It seems kind of moronic that people don't even understand that this is beta testing as part of the preview program. Mass Effect is a perfect game to test the capabilities of the emulation and see what hick-ups they encounter.

early built. and mass effect is a bad example. that game can have heavy issues in one pass and then almost none in the next. it always had some very strange issues.

the rest of the preview games is more interesting. especially that performance can also be a little better sometimes.

so with decent improvements over the next months it could turn out to be very well.

People need to realise this is backwards compatibility in name only. What it really is, is a heavily patched version of the original game made to work on xbox one. If something won't work it will be changed. They are taking the games back to the development level and getting parts of the game to work under emulated models and other areas are replaced with newer code to work with the newer hardware. Graphics drivers for the 360 may be replaced by close copies that access the xbone gpu directly rather than emulate the original.

When you put in your 360 game the xbone accepts you have the rights to that game and downloads the patched game for you free of charge that will work on xbone.

I have absolutely no problem with this but where as the original xbox games had small patches the xbone solution is downloading the whole patched game.

This means game support is limited to how many software writers are thrown at the project. Under-resourced and the supported games will trickle out.

It's still a really brilliant thing for Microsoft to be doing though, no question but its not really backwards compatibility as only a tiny subset will get support, likely the easiest patches and the most wanted.

Still better than playing games without snap features...

Haters gonna hate

The program is in beta. It will launch later this year, and I expect it to do so with more games, and better performance.

I note that some titles run better. and that others have pointed out that texture pop-in on Mass Effect (prolific 360) is much less noticeable on the One, which DF seems to have missed.

On the positive side, we note a nice improvement in both loading times and texture streaming performance. Data often loads a few seconds quicker on Xbox One, while textures stream in much more rapidly.

You missed it.

This is the most interesting part I think:

Microsoft's insistence that Xbox 360 developers stick to the DirectX 9 console API played a role in this - it would surely have helped to create a clear route in mapping GPU instructions from one generation of processor to the next (though it begs the question of what's going to happen with later games, that used some highly inventive DX9 code to get closer to the metal).

Early games are coded according to the guide books, while later games are pulling all sorts of tricks to improve performance by using the available cpu and gpu cycles more efficiently. Red dead redemption is at the top of the wishlist, It would be interesting to see if they can get that to run in a stable state.

The easiest solution for now is to allow the user to turn off v-sync.

The most important part of this article that no one seems to be acknowledging?..

'Right now, as you might expect from early preview code, the virtual machine works and the fact that it does work is simply astonishing.'

This technology is still well and truly under Beta conditions (hence you can only access it in the Preview Program), give it time people. The fact that it works at all is something we should be celebrating. It's free. MS could have easily re-released all these games and charged people for them. I am glad that this may be one step towards ending the remastering frenzy the industry is currently under. Instead, they've enabled the ability to play your existing games so you can trade in your old console and it's completely free. Stop being so negative ;)

It was a good idea for them to try it but ultimately it will fail due to the differences in system architecture. It's too big a hurdle for them to handle effectively.

The plus point in all this though is that you'd like to imagine that this will be the last time consoles have this problem. With this generation finally going down the hardware route of PC's more or less, you'd think this trend will continue to allow for developers to have an easier time of it and also to allow cross development between consoles and PC's at the same time.

This "should" allow for much easier backwards compatibility in future generations. Its just a shame that this one won't ever work properly.

Remember when X1 fans were chastising PS4 fans for having to play remastered PS3 games? Now they're anticipating the release of the ability to play unremastered XBOX 360 games. Iron knee!!!

The difference is that this is free? MS aren't charing you for the 'privilage' of playing a game you may already own.

On the flip side to that, a remaster isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as sufficent effort has gone into making it. A simple 1080p ugprade is a poor excuse to charge customers for the same game again.

Most people don't have an issue with playing older games as long as it is either:

A. Free.

B. A significant upgrade to a game they have played before.

Of course this should always be accompanied by new games. If all you have to offer is remasters then that sucks too.