Xbox Series X will enhance thousands of older titles with HDR and 120fps support from launch

Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox Series X console will not only be the most powerful system upon launch, according to a new press release from the official Xbox site, but also the most backwards compatible as well, with thousands of games from previous generation consoles Xbox One and the original Xbox available for enhanced play upon Xbox Series X’s release.

“With more than 100,000 hours of play testing already completed, thousands of games are already playable on Xbox Series X today, from the biggest blockbusters to cult classics and fan favorites,” the Xbox press release said. “Many of us in Team Xbox play on the Xbox Series X daily as our primary console and switching between generations is seamless. By the time we launch this holiday, the team will have spent well over 200,000 hours ensuring your game library is ready for you to jump in immediately.”

The enhanced play for previously released titles will come in the form of higher performance than possible on the Xbox One and Xbox; “higher and more steady framerates and rendering at their maximum resolution and visual quality” from the custom NVME SSD which powers the new Xbox Velocity Architecture; noticeable reductions in load times and automatic HDR support thanks to the Xbox Series X’s new HDR reconstruction technique.

“Not only should gamers be able to play all of these games from the past, but they should play better than ever before,” the Xbox press explained. “Backwards compatible games run natively on the Xbox Series X hardware, running with the full power of the CPU, GPU and the SSD. No boost mode, no downclocking, the full power of the Xbox Series X for each and every backward compatible game. This means that all titles run at the peak performance that they were originally designed for, many times even higher performance than the games saw on their original launch platform, resulting in higher and more steady framerates and rendering at their maximum resolution and visual quality.”

What do you think of the intensive backwards compatibility featured on the Xbox Series X? Which old school Xbox One and Xbox titles will you be testing out in enhanced form when the next generation console is released?

The Xbox Series X is expected to release in late 2020..