LAST UPDATE: June 11, 2019
I had some time to kill recently and I thought it would be fun to take a numbers dive into the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Program. I'm a big fan of the program and I have been using it frequently throughout the years and completed many games I had missed for various reasons. So lets take a look at the numbers.
______________________________________________________________________
Total Number of BC Titles
575 Xbox 360 Titles
2103 Xbox 360 Titles Total (27.34%)
1900 Xbox 360 Titles Total Excluding Kinect and Peripheral Based Games (30.26%)
41 Original Xbox Titles
1047 Original Xbox Titles Total (3.92%)
The current tally of Backwards Compatible titles on Xbox One stands at 616 titles, 575 Xbox 360 and 41 Original Xbox. According to Wikipedia 2100 games have been released on Xbox 360, so that makes about 27.3% of the total library available on Xbox One. Since all accessoires and peripherals from Xbox 360 era do not work on Xbox One, its fair to exclude these titles from the total list. This includes all Kinect Titles, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, uDraw, Tony Hawk, DJ Hero, Scene it, Lips etc. This brings the total number to roughly 1900 titles. This brings the total perentage of BC titles to about 30.3%, not bad.
Original Xbox is off course totally different. Licensing is way more complicated and making games work properly in the emulator is presumably more difficult as well. 41 Original Xbox Titles have been released since its inception in October 2017, a total of 3.92% of the total 1047 games released on Xbox.
_______________________________________________________________________
Retail vs Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox 360 launched the concept of Xbox Live Arcade games, smaller, cheaper and generally more simpeler games. These took off once some of the games became really popular like Shadow Complex, Mark of the Ninja, Peggle, Limbo etc. In the end XBLA games formed a good part of the Xbox 360 library and there has been some debate whether or not Microsoft prioritised XBLA games over retail games for BC, because these would obviously take less time and work to bring over because of the complexity of the games. I've gathered some numbers to determine if this is true or not.
575 Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible Games
305 Xbox Live Arcade Games (53.04%)
270 Retail Games (46.96%)
Based on these numbers you could say there is a slighty higher focus towards XBLA games, especially so in the earlier years of BC. In 2018 for instance, there have only been 11 XBLA games added compared to 94 retail games. Lets take a look at a breakdown for each year:
2015 = 121 games released
33 Retail (27.27%)
88 XBLA (72.73%)
2016 = 188 games released
63 Retail (33.51%)
125 XBLA games (66.49%)
2017 = 149 games released
67 Retail (44.97%)
82 XBLA (55.03%)
2018 = 105 games released
94 Retail (89.52%)
11 XBLA (10.48%)
2019 = 45 games released (Up until June 11)
33 Retail (73.33%)
12 XBLA (26.67%)
As you can see there is a rather interesting development to be seen. There has ben a major shift to retail games this year, whereas XBLA games were the major focus point in the first two years of BC especially. Each year the percentage of retail games compared to XBLA games has gone up. But how does it stack up to the total library?
2103 Xbox 360 games released
795 XBLA released (38.36% is BC)
1308 Retail released (20.64% is BC)
Roughly 38.4% of the total XBLA library is now playable through BC, considerably higher compared to the 20.6% of retail library. This is off course due in part by the many sports titles and peripheral based games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, Sing It etc which can not be released on BC. If you exclude these titles the percentage is likely to increase to around 23%, still lagging far behind XBLA. So what is the conclusion than? In the earlier years of BC the XBLA games were definitely prioritised over retail games, probably because these were easier to port compared to the more complex retail games. In the following years and especially this year the shift has turned towards retail games, likely due to the fact the emulator is finetuned and can now process most retail titles allowing for more retail games to be added.
_______________________________________________________________________
Games Released By Year
2015 (From Mid-November Launch) = 121
2016 = 188
2017 = 149
2018 = 105
2019 = 45 (Up until June 11)
January = 50 (Average 12)
February = 32 (Average 8)
March = 36 (Average 12)
April = 55 (Average 14)
May = 51 (Average 13)
June = 52 (Average 13)
July = 37 (Average 12)
August = 28 (Average 9)
September = 38 (Average 13)
October = 49 (Average 16)
November = 36 (Average 12)
December = 33 (Average 8)
The BC program was released to the general public on November 12, 2015 with an initial list of 104 games. 17 were added later that December bringing the total to 121 for 2015. The following year was also the biggest year for BC with an added 188 titles, an average 15 games each month. 2017 saw another 149 new games added, average 12 games each month. In 2018 we saw 105 new games added, an average 9 games every month. As more titles get added the number of titles left will obviously shrink, leaving games with more complicated architectures and licensing issues. The output for the coming years will probably continue to decrease as a result of this.
If we break this down by month, April and October look to be the months with the most releases on average. February, August and December seem to be the least active.
_______________________________________________________________________
Top 20 Most Requested Titles By November 2015
Call of Duty: Black Ops II: 109,686 Votes
Red Dead Redemption: 100,358 Votes
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 97,844 Votes
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - 87,272 Votes
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 63,453 Votes
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - 57,582 Votes
Call of Duty: World at War - 54,523 Votes
Mass Effect 3 - 53,801 Votes
Fallout: New Vegas - 51,534 Votes
Left 4 Dead 2 - 49,367 Votes
Grand Theft Auto IV - 47,431 Votes
Batman: Arkham City - 45,669 Votes
Mass Effect 2 - 45,464 Votes
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - 38,216 Votes
Batman: Arkham Asylum - 32,176 Votes
Battlefield 3 - 31,469 Votes
Portal 2 - 30,034 Votes
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - 29,713 Votes
Fable III - 29,709 Votes
Assassin's Creed III - 29,632 Votes
https://www.windowscentral.com/here...rently-listed-xbox-one-backwards-compatiblity
When the BC program was announced at E3 2015, Microsoft introduced a website where the community could vote for the titles they wanted added the most. This website has since been taken down, so there is no recent tally of what titles are most requested. The latest available list I could find dated back from November 2015. Of this top 20, 17 titles have since been added to BC, with the remaining 3 having re-released on Xbox One.
_______________________________________________________________________
Metacritic Score of 90 Or Higher
I thought it would be fun to see how many titles rated 90 or higher on Xbox 360 on Metacritic are BC on Xbox One. A total of 53 games on Xbox 360 have an average review score of 90 or higher. 36 of these titles are currently BC. Of the remaining 17 games, 10 are either re-released/remastered or peripheral based like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The remaining 7 games are all sports games and Forza Motorsport games which require to much licensing to be able to become BC. So that means all (BC-able) 53 Xbox 360 games that are rated 90 or higher are playable on Xbox One.
_______________________________________________________________________
Franchises Fully Playable On Xbox One With BC
Assassins Creed
Banjo
Battlestations
Bioshock
Call of Duty *(excluding Call of Duty Classic and OG Xbox games)
Crackdown
Crysis
Dead Space
Dragon Age
Fable
Far Cry
Gears of War
Halo
Just Cause
Left 4 Dead
Lost Planet
Portal
Mass Effect
Perfect Dark
Saints Row
Splinter Cell
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars Battlefront
The Darkness
Trials
The above 25 franchises are fully playable on Xbox One, either through BC and/or re-released Xbox One ports.
_______________________________________________________________________
Xbox One (X) Benefits of Backwards Compatible Titles
By default all Xbox 360 games that are BC receive the following enhancements on a base Xbox One or S model:
There are also a handful of specific Xbox 360 games with Xbox One X enhancements. These require significant additional work but allow for native 4K resolutions, better texture filtering, smoother framerates and even added HDR. These are considered by many to be a unique feature of the Xbox One X and for some even system sellers. However these require a lot of testing, optimisation and approval from the original creatures. Currently there are only 39 titles supported:
Assassin's Creed
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts
Civilization Revolution
Crackdown
Darksiders
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Fable Anniversary
Fable 2
Fable 3
Fallout 3
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Forza Horizon
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Halo 3
Kameo Elements of Power
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Mirror's Edge
Ninja Gaiden II
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark Zero
Portal: Still Alive
Portal 2
Red Dead Redemption
Skate 3
Sonic Generations
Splinter Cell Double Agent
Splinter Cell Conviction
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
The Orange Box
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
Viva Pinata
Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise
_______________________________________________________________________
Highest Number of BC Titles Released
From the 19 'biggest' publishers that released games through BC, Microsoft obviously has released the highest number of BC titles, 140 to be exact. Ubisoft are in second place with 51 titles, EA is third with 45 titles, SEGA fourth with 40 titles, and Capcom finishes the top 5 with 22 titles.
_______________________________________________________________________
Highest Percentage of Total Games Released That Are BC
From the 19 'biggest' publishers that released games through BC, SNK hold the highest percentage of games that are BC compared to total games released on Xbox 360, with 75%. In the case of Rockstar, of the remaining 3, 2 are re-released on Xbox One (LA Noire, GTA V), that leaves Max Payne 3 as the last Rockstar game not playable on Xbox One from the 360 era. Activision is the worst performer in this list, only 11% of its total 360 library is playable on Xbox One.
_______________________________________________________________________
Highest Percentage of Total Games Released (with exclusions)That Are BC
In the above table I have excluded all Kinect and other peripheral based games, as well as all numbered sports titles like NBA 2K, FIFA etc. This is off course a more fair comparison since all of those titles will not be able to be added to BC. This improves the percentage significantly for publishers like 2K and EA.
_______________________________________________________________________
Notable Publishers Who Have Not Released A Game On BC
BigBen Interactive
City Interactive
Koch Media
Midway Games
Nordic Games
Sierra Entertainment
Southpeak Games
All of the above publishers have not yet released a game on BC.
_______________________________________________________________________
Biggest Franchises Missing From BC
Armored Core
Dead or Alive
Dragon Ball
Dynasty Warriors
F.E.A.R.
Forza Motorsport *(excluding Forza Horizon)
Godfather
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Mortal Kombat
Need for Speed
Ninety-Nine Nights
Project Gotham Racing
Ridge Racer
Serious Sam
Spider Man
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Test Drive
Tony Hawk Pro Skater
Top Spin
Transformers
UFC
X-Men
All of the above franchises have no game available on the BC program. Some are pretty obvious why (movie and superhero tie-ins, sports licensing etc). Some are strange omissions like Mortal Kombat and Ridge Racer.
_______________________________________________________________________
Engagement. Do Xbox Gamers play BC games?
Do Xbox gamers actually play backwards compatible games on Xbox One? Well Microsoft have said numerous times that the engagement is there; people like playing old games. At least 50% of Xbox One owners have played a backwards compatible game. But does this mean 5 minutes or actually completing a game? We don't know this and will probably never will. All we can do is make an educated guess based on the figures we do have. The latest number we've got was on October 18, 2018. Gamers have played over 1 billion hours of Xbox 360 and Original Xbox games on Xbox One – and we think our new release is only going to keep that momentum going.
So what does that tell us? Well we know that there are between 35 and 40 million Xbox One consoles out there, probably closer to the latter figure after the X released. So if we break this down we can draw a few conclusions.
1 billion hours played
60 billion minutes played
35-40 million Xbox One sold
1500-1714 minutes played per Xbox One owner
25-28.5 hours played per Xbox One owner
Now if we break this down further to how many days BC started up until the October 18 figure we can determine how much is actually played.
1.4 - 1.6 minutes played per day (1066 days BC exists)
9.8 - 11.2 minutes played per week (152 weeks BC exists)
42.8 - 49 minutes played per month (35 months BC exists)
These 'guesstimates' tell us the average Xbox One owner plays about 10 minutes of BC every week, and roughly 45 minutes every month. Now if we keep in mind what Microsoft said that at least 50% of Xbox One owners have tried BC you can assume these numbers would have been double that.
_______________________________________________________________________
Does Backwards Compatibilty drive or improve sales?
Ah yes, the age old questions. Does BC really matter? Does it really improve sales? Is there a profit model? Do people really play old games? Well there is no clear answer to any of these questions. I do not have sales numbers, only Microsoft has these. Microsoft has told us many times people play a lot of BC games. They mentioned 50% of all Xbox One owners have tried at least 1 BC title, so the engagement is there. But is there a profit model, especially if you can just use the disc you already had?
One example I can recall is when Call of Duty Black Ops II hit BC on April 11, 2017. The following month the game charted at number 10 in the NPD Chart, 5 years after the game was released. Another example is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 when it hit BC on August 28, 2018. The game was the 321 best selling title in July, yet it re-entered the top 10 at number 8 in August, having hit BC only a few days of tracking that month. Maybe other major releases have had a similar impact like Red Dead Redemption on July 7, 2016 or Modern Warfare 3 on June 19, 2018 and perhaps many others.
_______________________________________________________________________
That was it! Thanks for reading, hope you liked it. If you see any mistakes of have questions feel free to ask or tell me.
I had some time to kill recently and I thought it would be fun to take a numbers dive into the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Program. I'm a big fan of the program and I have been using it frequently throughout the years and completed many games I had missed for various reasons. So lets take a look at the numbers.
______________________________________________________________________
Total Number of BC Titles
575 Xbox 360 Titles
2103 Xbox 360 Titles Total (27.34%)
1900 Xbox 360 Titles Total Excluding Kinect and Peripheral Based Games (30.26%)
41 Original Xbox Titles
1047 Original Xbox Titles Total (3.92%)
The current tally of Backwards Compatible titles on Xbox One stands at 616 titles, 575 Xbox 360 and 41 Original Xbox. According to Wikipedia 2100 games have been released on Xbox 360, so that makes about 27.3% of the total library available on Xbox One. Since all accessoires and peripherals from Xbox 360 era do not work on Xbox One, its fair to exclude these titles from the total list. This includes all Kinect Titles, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, uDraw, Tony Hawk, DJ Hero, Scene it, Lips etc. This brings the total number to roughly 1900 titles. This brings the total perentage of BC titles to about 30.3%, not bad.
Original Xbox is off course totally different. Licensing is way more complicated and making games work properly in the emulator is presumably more difficult as well. 41 Original Xbox Titles have been released since its inception in October 2017, a total of 3.92% of the total 1047 games released on Xbox.
_______________________________________________________________________
Retail vs Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox 360 launched the concept of Xbox Live Arcade games, smaller, cheaper and generally more simpeler games. These took off once some of the games became really popular like Shadow Complex, Mark of the Ninja, Peggle, Limbo etc. In the end XBLA games formed a good part of the Xbox 360 library and there has been some debate whether or not Microsoft prioritised XBLA games over retail games for BC, because these would obviously take less time and work to bring over because of the complexity of the games. I've gathered some numbers to determine if this is true or not.
575 Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible Games
305 Xbox Live Arcade Games (53.04%)
270 Retail Games (46.96%)
Based on these numbers you could say there is a slighty higher focus towards XBLA games, especially so in the earlier years of BC. In 2018 for instance, there have only been 11 XBLA games added compared to 94 retail games. Lets take a look at a breakdown for each year:
2015 = 121 games released
33 Retail (27.27%)
88 XBLA (72.73%)
2016 = 188 games released
63 Retail (33.51%)
125 XBLA games (66.49%)
2017 = 149 games released
67 Retail (44.97%)
82 XBLA (55.03%)
2018 = 105 games released
94 Retail (89.52%)
11 XBLA (10.48%)
2019 = 45 games released (Up until June 11)
33 Retail (73.33%)
12 XBLA (26.67%)
As you can see there is a rather interesting development to be seen. There has ben a major shift to retail games this year, whereas XBLA games were the major focus point in the first two years of BC especially. Each year the percentage of retail games compared to XBLA games has gone up. But how does it stack up to the total library?
2103 Xbox 360 games released
795 XBLA released (38.36% is BC)
1308 Retail released (20.64% is BC)
Roughly 38.4% of the total XBLA library is now playable through BC, considerably higher compared to the 20.6% of retail library. This is off course due in part by the many sports titles and peripheral based games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, Sing It etc which can not be released on BC. If you exclude these titles the percentage is likely to increase to around 23%, still lagging far behind XBLA. So what is the conclusion than? In the earlier years of BC the XBLA games were definitely prioritised over retail games, probably because these were easier to port compared to the more complex retail games. In the following years and especially this year the shift has turned towards retail games, likely due to the fact the emulator is finetuned and can now process most retail titles allowing for more retail games to be added.
_______________________________________________________________________
Games Released By Year
2015 (From Mid-November Launch) = 121
2016 = 188
2017 = 149
2018 = 105
2019 = 45 (Up until June 11)
January = 50 (Average 12)
February = 32 (Average 8)
March = 36 (Average 12)
April = 55 (Average 14)
May = 51 (Average 13)
June = 52 (Average 13)
July = 37 (Average 12)
August = 28 (Average 9)
September = 38 (Average 13)
October = 49 (Average 16)
November = 36 (Average 12)
December = 33 (Average 8)
The BC program was released to the general public on November 12, 2015 with an initial list of 104 games. 17 were added later that December bringing the total to 121 for 2015. The following year was also the biggest year for BC with an added 188 titles, an average 15 games each month. 2017 saw another 149 new games added, average 12 games each month. In 2018 we saw 105 new games added, an average 9 games every month. As more titles get added the number of titles left will obviously shrink, leaving games with more complicated architectures and licensing issues. The output for the coming years will probably continue to decrease as a result of this.
If we break this down by month, April and October look to be the months with the most releases on average. February, August and December seem to be the least active.
_______________________________________________________________________
Top 20 Most Requested Titles By November 2015
Call of Duty: Black Ops II: 109,686 Votes
Red Dead Redemption: 100,358 Votes
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 97,844 Votes
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - 87,272 Votes
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 63,453 Votes
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - 57,582 Votes
Call of Duty: World at War - 54,523 Votes
Mass Effect 3 - 53,801 Votes
Fallout: New Vegas - 51,534 Votes
Left 4 Dead 2 - 49,367 Votes
Grand Theft Auto IV - 47,431 Votes
Batman: Arkham City - 45,669 Votes
Mass Effect 2 - 45,464 Votes
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - 38,216 Votes
Batman: Arkham Asylum - 32,176 Votes
Battlefield 3 - 31,469 Votes
Portal 2 - 30,034 Votes
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - 29,713 Votes
Fable III - 29,709 Votes
Assassin's Creed III - 29,632 Votes
https://www.windowscentral.com/here...rently-listed-xbox-one-backwards-compatiblity
When the BC program was announced at E3 2015, Microsoft introduced a website where the community could vote for the titles they wanted added the most. This website has since been taken down, so there is no recent tally of what titles are most requested. The latest available list I could find dated back from November 2015. Of this top 20, 17 titles have since been added to BC, with the remaining 3 having re-released on Xbox One.
_______________________________________________________________________
Metacritic Score of 90 Or Higher
I thought it would be fun to see how many titles rated 90 or higher on Xbox 360 on Metacritic are BC on Xbox One. A total of 53 games on Xbox 360 have an average review score of 90 or higher. 36 of these titles are currently BC. Of the remaining 17 games, 10 are either re-released/remastered or peripheral based like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The remaining 7 games are all sports games and Forza Motorsport games which require to much licensing to be able to become BC. So that means all (BC-able) 53 Xbox 360 games that are rated 90 or higher are playable on Xbox One.
_______________________________________________________________________
Franchises Fully Playable On Xbox One With BC
Assassins Creed
Banjo
Battlestations
Bioshock
Call of Duty *(excluding Call of Duty Classic and OG Xbox games)
Crackdown
Crysis
Dead Space
Dragon Age
Fable
Far Cry
Gears of War
Halo
Just Cause
Left 4 Dead
Lost Planet
Portal
Mass Effect
Perfect Dark
Saints Row
Splinter Cell
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars Battlefront
The Darkness
Trials
The above 25 franchises are fully playable on Xbox One, either through BC and/or re-released Xbox One ports.
_______________________________________________________________________
Xbox One (X) Benefits of Backwards Compatible Titles
By default all Xbox 360 games that are BC receive the following enhancements on a base Xbox One or S model:
- Improved framerate stability
- Games utilizing a dynamic resolution will hit their max resolution more often, or at all times
- Forced V-sync
- 4x the original resolution for original Xbox games
- Variable refresh rate compatibility (when used with a compatible display)
- 16x anisotropic filtering
- 16x the resolution for Original Xbox Games
There are also a handful of specific Xbox 360 games with Xbox One X enhancements. These require significant additional work but allow for native 4K resolutions, better texture filtering, smoother framerates and even added HDR. These are considered by many to be a unique feature of the Xbox One X and for some even system sellers. However these require a lot of testing, optimisation and approval from the original creatures. Currently there are only 39 titles supported:
Assassin's Creed
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts
Civilization Revolution
Crackdown
Darksiders
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Fable Anniversary
Fable 2
Fable 3
Fallout 3
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Forza Horizon
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Halo 3
Kameo Elements of Power
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Mirror's Edge
Ninja Gaiden II
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark Zero
Portal: Still Alive
Portal 2
Red Dead Redemption
Skate 3
Sonic Generations
Splinter Cell Double Agent
Splinter Cell Conviction
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
The Orange Box
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
Viva Pinata
Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise
_______________________________________________________________________
Highest Number of BC Titles Released
From the 19 'biggest' publishers that released games through BC, Microsoft obviously has released the highest number of BC titles, 140 to be exact. Ubisoft are in second place with 51 titles, EA is third with 45 titles, SEGA fourth with 40 titles, and Capcom finishes the top 5 with 22 titles.
_______________________________________________________________________
Highest Percentage of Total Games Released That Are BC
From the 19 'biggest' publishers that released games through BC, SNK hold the highest percentage of games that are BC compared to total games released on Xbox 360, with 75%. In the case of Rockstar, of the remaining 3, 2 are re-released on Xbox One (LA Noire, GTA V), that leaves Max Payne 3 as the last Rockstar game not playable on Xbox One from the 360 era. Activision is the worst performer in this list, only 11% of its total 360 library is playable on Xbox One.
_______________________________________________________________________
Highest Percentage of Total Games Released (with exclusions)That Are BC
In the above table I have excluded all Kinect and other peripheral based games, as well as all numbered sports titles like NBA 2K, FIFA etc. This is off course a more fair comparison since all of those titles will not be able to be added to BC. This improves the percentage significantly for publishers like 2K and EA.
_______________________________________________________________________
Notable Publishers Who Have Not Released A Game On BC
BigBen Interactive
City Interactive
Koch Media
Midway Games
Nordic Games
Sierra Entertainment
Southpeak Games
All of the above publishers have not yet released a game on BC.
_______________________________________________________________________
Biggest Franchises Missing From BC
Armored Core
Dead or Alive
Dragon Ball
Dynasty Warriors
F.E.A.R.
Forza Motorsport *(excluding Forza Horizon)
Godfather
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Mortal Kombat
Need for Speed
Ninety-Nine Nights
Project Gotham Racing
Ridge Racer
Serious Sam
Spider Man
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Test Drive
Tony Hawk Pro Skater
Top Spin
Transformers
UFC
X-Men
All of the above franchises have no game available on the BC program. Some are pretty obvious why (movie and superhero tie-ins, sports licensing etc). Some are strange omissions like Mortal Kombat and Ridge Racer.
_______________________________________________________________________
Engagement. Do Xbox Gamers play BC games?
Do Xbox gamers actually play backwards compatible games on Xbox One? Well Microsoft have said numerous times that the engagement is there; people like playing old games. At least 50% of Xbox One owners have played a backwards compatible game. But does this mean 5 minutes or actually completing a game? We don't know this and will probably never will. All we can do is make an educated guess based on the figures we do have. The latest number we've got was on October 18, 2018. Gamers have played over 1 billion hours of Xbox 360 and Original Xbox games on Xbox One – and we think our new release is only going to keep that momentum going.
So what does that tell us? Well we know that there are between 35 and 40 million Xbox One consoles out there, probably closer to the latter figure after the X released. So if we break this down we can draw a few conclusions.
1 billion hours played
60 billion minutes played
35-40 million Xbox One sold
1500-1714 minutes played per Xbox One owner
25-28.5 hours played per Xbox One owner
Now if we break this down further to how many days BC started up until the October 18 figure we can determine how much is actually played.
1.4 - 1.6 minutes played per day (1066 days BC exists)
9.8 - 11.2 minutes played per week (152 weeks BC exists)
42.8 - 49 minutes played per month (35 months BC exists)
These 'guesstimates' tell us the average Xbox One owner plays about 10 minutes of BC every week, and roughly 45 minutes every month. Now if we keep in mind what Microsoft said that at least 50% of Xbox One owners have tried BC you can assume these numbers would have been double that.
_______________________________________________________________________
Does Backwards Compatibilty drive or improve sales?
Ah yes, the age old questions. Does BC really matter? Does it really improve sales? Is there a profit model? Do people really play old games? Well there is no clear answer to any of these questions. I do not have sales numbers, only Microsoft has these. Microsoft has told us many times people play a lot of BC games. They mentioned 50% of all Xbox One owners have tried at least 1 BC title, so the engagement is there. But is there a profit model, especially if you can just use the disc you already had?
One example I can recall is when Call of Duty Black Ops II hit BC on April 11, 2017. The following month the game charted at number 10 in the NPD Chart, 5 years after the game was released. Another example is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 when it hit BC on August 28, 2018. The game was the 321 best selling title in July, yet it re-entered the top 10 at number 8 in August, having hit BC only a few days of tracking that month. Maybe other major releases have had a similar impact like Red Dead Redemption on July 7, 2016 or Modern Warfare 3 on June 19, 2018 and perhaps many others.
_______________________________________________________________________
That was it! Thanks for reading, hope you liked it. If you see any mistakes of have questions feel free to ask or tell me.
Last edited:
