The dawn of next gen is almost upon us. It is during this time that we can expect hints, teases and news to get our gaming juices flowing. When it comes to giving us information on their upcoming console, Xbox is not disappointing. It is now official that Xbox Series X will launch with access to thousands of games!
In a recent blog by the Director of Program Management for Xbox Series X, Jason Ronald tells all.
“With more than 100,000 hours of play testing already completed, thousands of games are already playable on Xbox Series X today” Jason Ronald blogged on Xbox Wire. “By the time we launch this holiday, the team will have spent well over 200,000 hours ensuring your game library is ready for you to jump in immediately.”
The road to thousands of games for Xbox Series X
We were introduced to two things at E3 2015; the backwards compatibility programme and the beginning of Xbox’s bold strategy. Back then we saw the early steps of a proverbial game changer.
Fast forward to today, we have backwards compatibility with over 500 Xbox 360 titles, original Xbox games, Play Anywhere, Game Pass and the upcoming Project xCloud (currently in preview). In addition, the company have 15 game studios under its wing, all working on next gen IP, to directly address where it is most criticised; exclusive games.
Jason Ronald, says:
“Led by Halo Infinite, our 15 Xbox Game Studios teams are hard at work creating the biggest and best line up of exclusives in Xbox history. We are incredibly excited to show many of the new games in development for Xbox Series X soon.”
Going backwards to go forward…
We all know that games, achievements, progression, accessories and peripherals can move forward to Xbox Series X. The exciting news, however, is all games from the past “should play better than ever before” according to Jason Ronald.
Using the full power of the CPU, GPU and SSD, older games run natively on the new console. Therefore, all titles run at peak performance with reduced in-game load times. Interestingly, backwards compatibility games can achieve “even higher performance than the games saw on their original launch platform.”
Backwards compatible games can also benefit from HDR. As this is down to the platform itself, HDR has zero impact to the game’s performance. Jason Ronald said “we can also apply it to Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles developed almost 20 years ago.”
Spec savvy gamers would be happy to know some games can benefit from higher frame rates; from 30 fps to 60 fps or 60 fps to 120 fps. “All of these advances happen at the platform level and require no additional work from title developers.” Click here to read the full blog.
With exciting news dropping in as we get closer to next gen, it is a very exciting time to be a gamer. To keep up to date with Xbox announcements, check out Xbox news as it comes in thick and fast. For a wider array of gaming news, visit Informed Pixel and follow us at Twitter and Facebook.
