Microsoft Says Original Xbox Backwards Compatibility Could Still Be Coming

Xbox Director of Program Management Mike Ybarra has said that Microsoft is not focusing on Original Xbox backward compatibility yet for the Xbox One, but it is still a possibility. Speaking to The Inner Circle Podcast, Ybarra said: "We’re not looking at original Xbox 1 games on Xbox One yet, and right now the focus is making more 360 games work, but I would say that nothing is impossible." He also described the process as “very challenging.” The discussion was spotted by DualShockers.

“Getting 360 to work was incredibly challenging, and really a multi-year engineering investment going all the way back to the original certainly would challenge the team," he added. "We’re fortunate enough to have a great [backwards compatibility] engineering team, who loves to take on challenges, and I’m sure they would love that one as an opportunity to go look at."

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer recently teased the possibility of Original Xbox backwards compatibility. In the latest Xbox One system update, which included an overhaul of the dashboard, backwards compatibility for 104 Xbox 360 games were added. Support for more games has been promised.

It was discovered with the classic Star Wars games on PlayStation 4 that Sony is also working on emulation for PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility. It seems that this feature is highly demanded by consumers overall, and Microsoft and Sony are listening.