Last week Xbox announced that the Xbox 360 Store was shutting down on July 29, 2024. After this date, Xbox users will no longer be able to buy Xbox 360 games digitally, and this has raised concerns about backward compatibility as there are still 220 Xbox 360 games that are not backward compatible with the Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X. And obviously, time is now running out for Xbox to address this as it's not going to work to make an Xbox 360 game backward compatible when it's not even available to buy. To this end, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has suggested it's something on his mind, and he would love to find a solution.

Right now, Spencer isn't committing to finding a solution, let alone one every Xbox fan will be happy with, but it sounds like something could happen with these 220 games between now and July 29, 2024. At the same time, Spencer could simply be exercising some PR speak. It's tough to discern which is the case.

"There's a list of, what 220 games that are not backward compatible, and I have that list and I've got it stapled on my forehead, and like, how can we make sure [you can play them still?]," said Spencer via Eurogamer. "How many of those are on PC? That's one thing, because it doesn't necessarily mean you need to be able to play it on the existing hardware that you bought 15 years ago, but preservation is front and centre when all these decisions are made.

Spencer continued: "I will say for us that preservation that's linked to only one piece of hardware is a challenge. Because there can be hardware love as well – people who love and want this device to do this forever – but mechanical things will break over time. But that's why we gave people with this decision a year. Let's say 'hey, if you want to go buy things in the 360 store, we're going to give you a year headstart, and you can go get those things'. And just know that the list of the 220 games is something that we see, and we would love to find solutions for those games to continue to play."

Posted: Aug 27, 2023 6:50 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/xbox-360-backward-compatible-games-tease/