Microsoft Xbox One Gains Backwards Compatibility With Xbox 360 Games

It’s time to dig out your old Xbox 360 games. Microsoft announced Monday that its Xbox One will soon support backwards compatibility with games made for its previous-generation console.

The feature is available today for members of the Xbox preview program and will later roll out to all users for the 2015 holiday season. At first, players will be able to use the feature with 100 Xbox 360 titles. And 100 more games will be supported at a later date. “Our goal is to deliver the largest game catalog on Xbox One,” said Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox division, speaking at E3 2015 in Los Angeles.

In theory, this could expand the Xbox One’s game catalog with thousands of titles from the Xbox 360 catalog. But this could be limited by developers, who have the final say on whether they want to make their titles available through the feature.

Backwards compatibility has been a highly requested feature by Xbox One owners since its launch and enables those with an extensive Xbox 360 game collection to play their older games without the need to purchase a “remastered” version of the game. Microsoft made a similar move with the Xbox 360, when it introduced backwards compatibility of the console with older games from the original Xbox.