Microsoft creates an Xbox game preservation team to ensure backwards compatibility

Since Microsoft bought Activision-Blizzard, Xbox has become a huge gaming powerhouse, despite console unrests. The Redmond giant wants to bring Xbox on every screen and it’s even working on a handheld console to complete the circle.

There’s possibly a bright future ahead, but how about the past? Would we be able to play those old games we love on a new Xbox console? Will we be able to play some new titles on older devices?

According to Windows Central, Sarah Bond, Xbox’s President made a pretty bold commitment to answer these questions:

We have formed a new team dedicated to game preservation, important to all of us at Xbox and the industry itself. We are building on our strong history of delivering backwards compatibility to our players, and we remain committed to bringing forward the amazing library of Xbox games for future generations of players to enjoy.

Xbox President Sarah Bond

Why does Xbox needs a game preservation team?

Allegedly, the next Xbox console won’t have any disk drive and other rumors imply that the new handheld console will solely rely on cloud storage. We’re living the age to complete digital shift where everything is online. And when everything is on the cloud, digital stores can remove games as if there weren’t there in the first place.

Google, Apple, and Nintendo have been known to do that and Microsoft is closing the Xbox 360 store in July this year. However, there are still hundreds of backwards-compatible games which still survived to be played on newer Xbox consoles.

That’s why it’s important that this game preservation team to future proof our titles, to be able to play them for a longer time. However, the real issue is not how they make the old games play on new consoles but the other way around.

Creating a less resource-demanding version of the latest games for an older console such as Xbox One is hard. And if they do, would you downgrade your gaming experience just to be able to play it? We’ll see how this will work out.

What are the best old titles you would like to keep playing on a new console? Let’s talk about that in the comments section below.