Xbox One Exec Responds To Report About Low Backwards Compatibility Usage

Earlier this week, a report claimed that Xbox One owners "largely ignore" the console's backwards compatibility functionality. Now, Microsoft has responded.

Xbox chief marketing officer Mike Nichols shared some data points on Twitter today about backwards compatibility usage. He said around half of all Xbox One owners have used backwards compatibility, accruing more than 508 million collective hours playing Xbox 360 games on Xbox One. This is up from 145 million hours in August 2016 and 210 million back in November 2016. The feature launched in November 2015.

A sample of almost 1 million active Xbox One accounts obtained by Ars Technica showed that only 1.5 percent of the more than 1.65 billion minutes of Xbox One usage time was spent using backwards compatibility.

Assuming these figures are correct, it seems clear that backwards compatibility is not as widely used as other features, but playtime is not the only element to consider. Knowing that older games can be played on Xbox One might be a key element in helping someone decide to upgrade to the new console.

In other backwards compatibility news, PlayStation executive Jim Ryan said this week that PlayStation fans shouldn't expect the feature anytime soon. "I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much," he said.

There are currently more than 300 games in the Xbox One's backwards compatibility catalog--you can see all of them here. Microsoft's new console, Project Scorpio, will also play Xbox 360 games with backwards compatibility.