Phil Spencer and the rest of the Xbox team have said time and again that it’s easy to add Xbox 360 games to the Xbox One’s backward compatibility program, so long as the publisher signs off on it. All that’s required, we’ve heard, is some testing to ensure everything runs smoothly when the game is being played on Xbox One. So why, then, are the four Halo games Microsoft announced for the program back in July still not playable yet?

In the latest Halo Waypoint blog post, 343 Industries shed some light on the delay. Here’s the statement in full:

And for our final blip, an obligatory mention of the Halo back-compat releases – We know everyone is very eager to get their hands on the Xbox One back-compat release of Halo: CE Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, and Halo 4. We are eager to get them into your hands! The Xbox back-compat team is hard at work on final polish and we continue to work closely with them to help test and evaluate all four games for launch. We’re taking extra time to ensure the experience lives up to fan expectations but I hear we’re making great progress and release should be getting closer. As soon as we have a final date we’ll be sure to let you know!

There’s sadly not an actual date—or even window—to be found, and most of what is there is painfully vague. (“Release should be getting closer,” for example, will always be true as long as time continues to move forward.) Still, there’s one phrase that should give impatient Halo fans a smidgen of hope. The fact that 343 is now comfortable referring to “final polish” probably means that we’re closer to launch than not.

Keep in mind, as well, that this is the second time 343 has assured us the Halo games are still on the way to backward compatibility. A month ago, almost to the day, the studio said “back-compat [was] still a thing” and noted that there had already been “quite a bit of playtesting.”

While 343 has avoided getting into specifics, smart money would probably point to one of three reasonable explanations for the delay based on what the studio has said so far. Option one: A game or games might have been too buggy during the initial batch of testing, requiring the backward compatibility team to take special steps to remedy the problem. Option two: After the botched launch of the Master Chief Collection, 343 will not put out these games until they are absolutely sure every single pixel is perfect in every possible circumstance. Option three: Microsoft knows it’s light on big exclusives this year and is holding off on pulling the trigger so it can generate some good buzz during the holiday shopping season.

Posted: Sep 09, 2017 9:18 am
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/why-the-halo-games-still-arent-on-xbox-one-backward-compatibility/