Breakdown
- Xbox is forming a team to focus on video game preservation
- President Sarah Bond acknowledges the importance of older games
- Microsoft is responsible for some games not getting preserved
Xbox wants to be the face of video game preservation, establishing a team to make sure that older games will stay playable for future consoles. It’s not yet known how the company will be preserving these games, given the involvement of other companies and licenses, so we’ll have to wait and see.
President Sarah Bond told Windows Central that they’re establishing a team to “future proof” the game library of Microsoft’s console. Bond also acknowledges that these older games are still important to the industry, promising that backwards compatibility will be a big part of the console’s identity.
“We have formed a new team dedicated to game preservation, important to all of us at Xbox and the industry itself,” Bond said. “We are building on our strong history of delivering backwards compatibility to our players, and we remain committed to bringing forward the amazing library of Xbox games for future generations of players to enjoy.”
Video game preservation has been rough recently, due to digital games getting delisted, rom sites getting taken down, and online stores going offline. It seems that Xbox wants to be the face of this, as the company claims they are making a team that will specialize in preserving more games.
Microsoft has been an interesting company to observe in the gaming space, as they’ve made video game preservation easier and harder for consumers. On one hand, the company’s stellar backwards compatibility ensures that great Xbox 360 games can still be played on a Series X or S. The other hand has announced the 360 Marketplace’s removal, ensuring that some games will never be purchasable after some time.
At the least, Xbox 360 games players already own might be playable on a Series X or S console and that’s enough for some. Maybe these games will even be compatible with the rumoured handheld Microsoft is supposedly working on. Knowing the company, that’s a more than likely case, given their digital-driven approach in recent years.