With Burnout Paradise and now Catherine being backwards compatible, I hate to say it, but Xbox has really stepped up their game. Not to mention others like Bully, etc. No means a fanboy, but I finally launched this Xbone back up and am really enjoying it. Anybody else?

Backwards compatibility is nice but it doesn't excite me. I have a 360 that can play all those games if needed.

I like backwards compatibility as much as anyone, and they have added some fantastic titles, but it's weird to say they've "stepped up their game" by re-releasing old games. Burnout Paradise is almost 10 years old at this point. Bully is more than that and Catherine is pretty old too. All those games were playable with an Xbox 360, a system that is well over a decade old. You don't buy an Xbox One to play old games. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice feature and I use it a lot, but it's a nice quality of life improvement, not the "main course" so to speak.

Backwards comparability has gone from a neat addition to a significant benefit over the past year. While I doubt that every good game of the past generation will eventually make the list, there are many surprises like Mass Effect 2/3 and Bioshock 1/2 that mean that almost anything is possible.

So far PS4 is the only console that has released old games I want to play (Dark Cloud 1 & 2). It also has games coming up that I want to play (Horizon: Zero Dawn). I couldn't name a single first party game from XBox that has caught my interest this generation.

Now if they released backwards compatible games that really mattered like Psy-Ops: The Mind Gate Conspiracy or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1-2 then we'll talk about XBox stepping up their game.

I've been having a great time with it, too. I have a fairly robust back-catalog of fun things I ran out of time to see, and this has been a great chance to go back and experience them. It's been fun, and I hope we see more of this kind of thing in the future. Makes me feel slightly less worried about the day my old consoles crap out on me (though I do indeed worry all the same, hehe).

Also, heck yeah to Burnout Paradise! :-)

Yeah I've been loving the BC games, they've been releasing at a good pace and it always feels great to see some of my digital games from last gen show up in my library. The amount of time I spend with them varies, but I don't have a 360 that works anymore so it's probably more useful for me than most.

I got my Xbox One in 2015 so it's been a really positive experience for me all around.

I haven't really used the BC feature as much as I thought I was going to but it's been nice to have so I can smash out some games I never finished on the 360 like Mirror's Edge and Human Revolution. Hopefully they bring back LA Noire and The Darkness.

There's like three more 360 games they'd need to do for me to be able to sell it off forever.

Im not gonna lie, I may have played like 10 hours of ME3's multiplayer when I learned that it worked with the backwards compatibility patch.

I think Xbox has done an undeniably fantastic job of righting that ship after what seemed like one of the worst launches in console history. And yes, backwards compatibility is awesome as it's given me the chance to play a few of my favorite games without having to bust out my 360 again.

That said, they still have a ways to go. Just browsing the stores on both console, it's immediately evident how many more games are available on PS4 than on XB1 and I think that's somewhat indicative of how developers may feel about the viability of the platform.

I know it's weird to be rooting for multi-billion dollar corporations lol, but as much as I may play my PS4, I feel like Sony has just been coasting by in many ways and I would hate for all the cool shit they're doing at Xbox to go unrewarded for lack of a better word.

@xdeser2: People are still playing that thing? I must've sunk about a hundred hours into that back in the day.

I feel like GWG is much better than PS+ at this point but PS4 still has more exclusives that I want to play. If that's how we're judging consoles. (I prefer XBL over PSN)

But yes their image if nothing else is slowly recovering, hopefully the Scorpio will even the playing field so Sony can start acting competitive again. (in the console space)

wrong fucking burnout to make BC

I don't know you sound like a fanboy to me. (sarcasm)

Well GWG and backwards compatibility certainly have filled my 2 terabyte drive real fast.

Yea, BC and a solid lineup of xbox/pc only games the last 2 years has really turned around the shit show that was the xbone launch. Now I just need the scorpio to be awesome because the current xbone hardware suuuuuuuuuucks butt

I've been surprised with the variety of titles that have been made backwards compatible. I never thought we'd see the likes of Catherine, de Blob 2, I Am Alive or Tour de France 2009 become eligible titles.

Yeah, they've been killing it on the BC front lately. The fact that some games perform even better on XB1 is an incredible feat of engineering. As someone with a massive 360 collection, it is much appreciated knowing I can still play these games, especially the ones that will never come to PC. It's given new life to games I thought would be forever dead like Perfect Dark and Shadowrun.

Edit: don't forget to pick up Lost Odyssey for free before the 31st.

As a PC/PS4/X1 owner, I can honestly say that my Xbox has been getting plenty of use in 2016. Part of that is because it's my newest console (got it Christmas last year) and there's some novelty to it, but I still have to give props to Microsoft for keeping it interesting. Between the ability to play all the Gears of War, Halo, Forza Horizon, and Mass Effect games in one place, the continued awesomeness of GWG, and stuff like Play Anywhere and remote play making it flexible to play where I want, I honestly have no regrets. I still recognize that I'm a crazy person and I don't recommend that people get all three platforms, but for my more casual and price conscious friends and family, I'd happily recommend an Xbox One as their primary console.

Burnout Paradise is the best burnout game and if you disagree you aren't literally me, with all my tastes and emotions and life experiences that combine to dictate what appeals to me thematically and mechanically.

A late contender for the best forum post of 2016.

Xbox has stepped up their game...by being a 360 again?

As long as their updates are still blocking you from using your console or the game you want to play and that you have to wait for the game to be installed before playing it I won't say that Xbox has stepped up the game.

I'm a long time Xbox fan but on these 2 points when you compare to the Playstation 4 it's a complete joke. PS4 lets you play your game when downloading their patch (your have to play offline but you can still play) and all the games I've played on PS4 for the last 6 months where playable from the time I put a disk inside. Persona 5, Atelier Firis and the Last Guardian, from the top of my head, were playable as soon as the disk was in, no visible installation required (it must be done in the background I guess). So, and I can't believe I'm writing this, Microsoft should really take notes and copy Sony on those points at least.

@sasnake: Telling their audience that they will honor purchases made over a decade and not force them to re-buy anything is a very pro-consumer move by MS and one that I highly appreciate. I suppose it helps that some of my favorite games were on the 360

It is a very pro-consumer move, but for a lot of people games are sort of consumable and they don't look back. It's also only ever going to be partially implemented on Xbox One (though I think basically all Xbox One games will transfer over to Xbox Two whenever that arrives.) I use the feature a lot, and apparently half of Xbox One owners use it some, but it's limited both in appeal and implementation.

As for your second point, there's still a lot of hostility towards Microsoft over the launch announcement of the Xbox One. Some of it is justified (They gimped the hardware to be able to afford to include a Kinect, which nobody really wanted, and then they had absolutely no plan on how the Kinect would be used and never released anything more than a trickle of software for it, which still seems insane to me. How do you force Kinect on everyone and have ZERO interesting software for it outside of Fantasia and maybe Kinect Sports Rivals? Meanwhile the Xbox One continues to suffer from inferior hardware specs long after the vast majority of consoles were sold without Kinect.) Some of it always confused me (I never understood why people were SO angry at the always online digital game sharing idea. So many of our games are digital now, and sharing with others could easily replace whatever benefit you get from selling your used games. Though Don Matrick was a terrible messager and his "buy a 360 if you don't have Internet LOL" and "If you're backwards compatible then you're really backwards" comments were shockingly inept.)

For whatever reason Microsoft doesn't get much credit for its positive moves this generation (nobody even seems to notice that the Forza series is the only mainline driving game series that has been consistently good, outside of Forza 5, in a generation that has been something of a desert for driving game fans who want something other than hardcore simulation) while Sony escapes criticism for some of the seriously messed up stuff they have pulled (The Last Guardian, which is not a graphic powerhouse, has a terrible frame rate on base PS4s and basically requires a PS4 Pro to run properly, for example.) Any time you praise Microsoft you get a lot of people slagging the Xbox One and calling you a fanboy. I don't really get it. The Xbox One announcement just struck some deep cord with certain parts of the Internet and it is going to take many years for Microsoft to be forgiven, even though they pulled a 180 on the stuff people hated most (which were not even bad ideas) well before launch.

I have no reason to go back and play old stuff. I do appreciate what they're doing, though. I got to check out some stuff that I missed last gen (Burnout Paradise is kinda alright).

@bigsocrates: Nice post. I ended up removing the edit above after realizing there wasn't really any bashing going in this thread, but I agree with the larger issues you've brought up regarding perception of the Xbox brand.

Xbox has definitely turned their image around for me personally, otherwise I still would have abstained from this generation as I did during the Mattrick/Kinect launch era. After the MCC debacle I was ready to completely write off 343 as a competent developer, but then alas they prove me wrong with Halo 5 and finally start doing things the community has been asking for for years.

I'm one of those crazy people who still considers Halo, Gears, and Forza to be the best in their respective genres. I realize I'm an outlier though and plenty of people would roll their eyes at such a statement. It's not that I don't want new or original IP from Microsoft (Sunset Overdrive, Ori, ReCore, etc. are all games that I enjoyed), but when I consider a gameplay loop already perfected (in the case of Halo or Gears) I don't expect the developer to reinvent the wheel with each iteration.

im just kinda bothered by the amount of attention backwards compatibility gets for this reason. I play old games. I love them. But what old ps3 games I can and cannot play doesnt make my ps4 any better. and that goes for every system. When the Backwards compatibility stuff came up when theses things were launched some were talking about not buying it because of it which just seem like making a mountain out of a mole hill.

It's nice that they're doing selective backwards compatibility but I personally wouldn't exactly call it stepping up the game no. Now something drastic like, oh, free online play, that'd be stepping up the game. Of course I don't even own a Xbox of any sort and they might already let non-gold accounts play online - in which they already stepped up the game.

This will definitely influence my decision to get s scorpio next year. I have a pretty extensive 360 collection that now collects dust.

@bradbrains: I agree with your assessment generally, but you might be overlooking that all the "free" 360 games provided each month as part of a Gold sub have to be backwards compatible, so in essence Gold subscribers get twice the available number of "free" games that can be used on a single console, versus Plus subscribers who would have to still have their PS3 hooked up if they wanted to take advantage of the last-gen games given out monthly on that service. If Sony had similar backwards compatibility, and the same requirement for Plus games, then that would make your PS4 "better," in the sense that it would provide you more readily-available value for the Plus subscription.

It's interesting but also pretty sad to see how Sony and Microsoft have been simply flip-flopping back and forth between being the 'arrogant corporate juggernaut' and the 'scrappy consumer-friendly underdog' during each of the last 3 console generations.

I honestly am wondering if this is a joke thread.

I don't see how backwards compatible games is stepping up your game.

EDIT: and why do you "hate to say it?"

Catherine. Console seller.

I don't know what I like more 2nd place Xbox or 2nd place PlayStation. One thing's for sure, they're both kinda dickheads in 1st place.

DA2 is playable on 360 (BARELY) I don't know if the original is, but DA2 runs terribly.

@frostyryan: I've been a long time PS user. I think there's plus and minuses on both sides. More and more I've been using my Xbone despite just recently buying a PS Pro. That's where I'm coming from.

I spent the first two years of the generation basically only using my PS4, but I've been switching over to PC/Xbone more and more as well. I think it is mostly that I prefer the Xbone controller by quite a bit (especially the Elite), but I also just don't do any third party gaming on my PS4 anymore. The resolution gains over the Xbone aren't enough to make a difference to me, and the PC is where I have been playing most stuff now.

I still use my PS4 for first party exclusives, but there aren't many of them.

I tried getting controller support to work on my PC copies of Mass Effect 1 & 2, but something isn't working so I'll probably just play them via EA access on the Xbox1. I'm really kinda happy about the whole thing. Here's hoping I don't get reamed over the DLC prices.

The fact that backwards compatibility and remasters have turned out to be such big deals speaks volumes about how lackluster this generation has been.

I started playing Mass Effect again, this time on PC, as my 'get into the holiday spirit' game. Six hours in I stopped and thought, "Man, it's really depressing that this console generation still doesn't have its Mass Effect."

@mlarrabee: are you using a controller? If so please share your secrets.

@skullpanda1: Nope, M&K. For a long time I thought I just hated using M&K, but it turns out I hadn't found the right ones yet. I went from an Anker mechanical keyboard and a G500 mouse, to a Das Keyboard 4 and a G502, and it's night and day.

But NexusMods has this, and it looks promising, as long as you're using an Xbox 360 controller: http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/60/?

Otherwise, I'd suggest AntiMicro. It's so usable, I actually managed to get System Shock 2 to function pretty seamlessly with a controller with it.

My Xbone has seen game play only from Horizon 3 and gears 4. Beyond that, it is a dust collector waiting for a new game. BC is only good if they do it for good games that have not already been released on PC or other consoles. BC will not persuade me to pay for GWG as I own the old consoles and pretty much the old games that I felt were worth playing. So far, I feel like the Xbone might be the last microsoft console I buy since I can only buy a console so many times for only a handful of games. They need to do something really spectacular or they will continue to lose the console market.