X, as well as running at “peak performance” with double FPS.
Director of Program Management for Xbox Series X Jason Ronald explained on Xbox Wire that the console will have “Thousands of Games at Launch” thanks to backwards compatibility. He explains how giving gamers access to those games was a principle in the new console’s development.
“As gamers, we also know how important it is to preserve and respect our gaming legacies. Your favorite games and franchises, your progression and achievements, and the friendships and communities you create through gaming should all move with you across generations. Not only that, your favorite gaming accessories and peripherals should also move forward with you as well.
Our goal has always been to empower gamers to play the best versions of games from across four generations of Xbox at the launch of Xbox Series X. These principles were key to us from Day 1 and influenced many of our design decisions as we started on our journey to create our most powerful and compatible console ever.”
After “more than 100,000 hours of play testing” completed, “thousands of games” are “already playable” on Xbox Series X right now. “By the time we launch this holiday,” Ronald explains, “the team will have spent well over 200,000 hours ensuring your game library is ready for you to jump in immediately.”
Older titles are also promised to run “better” on Xbox Series X.
“Backwards compatible games run natively on the Xbox Series X hardware, running with the full power of the CPU, GPU and the SSD. No boost mode, no downclocking, the full power of the Xbox Series X for each and every backward compatible game. This means that all titles run at the peak performance that they were originally designed for, many times even higher performance than the games saw on their original launch platform, resulting in higher and more steady framerates and rendering at their maximum resolution and visual quality.”
Compatible titles will also see “significant” reduction in in-game load times. Features such as Quick Resume will also work with backward-compatible titles. “All of these advances happen at the platform level and require no additional work from title developers.”
The team behind developing backwards compatibility for the Xbox Series X have also “invented brand new techniques that enable even more titles to run at higher resolutions and image quality while still respecting the artistic intent and vision of the original creators.”
This means players may be able to double the frame rate of a game- from 30 fps to 60 fps, or 60 fps to 120 fps. Considering some glitches can occur when some games run at higher frame rates during emulation (or moving from console to PC), it should be interesting to see how this new technology will work.
Comparatively, Sony also stated they believe that “the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable” on the upcoming PlayStation 5.
You can find our prior articles on the Xbox Series X here [1, 2].
Xbox Series X launches Holiday 2020.
Image: Xbox
