Xbox At E3 Conference: Announces Backwards Compatibility, Teases ‘Halo 5: Guardians’

Xbox dominated the E3 conference last week, with its unveiling of virtual reality gameplay and announcement of backwards compatibility.

Xbox Announces Backwards Compatibility At E3

The E3 2015 press conference was full of new technological advances and exciting new game news, but fans agree that Xbox One stole the show. The most talked about news coming out of E3 was Microsoft’s announcement that the Xbox One will feature backwards compatibility. Backwards compatibility means that Xbox One owners will finally be able to play old games made for Xbox 360 on their newer machines.

Unfortunately, not every game will be available for backward compatibility. Xbox currently accepting fan input, with the 100 most in demand games to be made compatible for the compatibility launch expected later this year. Xbox plans on making new games compatible every month. Currently, the games with the most votes are Red Dead Redemption, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Skyrim, Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Xbox’s game changing announcement reportedly caught their main competitor, Sony’s PS4 off guard. PlayStation has its own version of backwards compatibility, but it comes at a cost to gamers. Sony’s game-streaming service, PlayStation Now, allows gamers to download old Sony games, but they have to pay for them whether they owned them or not. “I didn’t think it was possible. There must be lots of engineering effort,” said Sony President Shuhei Yoshida following the announcement.

The new Xbox One will also have a brand new controller, dubbed the ‘Elite Wireless Controller.’ The new controller features customizable buttons and promises “game-changing accuracy and speed.”

Another Xbox announcement that had fans cheering: the new Microsoft HoloLens headset that allows gamers to play a virtual reality version of fan-favorite Minecraft.

Finally, Xbox also used E3 as an opportunity to tease upcoming games, including the highly anticipated Halo 5: Guardians with new 4-player gameplay. Xbox also announced release dates for Forza 6 – which will hit shelves on Sept. 16 – and Dark Souls III, to be expected in “early 2016.”