Xbox Series X|S Backward Compatibility Enhancements Detailed [XSX|S BC]

[mrcorbo]

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/05/28/xbox-series-x-next-generation-backward-compatibility/

• automatic SDR to HDR conversion with no performance impact to BC titles.
• improved loading times from SSD
• no downclocking for compatibility (implied no user intervention required to realize performance uplifts or ensure compatibility)
• select games can see 30fps boosted to 60 or 60 to 120 fps.

 

[AzBat]

Gonna say it first before the haters do: looks like you won't get the full Xbox One catalog. :/ It will be a separate currated list. I can appreciate that there will be titles where publisher & developers made different agreements when they initially launched & how their titles will play(or not) on future platforms. So this probably means Project xCloud will be similar too. Will be interesting to see what percentage gets support. Hopefully it's better than the 360 backward compatibility library.

EDIT: how did I miss the title "thousands of games at launch"

Tommy McClain

 

[iroboto]

Gonna say it first before the haters do: looks like you won't get the full Xbox One catalog. :/ It will be a separate currated list. I can appreciate that there will be titles where publisher & developers made different agreements when they initially launched & how their titles will play(or not) on future platforms. So this probably means Project xCloud will be similar too. Will be interesting to see what percentage gets support. Hopefully it's better than the 360 backward compatibility library.

Tommy McClain

hmm, I didn't get that from the text. I read it as: All XBO titles will be compatible. But only select titles will get further enhancements.

 

[BRiT]

If I read correctly, all Xbox One games are playable on Series X. It's just a smaller list will have Series X Enhancements, similar in concept to only certain X360 or Original Xbox games having OneX enhancements.

Beginning with Xbox One X, the compatibility team developed brand new innovations that could be applied to a hand curated list of titles to enhance them even further than what was possible when they were first created. Techniques such as the Heutchy method, which enables titles to render with increased resolutions up to 4K, or applying anisotropic filtering to improve the final image quality bring these classic games up to modern standards, better than ever before.

With all of the additional power and advancements of the Xbox Series X, the compatibility team now has a veritable playground of new capabilities to innovate and push the limits of game preservation and enhancement. The compatibility team has 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. We are also creating whole new classes of innovations including the ability to double the frame rate of a select set of titles from 30 fps to 60 fps or 60 fps to 120 fps.​

 

[AzBat]

Kinda playing devil's advocate here...

With more than 100,000 hours of play testing already completed, thousands of games are already playable on Xbox Series X today, from the biggest blockbusters to cult classics and fan favorites. Many of us in Team Xbox play on the Xbox Series X daily as our primary console and switching between generations is seamless. By the time we launch this holiday, the team will have spent well over 200,000 hours ensuring your game library is ready for you to jump in immediately.

Sounds like without playtesting some titles may not be available. Why is playtesting necessary if it plays 100% of the back catalog?

The team also continues to listen to feedback from the community on additional titles you would like to see added to the compatibility program.

They already stopped adding 360 titles. Surely this is about Xbox One titles on Series X?

Tommy McClain

 

[eastmen]

Kinda playing devil's advocate here...



Sounds like without playtesting some titles may not be available. Why is playtesting necessary if it plays 100% of the back catalog?



They already stopped adding 360 titles. Surely this is about Xbox One titles on Series X?

Tommy McClain

1) they want to make sure it works , its still emulation so they don't want any random game breaking bugs to pop up.
2)MS stopped 360 and original xbox titles only because they were moving forward to xbox series x support and wanted to make sure everything they already had working on the one worked on the series x. There are a lot of games that are not backwards compatible that if they had a huge amount of demand MS could go to the companies that made it or have licenses and it could be worth while to rerelease it as BC because of sales it might gain

 

[BRiT]

I didn't see any Xbox One games listed as not being compatible with One X hardware. So I'm using that as a basis moving forward.

Yeah, I can see it stated the way it was to give them room for any possible titles that just won't work on Series X. I expect that list, if it ever exists, to be small.

I think they stopped adding X360 games to Xbox One because they switched development over to Series X work.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Sounds like without playtesting some titles may not be available. Why is playtesting necessary if it plays 100% of the back catalog?

I reckon it plays 100% of the catalogue where people devs stuck to the published APIs - which is what you're supposed to do. There may be some obscure, little-played titles that may have some issues because they didn't stick to the APIs rigidly but the vast majority of the games that the vast majority of Xbox owners play, are going to be work just fine - many of them better than One X.

I'll bet XSX has an auto-report function where if a game, particularly a 360/Xbox One games crashes, the logs are sent to Microsoft for analysis. If there are any severe issues with older games Microsoft will find out fairly quickly then can decide what, if anything, it's worth doing. If the game is the shovelware port Mr Chuckles visits Fairy Land, 39 copies sold, I expect Microsoft to file that under "do nothing".

 

[AzBat]

Again I'm being totally nitpicky here because it doesn't seem the message is completely clear.

1) they want to make sure it works , its still emulation so they don't want any random game breaking bugs to pop up.
2)MS stopped 360 and original xbox titles only because they were moving forward to xbox series x support and wanted to make sure everything they already had working on the one worked on the series x. There are a lot of games that are not backwards compatible that if they had a huge amount of demand MS could go to the companies that made it or have licenses and it could be worth while to rerelease it as BC because of sales it might gain

Well the did say they are running Xbox One titles natively. So it should not be emulation like they did with 360 & OG titles. Just trying to wrap my head around that & the needed playtesting.

Already knew why they stopped adding 360 & OG titles -> Series X playtesting.

I didn't see any Xbox One games listed as not being compatible with One X hardware. So I'm using that as a basis moving forward.

Yeah, I can see it stated the way it was to give them room for any possible titles that just won't work on Series X. I expect that list, if it ever exists, to be small.

I think they stopped adding X360 games to Xbox One because they switched development over to Series X work.

My main issue is they didn't say in plain English: "All Xbox One titles will play on Series X". If they have performance issues or bugs they can add a disclaimer: "Some titles may issues. Here's partial list of known titles with problems".

If they were planning on 100% support why not wait to make this announcement when they were certain they support 100%. Just seems little odd to announce now & not state in plain English with no ambiguity.

I want & expect my whole Xbox One catalog to play on Series X, but my feeling is with this message there's a little room for support at launch to be less than.

Tommy McClain

 

[Jay]

The BC team stopped the work on XO to work on the xsx.
That's not just about making sure games are compatable but to also develop the features that has been mentioned in the blog post.

They should start putting out comparisons every week, as examples of just what is capable. Would make really good filler between events.

Play every game best on series x.
Implying not just about xbox games moving forward.
Leading up to the 1P event.

Edit:
I can see why there's confusion over the XO messaging, but to be honest that's the one area I think we should have confidence in. That was a priority from the start.

 

[HBRU]

Love the boost in fps

 

[eastmen]

Again I'm being totally nitpicky here because it doesn't seem the message is completely clear.



Well the did say they are running Xbox One titles natively. So it should not be emulation like they did with 360 & OG titles. Just trying to wrap my head around that & the needed playtesting.

Already knew why they stopped adding 360 & OG titles -> Series X playtesting.



My main issue is they didn't say in plain English: "All Xbox One titles will play on Series X". If they have performance issues or bugs they can add a disclaimer: "Some titles may issues. Here's partial list of known titles with problems".

If they were planning on 100% support why not wait to make this announcement when they were certain they support 100%. Just seems little odd to announce now & not state in plain English with no ambiguity.

I want & expect my whole Xbox One catalog to play on Series X, but my feeling is with this message there's a little room for support at launch to be less than.

Tommy McClain

1) stuff breaks. Take old games that were barely able to run at 30fps on ancient hardware and then run them on something that can triple the frame rate and it can cause issues. Wasn't there a game carmack worked on that they tied the phsyics to the framerate and so if you go above it on modern hardware it breaks the game ?

Also we are still far from launch so why post titles that don't work in may that may work at launch in Nov ?

2) We all want that , My expectation is that there are licensing issues and some games may just not really exist anymore. microsoft isn't going to step on toes if someone wants to remaster a game from the start of the generation and don't want backwards compat on the original.

I am sure we will have more info in the fall

 

[AlNom]

I'm a little disappointed they didn't have any footage or comparison shots to demonstrate the improvements even if it's WIP (or titles they've moved on from testing).

Most of this is old news.

Again I'm being totally nitpicky here because it doesn't seem the message is completely clear.



Well the did say they are running Xbox One titles natively. So it should not be emulation like they did with 360 & OG titles. Just trying to wrap my head around that & the needed playtesting.

Already knew why they stopped adding 360 & OG titles -> Series X playtesting.



My main issue is they didn't say in plain English: "All Xbox One titles will play on Series X". If they have performance issues or bugs they can add a disclaimer: "Some titles may issues. Here's partial list of known titles with problems".

If they were planning on 100% support why not wait to make this announcement when they were certain they support 100%. Just seems little odd to announce now & not state in plain English with no ambiguity.

I want & expect my whole Xbox One catalog to play on Series X, but my feeling is with this message there's a little room for support at launch to be less than.

Tommy McClain

Even PC games need driver fixes every now and then.

 

[Jay]

New I'm a little disappointed they didn't have any footage or comparison shots to demonstrate the improvements even if it's WIP (or titles they've moved on from testing).

Most of this is old news.

All of this was mentioned during the Evens and DF reveals.
The only thing new is the framerate doubling. Think that was even hinted may be possible.

So yea, disapointing not to get a couple vids to go with the post.

 

[BRiT]

Well there's always the approaching June event ... so maybe some snippets there?

 

[AzBat]

1) stuff breaks. Take old games that were barely able to run at 30fps on ancient hardware and then run them on something that can triple the frame rate and it can cause issues. Wasn't there a game carmack worked on that they tied the phsyics to the framerate and so if you go above it on modern hardware it breaks the game ?

Also we are still far from launch so why post titles that don't work in may that may work at launch in Nov ?

2) We all want that , My expectation is that there are licensing issues and some games may just not really exist anymore. microsoft isn't going to step on toes if someone wants to remaster a game from the start of the generation and don't want backwards compat on the original.

I am sure we will have more info in the fall

This. Why post this press release today when in the fall we'll know exactly if 50% or 100% of the XB1 catalog is compatible? Other than the new technical information(HDR, FPS, etc) the rest seems like "yeah we knew that".

Tommy McClain

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Your arguments remind me of my complaints about MS's messaging regards upcoming Game Pass titles. I think they undersell somewhat, leaving a degree of doubt that better messaging could avoid.

 

[eastmen]

Your arguments remind me of my complaints about MS's messaging regards upcoming Game Pass titles. I think they undersell somewhat, leaving a degree of doubt that better messaging could avoid.

maybe when mercury is released you will feel better

 

[mpg1]

Gonna say it first before the haters do: looks like you won't get the full Xbox One catalog. :/ It will be a separate currated list. I can appreciate that there will be titles where publisher & developers made different agreements when they initially launched & how their titles will play(or not) on future platforms. So this probably means Project xCloud will be similar too. Will be interesting to see what percentage gets support. Hopefully it's better than the 360 backward compatibility library.

EDIT: how did I miss the title "thousands of games at launch"

Tommy McClain

I remember when reading about Xbox One X they said 99% of Xbox One games should work but there could be problems. So I am guessing it's sort of the same thing..

 

[Jay]

Some minor additional details
https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-series-x-to-launch-with-thousands-of-games