It looks like Microsoft won’t be dropping support Xbox One and the Xbox One X for any reason, at least for now. The company recently held its first major reveal of games on the new Xbox Series X. And much like the Xbox One X, Microsoft will be using a certain label to let gamers know what games will work best for the new console. It looks like the new console will not be getting any complete exclusives on the platform, but many different games will be cross-platform on Microsoft’s consoles.
Microsoft has debuted a new designation for these games which are designed by the developer to work best with the new console. The Optimized for Series X logo will be applied to games that make the cut for getting onto Xbox Series X.
Every game you’ll see on #InsideXbox tomorrow will be Xbox Series X Optimized. Spoilers, you’re going to see this badge a lot.
You ready? We’re ready. pic.twitter.com/pzSJmUvNUp
— Xbox (@Xbox) May 7, 2020
The launch of the new console will look a bit strange given that there are no major exclusives lined up at launch yet. The Optimized for Series X will hopefully help avoid confusion, as these games will be clearly marked. As to what performance will look like on older hardware, that’s a bit harder to say. The practice of back-porting games is a tad weird at times, I just hope we don’t run into a situation like Shadow of Mordor on the PS3, where it was completely unplayable due to how poorly it ran.
For the Xbox Series X, backward compatibility means you don’t need to leave your old games behind, and new games that are released for the Xbox One should still, technically, run just fine on the Series X. That should help ease some users into the transition to new hardware, at least at first. I expect that Microsoft will start applying backwards compatibility to select titles fairly soon after launch, in order to reduce the workload of refactoring these games to new hardware.
