Xbox Wants to Preserve Games Players Both New and Old
For quite some time now Xbox has been pretty clear on their stance when it comes to games preservation and making games as accessible to players as possible. Whether it’s their backward compatible line-up, their Xbox Game Pass subscription, or their new Xbox Cloud Gaming service — the company has done made their legacy titles as accessible to modern platforms as they were on the systems they originally released for.
Just yesterday, Xbox announced that a series of Original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles were now available through Xbox Cloud Gaming as a part of their Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. These titles included games such as The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, the Xbox 360 exclusive, Kameo, and even the Xbox Arcade versions of Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie which originally released on the Nintendo 64.
In a response to a thankful Twitter user, Xbox doubled down on its stance on game preservation.
As time goes on, it becomes more important than ever that we ensure gaming icons and classics are preserved for new and old players alike. Whether your first time playing Morrowind is from 2002 on your Xbox or 2021 on your phone, we're excited to share these experiences with you!
— Xbox (@Xbox) March 31, 2021
“As time goes on, it becomes more important than ever that we ensure gaming icons and classics are preserved for new and old players alike,” Xbox replied. “Whether your first time playing Morrowind is from 2002 on your Xbox or 2021 on your phone, we’re excited to share these experiences with you!”
Xbox further expanding access to their legacy titles may not seem like a big deal to some, but at a time where Nintendo is removing new Mario titles from stores, and PlayStation is removing the option to purchase entire catalogs of games, Xbox’s decision to support their older titles is a bit of a unique stance to take right now.