If you are a gamer looking to take your library of Xbox Live Arcade games to the Xbox One, Microsoft has a bad news for you. The company has categorically confirmed that gamers will not be able to play Xbox 360 games or transfer Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) games from the Xbox 360 to its next-generation gaming console.
"Those games will continue to run on your Xbox 360 for as long as your Xbox 360 runs," Microsoft Game Studios VP Phil Spencer tells GameSpot. "The box is not backward compatible and we think for somebody who invests in a large digital library that you want to keep your [Xbox 360]. Keep that as a vibrant part of the ecosystem," he adds.
Although Xbox One does not support XBLA, the friends list and achievements will remain constant between both platforms."That's why we've made sure that your identity, your friends, are constant between both platforms. You don't have a separate identity on Xbox one or [Xbox 360]; it's the same, you are you," Spencer says. "My friend's network is the same on both boxes, my achievements are the same. So we think that service component is an important component to keep constant across both devices."
Meanwhile, Microsoft corporate vice president Phil Harrison tells Eurogamer that the new console will not have separate sections for indie or download-only games like Xbox Live Indie Games and XBLA on the current version. Instead, Xbox One will feature just games, Harrison said. "With Xbox One and the new marketplace, they're games. We don't make a distinction between whether a game is a 50-hour RPG epic or whether it is a puzzle game or whether it is something that fits halfway between the two," he says. The new policy will consolidate indie games, AAA games and everything in-between in the same "Games" marketplace. Harrison claims that these changes won't affect the availability of indie games and that these may even help indie game developers reach more fans.
