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Xbox One backwards compatibility powered by black magic

2 min read
95

XboxEmu

Microsoft’s big bombshell from E3 was that their newest console would soon add backwards compatibility for its older one. It was met with thunderous applause, whoops, and squeals of delight. I’ve found the whole thing dubious – because software-based emulation is a very difficult thing to get right.

With the system’s currently limited list of supported games, I thought it would be as feeble an attempt at backwards compatibility as their last one; their ditched plans of getting full Xbox compatibility on the Xbox 360. I may have been wrong.

People in the preview program are running their Xbox 360 games on their Xbox Ones, with the games actually playing better on the more powerful console. It seems that the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility is powered by black magic, and not mere software emulation.

Take a look at Mass Effect running on an Xbox One, compared to running natively on an Xbox 360. There’s less texture pop-in, scenes load faster and it seems to work flawlessly – not the sort of thing you’d expect from software emulation on an x86 platform. For those of you entrenched in the emulation scene, you’d know that it’s only relatively recently that PlayStation 2 emulation became worthwhile.

It’s not perfect though, and there are reports of dropped frames in busy sections, but ‘m more than impressed.

If you’re interested, here’s a list of the games that are currently working in the preview program – with Microsoft intent on adding more. What’s especially amazing is that online works – you’ll be able to play your Xbox 360 games, on your Xbox one, against friends playing on their old Xbox 360’s.

  • Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
  • Banjo-Kazooie
  • Banjo-Tooie
  • BattleBlock Theater
  • Defense Grid
  • Geometry Wars Evolved
  • Hexic HD
  • Jetpac Refueled
  • Kameo
  • Mass Effect
  • Perfect Dark
  • Perfect Dark Zero
  • Small Arms
  • Super Meat Boy
  • Toy Soldiers
  • Toy Soldiers: Cold War
  • Viva Piñata
  • Viva Piñata: TIP
  • Halo 3
  • Halo Reach
  • Halo 3 ODST
  • Halo Wars
  • Fable II
  • Borderlands
  • Gears of War
  • Gears of War 2
  • Alan Wake
  • Shadow Complex

What I’m most interested in is preserving the ability to play XBLA games like Shadow Complex, Geometry Wars and the like – and it seems that I’ll be able to do that.

Last Updated: June 19, 2015

95 Comments

  1. Lord Chaos

    June 19, 2015 at 08:06

    I was wondering why they paid me so much for a few souls. All makes sense now.

    Reply

  2. PoisonedBelial

    June 19, 2015 at 08:10

    Xbox One Slogan:
    “No ginger souls were reaped in the making of this black magic.”

    Reply

    • Blood Emperor Trevor

      June 19, 2015 at 08:12

      Isn’t that a literal impossibility? ;P

      Reply

      • PoisonedBelial

        June 19, 2015 at 08:15

        No.
        We have souls.
        We just hide them so well that people don’t realise we have them 😛

        Reply

        • Blood Emperor Trevor

          June 19, 2015 at 08:15

          *makes a note.

          Reply

          • PoisonedBelial

            June 19, 2015 at 08:16

            Shit…
            Forget I said anything!

          • PoisonedBelial

            June 19, 2015 at 08:20

            If fact, just to prove how wrong I was, here’s a pic:

    • Lord Chaos

      June 19, 2015 at 08:13

      They’d have to give me a chair on the board before I dispense with those.

      Reply

      • PoisonedBelial

        June 19, 2015 at 08:14

        Because they are so rare?

        Reply

        • Lord Chaos

          June 19, 2015 at 08:15

          Do have any idea how much effort it is to remove the soul of a fire demon from a ginger female?

          Reply

          • PoisonedBelial

            June 19, 2015 at 08:16

            !!!
            So that’s what makes them so good in bed…

          • Lord Chaos

            June 19, 2015 at 08:16

            😉

  3. PrinceAshitaka

    June 19, 2015 at 08:13

    !!

    Reply

  4. Blood Emperor Trevor

    June 19, 2015 at 08:13

    Does this mean they’ve also given up on cloud power? 😉

    Reply

    • WitWolfy

      June 19, 2015 at 08:37

      I dont think cloud “power” ever existed to begin with. Was just a BS gimmick to get people to buy their console.

      Reply

      • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

        June 19, 2015 at 14:16

        Yep, the Cloud was a lie. It was marketing BS to try to sell their vision of always-online.

        Reply

        • coip

          June 19, 2015 at 17:49

          Shows how misinformed you two are: cloud computing is used in Titanfall to handle all NPC AI. It’s been documented by Respawn for years now.

          Reply

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            June 20, 2015 at 11:25

            HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! No!

          • coip

            June 20, 2015 at 18:11

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            June 21, 2015 at 12:15

            lol, You just posted PR speak – without any REAL examples of how the magical cloud actually “increases the power of the xbone”.

            In any case, the comments (underneath the advertisement for Azure servers) says it all. Also, if you actually read the article, it’s basically an advertisement for their hopes and dreams regarding the “magical cloud” – which in fact are nothing but dedicated servers.

          • coip

            June 21, 2015 at 16:35

            No, if you actually read the article you’d know how the cloud was used to run NPC AI and thus free up Xbox One resources for other things, thereby resulting in enhanced performance. Denying reality doesn’t undermine reality; it merely undermines you credibility.

          • Hammersteyn

            June 22, 2015 at 07:39

            Actually it also manages the sunshine, the wind that blows and the rainbows with unicorns that appears every one hundred games

          • Hammersteyn

            June 22, 2015 at 07:37

            XD

  5. Captain JJ Browmehn

    June 19, 2015 at 08:17

    Hopefully this puts an end to the stupid remasters so the devs can focus on creating some new stuff.

    Reply

  6. Captain JJ Browmehn

    June 19, 2015 at 08:18

    We’re now in a generation where everything is “impossible” until they flip the switch and it’s done.

    Reply

    • Lord Chaos

      June 19, 2015 at 08:19

      And how many switches got flipped when you “dropped” the weight on your head? 😛

      Reply

      • Captain JJ Browmehn

        June 19, 2015 at 08:21

        It was…uhm…I think….
        Stop confusing me!

        Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        June 19, 2015 at 08:22

        Just one, the “majestic eye brows” switch

        Reply

      • Admiral Chief's Adventure

        June 19, 2015 at 08:22

        Ah, I was off for a few days, I see this joke is still in effect, good, good.

        Carry on minion, carry on!

        Reply

        • Lord Chaos

          June 19, 2015 at 08:23

          Was wondering what that smell was. 😛

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            June 19, 2015 at 08:24

            It is the glorious smell of Igni

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            June 19, 2015 at 08:25

            So you’ve learnt to enjoy things well done? Excellent.

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 19, 2015 at 08:25

            LOOOOL

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 19, 2015 at 08:25

            So you light your farts in other words.
            Not the strangest thing people have done, I suppose.

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            June 19, 2015 at 08:38

            This coming from someone dropping a 3kg weight from the foot to the face?

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 19, 2015 at 09:01

            It’s a talent, really.

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 19, 2015 at 08:23

          You were gone? 😀

          Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          June 19, 2015 at 08:24

          Darn.

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            June 19, 2015 at 08:37

            Indeed, better fire up your spellchecker
            😛

        • Skoobaz

          June 19, 2015 at 12:27

          How is your Witcher campaign going then?

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            June 19, 2015 at 13:13

            I actually felt better yesterday, and got from Lvl10 to Lvl14

    • Hammersteyn

      June 19, 2015 at 08:21

      Just another 180 they did, and I have the link unlike some people that make false claims.

      “The lack of backward compatibility results from the new console’s hardware architecture,
      which is a significant departure from that of the Xbox 360. “The system
      is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn’t
      really work from that perspective,” said Whitten, chief product officer
      for Xbox.”

      “In a Q&A about the Xbox One
      posted this afternoon, Microsoft representatives said, “We designed
      Xbox One to play an entirely new generation of games—games that are
      architected to take full advantage of state-of-the-art processors and
      the infinite power of the cloud.”

      http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/21/4349698/xbox-one-not-backward-compatible-xbox-360

      Reply

      • Captain JJ Browmehn

        June 19, 2015 at 08:23

        Like EA with SimShity
        “It’s impossible to give it an offline mode.”
        *gives it an offline mode a few weeks later

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          June 19, 2015 at 08:25

          I know right. Seems everything is possible with the XBOX One, they just need the right sequence of switches

          Reply

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            June 19, 2015 at 08:46

            It’s just like on Star Trek where they can make everything work by swopping a few coloured crystals around.

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        June 19, 2015 at 08:24

        “infinite power of the cloud” tee hee

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 19, 2015 at 08:26

          INFINITE POWER!
          Router goes off, nothing works.

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            June 19, 2015 at 08:27

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            June 19, 2015 at 08:27

            So THAT’S why they’re suddenly allowing backwards compatibility. At least you can play 360 games without internet access.

          • Lord Chaos

            June 19, 2015 at 08:28

            Shut it you!!
            Work was down all of yesterday due to a broken router.

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 19, 2015 at 09:01

            Telkom Router ey? 😉

          • Lord Chaos

            June 19, 2015 at 09:09

            Sisco… O_o

          • Rock789

            June 19, 2015 at 08:34

            Yeah, they clearly haven’t heard of Eskom when using phrases like Infinite Power… 😉

      • Johann

        June 19, 2015 at 08:54

        I think the main problem was that backwards compatability with just the hardware alone was going to be “impossible”, this is software emulation and I have a pretty good feeling that the reason why you have to download the whole game even though you have the disk is that they had to create some kind of VM of the game that runs in the emulator.

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          June 19, 2015 at 09:07

          That’s all good and well, but the irony is that I think MS would have sold a lot more Ones if they at least entertained the thought from the start. They had a very draconian stance at the start of this generation and it seems they are slowly listening to what gamers want which is good.

          Reply

          • Pieter Kruger

            June 19, 2015 at 09:15

            You can keep dwelling in the past, keep reliving that horrendous Xbox One reveal, or you can join everyone else in the present and look towards the future(and yes, he future does include the cloud!????) the choice is yours….????

          • Hammersteyn

            June 19, 2015 at 09:17

            I am, towards a slim line cheaper XBOX One. Not paying more than 5K for a console again. I’m also waiting for the 180’s to stop.

          • Pieter Kruger

            June 19, 2015 at 09:32

            180’s are necessary for innovation, progress etc. or we’d never have walked on the moon! But again it’s completely up to you as to how you use and interpret that Sony fanboy BS! ????

          • Hammersteyn

            June 19, 2015 at 09:52

            They walked on the moon because of a Space race with the Russians born out of the Cold War. Space travel which was possible in part by Operation Paper Clip which sought to bring German rocket scientists to America after WW2. Where was there ever a 180 in that part of human history? Also what BS? Those where exact words from a MS employee

          • Jonah Cash

            June 19, 2015 at 10:13

            Stop quoting facts to Pieter, he doesn’t understand them… Try something like this: Ooooh eeehhh XbOnE FaN BoY In ThE HoUsE, all them Xbone shizzle is my nizzle for frizzle…

          • Hammersteyn

            June 19, 2015 at 11:05

            XD

      • Pieter Kruger

        June 19, 2015 at 09:27

        I honestly think they did think it to be impossible at that time but they kept working and trying as it has always been one of the most requested fan features! Eventually achieving this shows again why they are software geniuses, Sony themselves just said a few days ago there’s “not enough software engineers in the world” to make this happen…

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          June 19, 2015 at 09:53

          link? Oh wait I must look for it myself… Irregardless it’s a master move from MS, no denying that.

          Reply

          • Jonah Cash

            June 19, 2015 at 10:14

            See my above comment to you wanting proof…

          • Hammersteyn

            June 19, 2015 at 11:05

            Not seeing it…

    • PrinceAshitaka

      June 19, 2015 at 08:28

      Someone had to make that switch, kid. Then someone else soldered and wired that switch into place. All we do is flip it.

      Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        June 19, 2015 at 08:29

        *Has Red vs Blue flashbacks.

        Reply

        • PrinceAshitaka

          June 19, 2015 at 08:29

          puma

          Reply

    • Rock789

      June 19, 2015 at 08:32

      It’s impossible… But doable. 😉

      Reply

  7. Hammersteyn

    June 19, 2015 at 08:26

    This really is a nice feature. I’m almost jealous. Till I remembered I still have a backlog of games on my PS3 which I haven’t turned on in months because of the backlog on my PS4. But it’s a tremendously good move from MS none the less

    Reply

  8. veggiesaurus ZA

    June 19, 2015 at 08:34

    One of the reasons it works so well is the similarity between the xbox and 360, in terms of memory and GPU architecture. It’s still damn impressive though. I wish they’d upped the resolution a bit though, there must be plenty of GPU headroom at this point, and giving players an option to play all their old xbox 360 games in 1080p would be a real selling point. I know I’d buy an xbox one at that point.

    Reply

  9. WitWolfy

    June 19, 2015 at 08:35

    It’s thanks to this feature that I’ll be picking up a XBONE ASAP!

    Reply

    • Blood Emperor Trevor

      June 19, 2015 at 08:45

      Just remember to lift with your knees, not your back.

      Reply

      • WitWolfy

        June 19, 2015 at 08:47

        ROFL! I knew I should’ve never stopped gymming!

        Reply

  10. AchtungBaby_

    June 19, 2015 at 08:41

    This is a huge win for Microsoft and even though I’m a PS fangirl I must admit they one-up’ed Sony. It’s gonna make a lot of gamers more keen to go buy an Xbox One.

    Reply

    • WitWolfy

      June 19, 2015 at 08:42

      Like me for example… I was always looking for an excuse to buy an XBONE, and now I have one. Sure I’m a die hard PS faboy, but this feature alone will move consoles.

      Reply

  11. Mossel

    June 19, 2015 at 08:49

    But the real question is how long is the load time in the elevators?

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief's Adventure

      June 19, 2015 at 08:53

      Longer than your flight time

      Reply

      • Mossel

        June 19, 2015 at 08:54

        Technically anything is longer than my flight time. Sidenote: I shot down a helicopter with a rpg on bf4 two nights ago!! ‘Twas glorious!

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief's Adventure

          June 19, 2015 at 08:54

          LOOOOL

          Reply

        • Lord Chaos

          June 19, 2015 at 08:56

          How nicely did you have to ask them to stay still? 😛

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief's Adventure

            June 19, 2015 at 08:56

            He was probably typing…

          • Mossel

            June 19, 2015 at 09:01

            Seriously that’s the worst! haha! Suddenly your character doesn’t move and you just see: wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

          • Mossel

            June 19, 2015 at 09:00

            Hahaha no I should probably say it was a guided missile, so not really that much of an achievement. But it was still fun to see the okes freak out haha!

  12. Viking Of Science

    June 19, 2015 at 09:07

    But does ME1 still run at 18 FPS?

    Reply

    • Brady miaau

      June 19, 2015 at 10:33

      Is ME1 still fun?

      Reply

  13. Pieter Kruger

    June 19, 2015 at 09:08

    Truly amazing, and I keep seeing new games being added to my “ready to download” queue! ????????????That external HDD is being used to it’s potential!????. Only tried a couple though to be honest, too busy getting my ass kicked in GOW Ultimate Edition. While I need to hone my skills again it appears some people never stopped playing the original!?????

    Reply

    • eveplayer77

      June 19, 2015 at 09:44

      Lol ek dink ek ken jou meneer

      Reply

      • Pieter Kruger

        June 19, 2015 at 09:50

        Do tell? ????

        Reply

        • eveplayer77

          June 19, 2015 at 10:40

          was jy nie in kempton op skool nie ?

          Reply

  14. Ranting Raptor

    June 19, 2015 at 09:49

    Well well well…. This is probably the only thing Microsoft seem to have done right with the XBoxOne. From requiring Kinect and always online connectivity to an offline version with no Kinect AND backwards compatibility that actually works?

    This could be a big changing point for MS and the console. I don’t often say this but… Well done Microsoft

    Reply

  15. CypherGate

    June 19, 2015 at 10:25

    I wished Sony did something like this with their PS4 cause I wouldnt want to buy an extra console just to play previous games or HOPE for some remaster. This is a seriously awesome move from Microsoft.

    Reply

  16. Sovereign

    June 19, 2015 at 10:37

    The list of supported games differs from the list on Xbox’s website.

    Reply

  17. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    June 19, 2015 at 14:16

    HEAR ME MICROSOFT!!! HEAR THE WORDS OF INQUISITOR BANANA OF THE HOUSE BANANAN. HOW MANY VIRGINS WERE SACRIFICED FOR THIS BLACK MAGIC OF YOURS TO WORK! REPENT! REPENT!!

    Reply

  18. bob

    June 19, 2015 at 21:51

    So some points,

    Xbox 360 is PowerPC. Xbox One is x64, completely different chip design. So this is pretty impressive, but this cannot be done with software alone, not at this speed.

    As for Backwards Compat, that has been tested with Halo MCC. Those original versions of the games were running in the emulator, and when you swop over you run in the new engine.

    So, it is able to run 360 games and One games at the same time. Not bad for a “weaker” console 😉

    Reply

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