Fans of game consoles traditionally perceive the change of generations of their favorite consoles ambiguously. On the one hand, there is progress and improvement, which cannot but rejoice, and on the other hand, the inevitable spending on new devices and accessories for them, as well as the inability to run old games on new type of consoles. That is why Microsoft engineers have developed and successfully implemented backward compatibility technology that allows you to run many games developed for the Xbox 360 on the Xbox One and higher-performance S and X series consoles.
How it works
The process of processing a game on a new generation console is, in fact, a banal emulation. And the code of each of the old games launched on the Xbox One runs in its natural environment - the x86 architecture. This became possible thanks to the continuity of generations (Xbox One was not created from scratch, but taking into account the developments of the previous platform), as well as high-quality processing of every bit of data entering the emulator. As a result, it turns out that in backward compatibility mode the gameworks as originally intended by its creators, without stumbling on the shortcomings that would inevitably arise during porting.
Of course, with this approach to data processing, the requirements for the processor as the main computing device should grow like an avalanche: the virtual environment itself does not differ in modest appetites, and then there are full-fledged sets of low-level instructions, multi-threaded conversion of instructions, etc. But since Microsoft spared no expense, no time, no effort to fine-tune the whole process (there are more than a hundred people on the project alone), old games for the most part are not only devoid of the errors that usually accompany such a process, but often look much better than on the original console.
Of course, this did not happen right away: in the early stages, many users noted that in some games the backward compatibility of the Xbox One was noticeably inferior to its predecessor. But the feedback paid off: a lot was taken into account, corrected, and at the moment Xbox One can be called a device "two in one", since much of what the Xbox 360 provided to gamers is easily played by the new generation console.
When using Xbox One X or S consoles, it is possible to run some games in Ultra HD resolution (eg Gears Of War 3). In addition, many of the games running on the X-series console significantly outperform their original versions in terms of graphics quality, pleasing the eye with an improveddetail, more efficient texture processing, as well as a significant improvement in the effects of reflections and shadows. Due to the active promotion of HDR technology, some developers are trying to bring high dynamic range capabilities to the game console industry, but at the moment this is fraught with technical difficulties and significant amounts of funding to overcome them.
Available games
To date, there are more than four hundred backwards compatible games available to gamers, and this number continues to grow. Among them, for example, all parts of Assassin's Creed up to and including Rogue, several games from the Halo series, the Mass Effect trilogy, many games from the Star Wars universe, etc. A complete list of backward compatibility games is available to users on the official website at xbox. com.
How to play
Any game on the Xbox One Backward Compatibility List will launch similarly to the current ones. For a boxed edition, just insert the disc into the console drive, while digital copies are launched from the "Ready to install" section. At the same time, supported Xbox 360 multiplayer games provide gamers with the same experience as "classic" players: creating and transferring a team, chatting and playing with friends.
Using peripherals
Unfortunately, the introduction of backward compatibility has not affected gaming accessories. Kinect tracking touch controller, flight sticks, steering wheels and other peripheralsare not compatible with other console versions. Running a game developed for Kinect 360 on Xbox One can and will work, but it will not work with accessories from this console. At the same time, an attempt to connect new devices to the old-type console will also not bring any results. The same goes for removable hard drives: HDD media from an Xbox 360 console cannot be used on an Xbox One device.
