Arguably the biggest talking point from Microsoft’s recent E3 press conference was that it will be providing backwards compatibility on Xbox One, meaning that select Xbox 360 games will be playable on the system, despite it previously seeming an impossible task.
“We knew it would be an enormous engineering challenge, and many people told us it would be impossible,” Mike Ybarra, Xbox director of program management said in an interview with Xbox Wire. “However, the team had conviction, and delivered. This is what I love most about Xbox: We’re all gamers, and fan feedback fuels our passion.”
Well it has certainly been paying off. The Xbox One outsold the PS4 during the week of E3 and Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, believes this is in no small part thanks to the announcement of backwards compatibility. Currently, SONY does not have any plans to implement backward compatibility into the PS4, as Executive Shuhei Yoshida said that it “must be very challenging”.
So how big of a deal do you see this as being? Backward compatiblity is something that gamers asked for in their consoles before this console generation even began, so now that Microsoft have taken the first step in this direction, they have undoubtedly dealt a pretty big blow on SONY. It’s a big deal in regard to deciding between the systems.
Before E3, I was thinking about getting an Xbox One toward the end of the year. I wanted one for a number of reasons, but mostly because it’s the system most of my friends have, I am more interested in the exclusive content it has on the way (especially in 2015), and I was always a fan of the Xbox 360. Backward compatibility pretty much confirmed my purchasing decision. My Xbox 360 game collection is pretty large and there are many games in there that I would love to play through again. Now, I can have the confidence that if I buy an Xbox One I will be able to do just that without having to constantly switch up consoles. It’s really very efficient.
So will the trend continue? Will gamers begin to choose Xbox One over PS4 as the go-to console? It will be interesting to see the sales figures come Christmas. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.