Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Crosses 1 Billion Hour Milestone

Apparently, people really love the idea of backwards compatibility. 

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Microsoft has been allowing players to tear into parts of their Xbox 360 backlog via Xbox One for some time now with the introduction of backwards compatibility, and it's been a smash hit, if the numbers are anything to go by. It's been an extremey popular change for players, who have eaten it right up. Microsoft has announced that Xbox One players have logged a whopping 1 billion hours playing both Xbox 360 and original Xbox games since its inception on Xbox One.

In June 2017, Microsoft originally made it known that folks had spent 508 million hours on the platform, so it's definitely seen exponential growth since then. As it stands, Microsoft quotes that about half of every Xbox One owners have used the feature, which is an awesome addition to the suite of tools the Xbox One already has. More games are being added regularly, with handfuls of familiar titles hitting the service as the days go by, and higher profile games becoming available more often.

There are plenty of reasons to play backwards compatible games, and they all go beyond just how the games may look on the system. It's a lot easier to pop in a game on your Xbox One than it is to wheel out your old system, and for a lot of folks it's more economically sound for them to be able to play their entire collection without dropping more cash on new games. Plus, it's just awesome -- being able to play older games on the same system as your new ones just makes sense. No wonder folks have played a billion hours. 

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Fueled by horror, rainbow-sugar-pixel-rushes, and video games, Brittany is a Senior Editor at Shacknews who thrives on surrealism and ultraviolence. Follow her on Twitter @MolotovCupcake and check out her portfolio for more. Like a fabulous shooter once said, get psyched!

From The Chatty
  • reply
    May 3, 2018 9:15 AM

    Brittany Vincent posted a new article, Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Crosses 1 Billion Hour Milestone

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      May 3, 2018 9:38 AM

      I play a ton of old stuff on my Xbox One and it’s awesome. I bought both the original Xbox Star Wars Battlefront games this week. Love them!

      I made a post extolling SWBF1 the other day as being better than SWBF2, but after the playing them again, there are some maps i miss in 2, but overall 2 is a much better game. It’s a ton smoother than the first game. My bad. Haha

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      May 3, 2018 9:57 AM

      [deleted]

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      May 3, 2018 10:39 AM

      There goes the "no one uses backwards compatibility" argument...

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      May 3, 2018 12:01 PM

      bought an xbox one for red dead redemption and I want an xbox one x for oblivion. I never thought I'd see the day that Microsoft nailed backwards compatibility while Sony completely abandoned it.

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        May 3, 2018 12:09 PM

        It's amazing what lengths companies will go to when they're losing. Sony was equally as desperate last gen and they didn't have a resurgent Nintendo to worry about.

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          May 3, 2018 9:01 PM

          Yet I can't think of what Sony really did last gen that is anywhere near as cool as the Xbone backwards compatibility. I don't think this is so much because MS is losing as much as they just plain have better software engineers than Sony does.

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            May 3, 2018 9:07 PM

            Its a cross between software as well as some hardware compatibility integrated into the XB1 CPU. Sony didn't bet on anything with the hardware aside from gaming. As a result the PS4 hardware has fewer features (no physical UHD playback either) but it has higher profit margins.

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              May 3, 2018 9:57 PM

              I have to think that this was a lesson Sony took from the PS3 era. The launch hardware did pretty much everything including PS2 hardware backwards compatibility and niche audiophile formats like SACD. It also lost billions for Sony despite selling as much as the 360 by the end of the generation.

              They went the complete opposite direction with the PS4, focusing on profit over features that weren't game related. Everything else like BC they offloaded to subscriptions and the cloud. It clearly worked for their bottom line since Playstation is one of the few profitable divisions of Sony right now.

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                May 4, 2018 1:48 AM

                I wonder who actually uses PS Now though? Neat idea but it’s expensive.

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                  May 4, 2018 2:13 AM

                  No idea, I don’t think they discuss those numbers. It does seem that Sony’s next big opportunity for expanding revenue (outside of selling another 30M-40M PS4s at the best profit margins the hardware will see) is selling more Plus/Vue/Now subscriptions.

                  They have a massive install base and the next step is to draw sustained income from subscriptions. A low double-digit or high single-digit percentage of 100+ million PS4s is still a lot of people. I have no idea what their targets are, what their break even is, etc, but they’re going hard at it so it must be worth pursuing.

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                    May 4, 2018 2:42 AM

                    Numbers and profitable business cases aside, it is annoying that Playstation abandoned that route. I’d love to be able to play the first two Katamari games or Gradius V without my PS2 and locally on PS4 hardware. Oh well.

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      May 4, 2018 1:55 AM

      [deleted]

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