For those wondering just how many old Xbox games would run on the Xbox Series X and S, we have some good news.
Most Xbox games will work just fine.
Microsoft has confirmed that all almost Xbox, Xbox 360 and XBox One games will be compatible with the next gen consoles.
The only exceptions are a few games that require the Kinect in order to play.
Xbox’s director of program management, Jason Ronald, took to Twitter in the wee hours of Thursday morning to drop the news.
“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,” Ronald said on Twitter.
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
For those who have been following the compatibility narrative for awhile now, this may not be particularly surprising.
Xbox big cheese Phil Spencer wrote a blog post back in July detailing the company’s intent for the majority of Xbox games to run on the Series X and S. He also admitted at the time that Kinect titles would be the only exception.
“You will be able to play four generations of games on Xbox Series X on day one. That makes it the largest launch lineup for any new console ever, with thousands of games to play,” Spencer said at the time.
“Our backward compatibility engineers have spent years devising innovative ways for modern, next-gen technology to make the games library you’re building today even better, at no additional cost and with no work from developers. It’s our intent for all Xbox One games that do not require Kinect to play on Xbox Series X at the launch of the console.”
You can find a full list of all compatible Xbox games right here.