Xbox boss Phil Spencer has been busy on Twitter, responding to fan concerns over a myriad of issues. As expected, there’s quite a lot to glean about first party efforts, the Xbox One X and original Xbox backwards compatibility.
Speaking about when we would start hearing about first party efforts, Spencer replied, “When we have games to show where we are confident in quality and date.” This would seem to indicate that these titles – whatever they may be – are a ways off. Either way, don’t expect to hear about the next Halo or Gears of War anytime soon.
As for whether the Xbox One X would have stable 60 FPS for multi-platform games, he noted that this was ultimately up to the developers. “Fps/res are choices studios make, we build platform with capability. If gamers love 60 fps, best vote is to buy 60 fps games.”
Xbox One games with 4K support like Forza Motorsport 7 will require a whopping download mostly due to the 4K textures needed. Would disc owners have to download these 4K assets as well? “For games already shipped you should expect download if needed, for new games it’s up to developer, they can’t put on disc or download.”
As for highlighting the differences between different Xbox versions, Spencer said, “We know you will want to see the X differences so we’ll make sure we find a good way to highlight that as people are deciding.” This could mean that direct comparisons between Xbox One and Xbox One X versions are incoming.
He also clarified that Xbox backwards compatible titles won’t receive wide-screen support since most games didn’t support this function. Changing the frame buffer aspect wouldn’t be possible. “Fairly separate efforts. BC team gets stretched across OG and 360 (and others) so that’s the trade-off.”
Wouldn’t it have been better to finish making the entire Xbox 360 library backwards compatible instead? Spencer agreed and noted that, “Made OG BC decision but clearly could have just kept focusing on 360 only. It’s a subjective call, like many are.” Which means that Spencer and his team found some merit in getting Xbox backwards compatibility up and running.
Of course, the miracle of OG backwards compatibility is that not every game has to be patched for it. “OG BC works without any patching by original devs and what you get is same functionality of the shipping game,” tweeted Spencer.
Spencer himself also noted that he won’t be at Gamescom 2017 this year. “Regretfully I won’t make GC this year, family commitment, I’ll miss great fans, bums me out. We’ll talk more about Xbox @ GC soon.”
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