Xbox Series X Should Enhance All Xbox 360 & Original Xbox Games

February 22, 2020 at 10:04pm
By Jason Stettner

With the jump in power from the Xbox Series X all Xbox 360 and Original Xbox titles that are backwards compatible should be enhanced as soon as they’re available. One of the real treats of being on the Xbox One X console has been the boost in quality to the older games.

It’s a rarity to see, but whenever you come across one it’s magical. It’s the experience you remember, but looking how you picture it in your head whenever you might reflect back. A stark difference to various titles that are rather rough to look at through backwards compatibility due to their jagged edges and blurry picture quality.

This would be really great to see and I can’t come up with an excuse as to why they wouldn’t be able to make this happen. If the current premium console can handle it on a number of titles, there’s not really a reason why the next generation option couldn’t go all the way for those games unless an odd emulation problem appears.

It’s also worth mentioning that Original Xbox titles are all enhanced if they’re backwards compatible, I didn’t want to leave them out of the conversation. We’ve seen some incredible boosts such as with Ninja Gaiden II that hits 60fps and looks so smooth with a higher resolution. There are the stunning original Battlefront titles, the impressive Halo 3 and even more so how Crackdown looks as though it released today due to its unique art style.

Fable Anniversary is also a great time, and if you’re lucky to still have Forza Horizon it does look excellent. To push that forward, some of the Gears of War games, the Left 4 Dead titles and of course the stunning Red Dead Redemption 2. I should leave a final mention for Fallout 3 as I’ve included a photo of that enhanced in this very article.

Anyways, the games look so good and it’s a great selling point for the console as well as those titles. I can see some having issues dealing with the quality of older games and this helps to minimize that problem. Going further on that, this might be the first time that many Xbox One owners can see the effect of the enhancement as that’s a perk only present on the One X console. Seeing Xbox Series X presenting these games at such an incredible resolution would make the games feel fresh and exciting to play again.

It’s a great excuse to replay a favorite, or try out something you missed and still have it look great on your much larger screen of today. It also would be great for game preservation, and adding value as well as longevity to these older experiences. It’s always nice to see a game running better than when it did at the time, or looking even better than how it was. It’s a wonderful touch up for older games and I’d love to see it become a standard on the on the Xbox Series X. It would also be grand if the rumored accompanying second model Xbox Series S also could deliver on this element.

I mean, there will be factors of course. Getting that emulation working for the older games, and then pushing the technology behind that further. They were able to provide boosts on some fairly high end titles, and hopefully there’s enough sitting there this time around to make that type of quality present everywhere. I would expect at least a 9x boost like usual, but perhaps they’ll be able to go further like they did with OG titles.

Those ones get 16x the pixel count compared to 9x with Xbox 360 games enhanced. That would be wild, and I’ll try to be realistic but it would be neat to see it pushed even more. I mean, SSX 3 looks insanely good with the enhancement. Whatever the case, I’m just hoping as many backwards compatible titles as possible are playable and that they expand the offering. It’s been sad dealing with the drought of new additions since they stopped to prepare for the next generation offerings. That’s it for now, read our thoughts on the mystery of the Playstation below or check out the hub for additional coverage.

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