The Xbox One had a rough year through most of 2017, but it has managed to come back strong thanks to the triumphant launch of the excellent Xbox One X. Xbox is now in a good place- its fanbase is rallied, the hardware is best on the market, its strides in the services category have been second to none.
Speaking about one of those services – backward compatibility, the crown jewel in Microsoft’s Xbox offering, Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox department, said on Twitter that in spite of a slowdown in the volume of new backward compatibility releases in the Holiday season, more games are coming, also slipping in a comment about forward compatibility for games- could Spencer be serious about a continuous Xbox platform, without discrete generations?
Spencer also talked about the apps on the Xbox One, and whether or not they will be updated to support 4K resolutions, at least for the Xbox One S and Xbox One X. Spencer confirmed that it is something he wants, but he didn’t give a definitive answer either way; what he did give a definitive answer on was picture to picture, confirming that Microsoft is not focused on this at the moment; while he admitted this might be something that happens at some point in the future, he did state that for now, this was not on the cards.
So there you have it, folks- it looks like, on the services and features front, the Xbox’s future is secured. Now to see what kinds of games are further added to the system via the backward compatibility list…
More coming but in the Holidays team is very busy with testing new releases so there is sometimes a slowdown now for BC.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 19, 2017
We started talking about forward and back compat a couple of years ago when our plans set, I really like how it's landed.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 19, 2017
I know it's not going to be a popular answer but we aren't really focused on this right now, sorry.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 19, 2017
Yea, it was a tough tradeoff. Never say never but don't want to lead anyone on that this is something we are working on right now
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 19, 2017
Yea, 4K/HDR makes such a big difference in video, I want all the apps upgraded as well, I'm impatient.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) November 19, 2017
