LAST UPDATE: June 11, 2019

Improved framerate stability

Games utilizing a dynamic resolution will hit their max resolution more often, or at all times

Forced V-sync

4x the original resolution for original Xbox games

Variable refresh rate compatibility (when used with a compatible display)

16x anisotropic filtering

16x the resolution for Original Xbox Games

I had some time to kill recently and I thought it would be fun to take a numbers dive into the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Program. I'm a big fan of the program and I have been using it frequently throughout the years and completed many games I had missed for various reasons. So lets take a look at the numbers.______________________________________________________________________575 Xbox 360 Titles2103 Xbox 360 Titles Total (27.34%)1900 Xbox 360 Titles Total Excluding Kinect and Peripheral Based Games (30.26%)41 Original Xbox Titles1047 Original Xbox Titles Total (3.92%)The current tally of Backwards Compatible titles on Xbox One stands at 616 titles, 575 Xbox 360 and 41 Original Xbox. According to Wikipedia 2100 games have been released on Xbox 360, so that makes about 27.3% of the total library available on Xbox One. Since all accessoires and peripherals from Xbox 360 era do not work on Xbox One, its fair to exclude these titles from the total list. This includes all Kinect Titles, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, uDraw, Tony Hawk, DJ Hero, Scene it, Lips etc. This brings the total number to roughly 1900 titles. This brings the total perentage of BC titles to about 30.3%, not bad.Original Xbox is off course totally different. Licensing is way more complicated and making games work properly in the emulator is presumably more difficult as well. 41 Original Xbox Titles have been released since its inception in October 2017, a total of 3.92% of the total 1047 games released on Xbox._______________________________________________________________________Xbox 360 launched the concept of Xbox Live Arcade games, smaller, cheaper and generally more simpeler games. These took off once some of the games became really popular like Shadow Complex, Mark of the Ninja, Peggle, Limbo etc. In the end XBLA games formed a good part of the Xbox 360 library and there has been some debate whether or not Microsoft prioritised XBLA games over retail games for BC, because these would obviously take less time and work to bring over because of the complexity of the games. I've gathered some numbers to determine if this is true or not.575 Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible Games305 Xbox Live Arcade Games (53.04%)270 Retail Games (46.96%)Based on these numbers you could say there is a slighty higher focus towards XBLA games, especially so in the earlier years of BC. In 2018 for instance, there have only been 11 XBLA games added compared to 94 retail games. Lets take a look at a breakdown for each year:2015 = 121 games released33 Retail (27.27%)88 XBLA (72.73%)2016 = 188 games released63 Retail (33.51%)125 XBLA games (66.49%)2017 = 149 games released67 Retail (44.97%)82 XBLA (55.03%)2018 = 105 games released94 Retail (89.52%)11 XBLA (10.48%)2019 = 45 games released (Up until June 11)33 Retail (73.33%)12 XBLA (26.67%)As you can see there is a rather interesting development to be seen. There has ben a major shift to retail games this year, whereas XBLA games were the major focus point in the first two years of BC especially. Each year the percentage of retail games compared to XBLA games has gone up. But how does it stack up to the total library?2103 Xbox 360 games released795 XBLA released (38.36% is BC)1308 Retail released (20.64% is BC)Roughly 38.4% of the total XBLA library is now playable through BC, considerably higher compared to the 20.6% of retail library. This is off course due in part by the many sports titles and peripheral based games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, Sing It etc which can not be released on BC. If you exclude these titles the percentage is likely to increase to around 23%, still lagging far behind XBLA. So what is the conclusion than? In the earlier years of BC the XBLA games were definitely prioritised over retail games, probably because these were easier to port compared to the more complex retail games. In the following years and especially this year the shift has turned towards retail games, likely due to the fact the emulator is finetuned and can now process most retail titles allowing for more retail games to be added._______________________________________________________________________2015 (From Mid-November Launch) = 1212016 = 1882017 = 1492018 = 1052019 = 45 (Up until June 11)January = 50 (Average 12)February = 32 (Average 8)March = 36 (Average 12)April = 55 (Average 14)May = 51 (Average 13)June = 52 (Average 13)July = 37 (Average 12)August = 28 (Average 9)September = 38 (Average 13)October = 49 (Average 16)November = 36 (Average 12)December = 33 (Average 8)The BC program was released to the general public on November 12, 2015 with an initial list of 104 games. 17 were added later that December bringing the total to 121 for 2015. The following year was also the biggest year for BC with an added 188 titles, an average 15 games each month. 2017 saw another 149 new games added, average 12 games each month. In 2018 we saw 105 new games added, an average 9 games every month. As more titles get added the number of titles left will obviously shrink, leaving games with more complicated architectures and licensing issues. The output for the coming years will probably continue to decrease as a result of this.If we break this down by month, April and October look to be the months with the most releases on average. February, August and December seem to be the least active._______________________________________________________________________Call of Duty: Black Ops II: 109,686 VotesRed Dead Redemption: 100,358 VotesThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 97,844 VotesCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - 87,272 VotesCall of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 63,453 VotesCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - 57,582 VotesCall of Duty: World at War - 54,523 VotesMass Effect 3 - 53,801 VotesFallout: New Vegas - 51,534 VotesLeft 4 Dead 2 - 49,367 VotesGrand Theft Auto IV - 47,431 VotesBatman: Arkham City - 45,669 VotesMass Effect 2 - 45,464 VotesGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas - 38,216 VotesBatman: Arkham Asylum - 32,176 VotesBattlefield 3 - 31,469 VotesPortal 2 - 30,034 VotesThe Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - 29,713 VotesFable III - 29,709 VotesAssassin's Creed III - 29,632 VotesWhen the BC program was announced at E3 2015, Microsoft introduced a website where the community could vote for the titles they wanted added the most. This website has since been taken down, so there is no recent tally of what titles are most requested. The latest available list I could find dated back from November 2015. Of this top 20, 17 titles have since been added to BC, with the remaining 3 having re-released on Xbox One._______________________________________________________________________I thought it would be fun to see how many titles rated 90 or higher on Xbox 360 on Metacritic are BC on Xbox One. A total of 53 games on Xbox 360 have an average review score of 90 or higher. 36 of these titles are currently BC. Of the remaining 17 games, 10 are either re-released/remastered or peripheral based like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The remaining 7 games are all sports games and Forza Motorsport games which require to much licensing to be able to become BC. So that means all (BC-able) 53 Xbox 360 games that are rated 90 or higher are playable on Xbox One._______________________________________________________________________Assassins CreedBanjoBattlestationsBioshockCall of Duty *(excluding Call of Duty Classic and OG Xbox games)CrackdownCrysisDead SpaceDragon AgeFableFar CryGears of WarHaloJust CauseLeft 4 DeadLost PlanetPortalMass EffectPerfect DarkSaints RowSplinter CellStar Wars Knights of the Old RepublicStar Wars BattlefrontThe DarknessTrialsThe above 25 franchises are fully playable on Xbox One, either through BC and/or re-released Xbox One ports._______________________________________________________________________By default all Xbox 360 games that are BC receive the following enhancements on a base Xbox One or S model:Exclusive additional benefits for Xbox One XXbox One X adds additional benefits with original Xbox games, upping the resolution to 16x that of the original game, allowing for native 4K or 1920p resolutions.There are also a handful of specific Xbox 360 games with Xbox One X enhancements. These require significant additional work but allow for native 4K resolutions, better texture filtering, smoother framerates and even added HDR. These are considered by many to be a unique feature of the Xbox One X and for some even system sellers. However these require a lot of testing, optimisation and approval from the original creatures. Currently there are only 39 titles supported:From the 19 'biggest' publishers that released games through BC, Microsoft obviously has released the highest number of BC titles, 140 to be exact. Ubisoft are in second place with 51 titles, EA is third with 45 titles, SEGA fourth with 40 titles, and Capcom finishes the top 5 with 22 titles.From the 19 'biggest' publishers that released games through BC, SNK hold the highest percentage of games that are BC compared to total games released on Xbox 360, with 75%. In the case of Rockstar, of the remaining 3, 2 are re-released on Xbox One (LA Noire, GTA V), that leaves Max Payne 3 as the last Rockstar game not playable on Xbox One from the 360 era. Activision is the worst performer in this list, only 11% of its total 360 library is playable on Xbox One.In the above table I have excluded all Kinect and other peripheral based games, as well as all numbered sports titles like NBA 2K, FIFA etc. This is off course a more fair comparison since all of those titles will not be able to be added to BC. This improves the percentage significantly for publishers like 2K and EA.BigBen InteractiveCity InteractiveKoch MediaMidway GamesNordic GamesSierra EntertainmentSouthpeak GamesAll of the above publishers have not yet released a game on BC.Armored CoreDead or AliveDragon BallDynasty WarriorsF.E.A.R.Forza Motorsport *(excluding Forza Horizon)GodfatherHarry PotterLord of the RingsMortal KombatNeed for SpeedNinety-Nine NightsProject Gotham RacingRidge RacerSerious SamSpider ManTeenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesTest DriveTony Hawk Pro SkaterTop SpinTransformersUFCX-MenAll of the above franchises have no game available on the BC program. Some are pretty obvious why (movie and superhero tie-ins, sports licensing etc). Some are strange omissions like Mortal Kombat and Ridge Racer.Do Xbox gamers actually play backwards compatible games on Xbox One? Well Microsoft have said numerous times that the engagement is there; people like playing old games. At least 50% of Xbox One owners have played a backwards compatible game. But does this mean 5 minutes or actually completing a game? We don't know this and will probably never will. All we can do is make an educated guess based on the figures we do have. The latest number we've got was on October 18, 2018. Gamers have played over 1 billion hours of Xbox 360 and Original Xbox games on Xbox One – and we think our new release is only going to keep that momentum going. So what does that tell us? Well we know that there are between 35 and 40 million Xbox One consoles out there, probably closer to the latter figure after the X released. So if we break this down we can draw a few conclusions.1 billion hours played60 billion minutes played35-40 million Xbox One sold1500-1714 minutes played per Xbox One owner25-28.5 hours played per Xbox One ownerNow if we break this down further to how many days BC started up until the October 18 figure we can determine how much is actually played.1.4 - 1.6 minutes played per day (1066 days BC exists)9.8 - 11.2 minutes played per week (152 weeks BC exists)42.8 - 49 minutes played per month (35 months BC exists)These 'guesstimates' tell us the average Xbox One owner plays about 10 minutes of BC every week, and roughly 45 minutes every month. Now if we keep in mind what Microsoft said that at least 50% of Xbox One owners have tried BC you can assume these numbers would have been double that.Ah yes, the age old questions. Does BC really matter? Does it really improve sales? Is there a profit model? Do people really play old games? Well there is no clear answer to any of these questions. I do not have sales numbers, only Microsoft has these. Microsoft has told us many times people play a lot of BC games. They mentioned 50% of all Xbox One owners have tried at least 1 BC title, so the engagement is there. But is there a profit model, especially if you can just use the disc you already had?One example I can recall is when Call of Duty Black Ops II hit BC on April 11, 2017. The following month the game charted at number 10 in the NPD Chart, 5 years after the game was released. Another example is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 when it hit BC on August 28, 2018. The game was the 321 best selling title in July, yet it re-entered the top 10 at number 8 in August, having hit BC only a few days of tracking that month. Maybe other major releases have had a similar impact like Red Dead Redemption on July 7, 2016 or Modern Warfare 3 on June 19, 2018 and perhaps many others.That was it! Thanks for reading, hope you liked it. If you see any mistakes of have questions feel free to ask or tell me.