Earlier this week at E3, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility lineup will add original Xbox games later this year. Don’t expect the library of OG Xbox games playable on Xbox One to be as extensive as the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility lineup.
Speaking on Giant Bomb’s live show tonight, Xbox boss Phil Spencer set expectations for the breadth of the library of OG Xbox games for Xbox One. He said the lineup will not be as large as the number of Xbox 360 games. Why? One part of it is the rights; it is more difficult to lock these down, Spencer said. And secondly, it is more technically difficult, Spencer explained.
“It won’t be as big as Xbox 360, I’ll tell people that,” Spencer said.
The fact that the library of original Xbox games will be comparatively smaller than Xbox 360 is why Microsoft did not make as big a deal of OG Xbox backwards compatibility as it did when it announced Xbox 360 backwards compatibility at E3 2015.
There are only two OG Xbox games confirmed for the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility library so far: Crimson Skies and Fuzion Frenzy. The program launches later this year. By comparison, there are more than 385 Xbox 360 games playable on Xbox One through backwards compatibility–you can see them all here.