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Phil Spencer Explains How Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility Works

Phil Spencer Explains How Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility Works

In a recent episode of the Giantbomb Podcast, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer described how the Xbox team managed to get backward compatibility working on the Xbox One. In short, the team developed a “game” which is essentially an Xbox 360 emulator. This emulator emulates even the Xbox 360 OS, so you essentially have two operating systems running in the background.

This virtual machine interacts with game software and the internet as if it were a 360. So if someone were to see you playing an Xbox 360 game online on your Xbox One, it would appear to the rest of the world as if you were playing on an Xbox 360. On the upside, this means that all prior online systems should work.

“The 360 games think they’re running on the 360 OS, which they are. And the 360 OS thinks its running on the hardware, which it’s not, it’s running on an emulated VM,” Spencer said. “On the other side, the Xbox One thinks it’s a game. That’s why things like streaming, game DVR, and screenshots all work, because it thinks there’s just one big game called 360.”

Spencer said that the emulator runs every 360 game exactly the same, but the problem is that certain games simply aren’t jiving with the emulator. That’s why they are releasing games one by one, to make sure they are completely compatible. For example, Microsoft has basically just given up on making Kinect games backward compatible as Spencer has said, “translating between the Kinect sensors is almost impossible.” In addition, multi-disc games aren’t really working right now either.

Source: Gamespot

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