Xbox Backwards Compatible Games Head Statement on Program Future

The Xbox Backwards Compatible program has been stellar adding hundreds of Xbox 360 games to Xbox One. Despite this, the people involved with the program get many complaints or generally whiny people about new games being added to it. With that, the head of the program Bill Stillwell (Xbox Platform PM) sent out a statement about the program and some aspects of its future. I'm going to break down the key points of the statement with a link below as well if you'd like to read it in entirety

The biggest thing they wanted to address right away was that there has been an influx in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 tweets and mentions about the game not being available. This influx has basically led to this statement so that's interesting and its crazy how passionate gamers are about these older titles. Stillwell also noted that this was mirrored with Skate 3 and Read Dead Redemption before they became backwards compatible.

The next aspect discusses how releases work and why certain months get more releases. Like with new titles, publishers or developers actually have a release schedule in mind in order to properly push out these re-released titles. This is relatively the same with new games where most get released during the Fall, these backwards compatible games follow a similar marketing plan.



The message continues with comment on them being "100% committed to the program". It just takes time for them to work out deals on ten year old games and get all the parties involved to be satisfied with the games being backwards compatible titles. It's not as simple as just making it available as they need to work out old license agreements along with discussing how new features impact the original game. A further portion from the statement helps describe this; "Publishers often have target dates that coincide with other initiatives, such as sales, or related titles, and they want to maximize the relese. We also have long term business relationships, and want them to continue to deliver great news games to the console for many years. It makes no sesne to jeopardize that business relationship for a short-term boost."

They also encourage the excitement for the games as that's what makes the program special, but can't say when games get released. They're not able to actually discuss companies’ IP's and it really comes down to those publishers to get the backward compatibility going. They also can't say which games are in or out as those agreements are confidential and they try their best to get the anything from the Xbox 360 library that they can to play on Xbox One. A final mention would be that he can't and won't let you know when Black Ops 2, Halo or Fable games are coming, but are working to make those happen.

I personally really appreciate the work that the backwards compatible team is doing to make these games playable and am actually fully fine with what's available so far.

Our Xbox Hub
The Statement
Sortable Xbox BC Games List

Bolded statements are quoted directly from the statement and have no changes, as of March 14, 2017.