It looks like Microsoft’s Xbox One could feature backwards compatibility after all, but not in the way you might think. While the Xbox One won’t likely be able to play Xbox 360 discs due to different system architecture’s, the Xbox Live Cloud could play a role in providing backwards compatibility.
Microsoft’s Albert Penello recently explained in an interview that it’s definitely a possibility, but there are some things that need to be ironed out at this point. Sony announced earlier this year that it would be using Gaikai to stream games to the PlayStation 4, this would make the console instantly backwards compatible. It looks like the Xbox One cloud is completely capable of this feature as well.
“We just have to figure out how, over time, how much does that cost to deliver, how good is the experience,” said Penello. “We want developers to know that the cloud is there. We’re really not trying to make up some phony thing.”
It doesn’t sound like this is something that the Xbox One is going to launch with, but you never know, backwards compatibility is an important feature to many gamers.
