Microsoft is very serious about the Xbox Series X and S backwards compatibility. So much so that the company spent 57 years, or roughly 500,000 hours of game time testing the feature. This aggressive testing phase was necessary to ensure that original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games all worked on the next-gen consoles. However, Kinect-only games don’t work for obvious reasons but it sounds as if Microsoft would have made a plan if they were not restricted by ports.
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The information arrives from Team Xbox member Jason Ronald who confirmed that all Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games which are playable today on the current Xbox One will be available on Series X and S. In addition, they will look better and play better too with Backwards Compatibility.
To make this possible, Microsoft spent 500,000 hours testing every single game and enhancing them for the new hardware. It makes for a fantastic benefit to gamers who have stuck with the Xbox family since back in the day. If you own a digital library of old Xbox 360 games, you can play them on your Series X and S. Plus, they look better than ever too according to Microsoft.
After 500K+ hours of testing, we’re are excited to share that all Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games playable on Xbox One today, except for the handful that require Kinect, will be available – and look and play better – on Xbox Series X|S at launch.
— Jason Ronald (@jronald) October 28, 2020
Microsoft plans on releasing both the Xbox Series X and S on 10 November 2020. I have my hands on both consoles at the moment and will be putting up a full detailed review in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, you can catch up on the unboxing of both consoles here or watch it down below.