UPDATE: Microsoft's Don Mattrick has told The Wall Street Journal that he does not believe compatibility is an issue, adding that just 5% of players use older generation games on new systems.
"If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards," he commented.
ORIGINAL STORY: Microsoft has explained to Edge the lack of backwards compatibility for the Xbox One and promised "a big announcement" for Xbox 360 at E3 next month.
Phil Spencer, corporate vice-president of Xbox, has said Microsoft wanted the Xbox One to be in a "forward-looking position" and that this is why the console will not be able to play Xbox 360 games.
Despite announcing at the Xbox One's reveal event last night that the system will be releasing later this year Spencer noted that the Xbox 360 will continue to see content for some time to come.
"People can keep their 360 and obviously the content will continue to work but we really wanted to take a forward-looking position with Xbox One – something designed to last for the next ten years – and that required backward compatibility be one of the those things we had to put off the list.
"Are we worried about it? No," Spencer added. "In fact we have a big announcement about 360 we're gonna have at E3 that I'm excited about. People will keep their boxes, maybe on a new TV, maybe alongside Xbox One."
The PlayStation 4 also lacks backwards compatibility however, Sony do plan to bring their back catalogue to PS4 using the Gaikai streaming service. At present, Microsoft do not appear to have any such plans.
No doubt, those looking to sell their current generation consoles to avail of the trade-in value against PS4 or Xbox One will not be much appeased by the companies' approach. Both the PS4 and Xbox One are expected to launch during Holiday 2013.
