Xbox One backwards compatibility may face problems for Forza and many sports titles as hinted by Xbox Head, Phil Spencer.
A fan asked Spencer on Twitter if every first-party Xbox 360 game could be backwards compatible on Xbox One. The fan specifically named the Forza and Fable games as his top choices.
Spencer replied with: “Some games, racing is most difficult, can have licensing issues (songs, logos etc) but we want to support BC completely.”
There were four Forza games available for Xbox 360. This included Forza 2, 3, 4 and the first Horizon game. Car logos and some licensed music were featured in these games and could be a barrier for Microsoft to make them backwards compatible.
The thing about licensing issues could also be a problem with many sports games too. Sports games usually have a lot of licensed music and likenesses from players. Not to mention team logos and a lot of other things.
The Fable series shouldn’t be too hard to be backwards compatible on Xbox One. Those games are set in a fantasy world so there are no licenses to overcome.
Another genre I feel may face trouble are the WWE wrestling games. They feature a ton of wrestlers’ likenesses plus numerous music owned by WWE.
Microsoft will be working hard though so hopefully a lot of popular Xbox 360 games will be backwards compatible for Xbox One in the near future.
