Microsoft Clarifies Whether Xbox Series X Plays Every Xbox One Game

Since the Xbox Series X was first revealed, Microsoft has suggested that it will play every single Xbox One game. Today, it seemed to walk back this claim. Issuing a correction to a tweet (now deleted) made earlier this morning that claimed the next-gen console will play every Xbox One game, the official Xbox Twitter account noted that for now it can only confirm 1000s of games will be playable at launch.

“Correction: To date, we’ve spent over 100K hours testing your favorite games from Xbox One, including existing backward compatible 360 & OG Xbox games, on Xbox Series X,” reads the post. “While we are still in the process of validating, we can confirm thousands of games will be playable at launch.”

As you can see, the brand’s official Twitter account suggests the goal is to achieve universal backward compatibility support, however, right now it can not confirm every Xbox One game will be playable on the machine at launch. And this makes sense. After all, there’s Kinect games on Xbox One, which surely won’t be playable on the Xbox Series X.

While Microsoft’s messaging around Xbox Series X’s backward compatibility support has been hazy, one thing is clear: it’s still ahead of the PS5 in this regard. However, today Sony did confirm the PS5 will support an “overwhelming majority” of PS4 games.

What’s also clear is that backward compatibility will be a big selling point for both consoles this generation. While PS4 was able to fly off shelves without it, it doesn’t seem like the PS5 will be able to fly off anything without a decent backward compatibility offering.

The Xbox Series X is set to release sometime this holiday season. At the moment of publishing, there’s been no word how much the console will cost at launch, but there’s a growing list of confirmed launch games.