Microsoft is considering the possibility of launching an official Xbox 360 emulator on Xbox One according to the company's partner development lead, Frank Savage.
Speaking about the Xbox One’s use of Windows technology at Microsoft’s recent Build developer conference, which was attended by Kotaku, Savage was asked whether there are any plans to create emulator to which he replied:
"There are, but we’re not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately. It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff. So there’s nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself."
At present, the Xbox One is not backward compatible with Xbox 360 games, a decision Microsoft defended last year by saying that less than five per cent of players engage with old titles on new consoles.
Then president of Xbox Don Mattrick, commented that "If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards."
However, it now seems that Microsoft is indeed looking at a workaround. It's unlikely that you'll simply be able to pop your old discs into the Xbox One drive and Microsoft may choose to make the games available to download or stream for a fee.
In January, it was rumoured that Sony is also planning to create an official PS1 and PS2 emulator for the non-backward compatible PS4. This feature would work in conjunction with PlayStation Now, Sony's game streaming service for PS3 and older PlayStation titles.
Microsoft's Albert Penello told Polygon in November of last year that a similar service on Xbox One would be "problematic".
