Microsoft made it clear after the Xbox One was first announced in May 2013 that the console would not be backwards compatible with games made for the Xbox 360. Now there"s word that the company is at least thinking about some kind of Xbox 360 game emulation for the Xbox One.
Kotaku Australia reports that during a session at last week"s BUILD 2014 conference on the Xbox One, an audience members asked about a possible Xbox 360 emulator for the console. Microsoft Xbox team member Frank Savage is quoted as saying:
There are, but we’re not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately. It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff. So there’s nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself.
In other words, don"t hold your breath on any kind of emulator anytime soon. Even if such a project were launched, it"s possible that Microsoft would simply re-release Xbox 360 games as downloadable titles for the Xbox One, rather than allow for old Xbox 360 game discs to be run on the Xbox One.
A few months ago, rumors hit the Internet of a "trick" that enabled Xbox 360 backwards compatibility for the Xbox One. That "trick" turned out to be a scam and the procedure only served to brick a working Xbox One.
Source: Kotaku Australia | Image via Microsoft