• A character model for Rockstar Games' canceled game, Agent, has been found
• A dataminer discovered the mode within GTA 5's leaked source code
• The character model appears to be a remix of GTA 4's Niko Bellic

A fan has discovered what appears to be the early model for the main character for Rockstar Games' canceled project, Agent.

In 2023, the source code for GTA 5 was leaked, leading to all sorts of discoveries over the years, but this week, a fan shared a new discovery that shines some light on Rockstar's PS3 spy game Agent, which never saw the light of day.

User XanaBax shared their findings on the GTA Forum (thanks, Kotaku), which included assets and character models for an unknown character, suggesting that one in particular was the main character of Agent.

XanaBax explained that three of the four models were from GTA V and weren’t related to Agent, but suspects the fourth, which shows a man wearing army fatigues, wasn't a GTA 5 asset.

The dataminer claims the model was buried within a folder titled 'Jimmy', which was reportedly the codename for Agent and was also under the hierarchy list labeled 'Player', suggesting that this character was the playable protagonist.

The filename also included the mention of "NorthRig", which could be Rockstar North, the studio that was originally developing the game.

What's more, it appears that the character is a kind of remix of Grand Theft Auto 4's Niko Bellic. XanaBax explained that "some parts of the model are taken from/edited versions of Niko Bellic" and the head model "has more or less the same UV map (excluding the hairline)."

The boots pictured are Niko's boots, and the camo pants are an edited version of Niko's.

The model has never been used in GTA 5 or GTA Online, and XanaBax claims it has a 2009 date attached, which would be two years after Agent was first mentioned by Rockstar.

"Agent takes players on a paranoid journey into the world of counter-intelligence, espionage and political assassinations during the height of the Cold War at the end of the 1970s," Rockstar teased at the time.

The project was first teased at E3 2007 in partnership with Sony, but was officially announced at E3 2009. The game was slated to release in 2010, but after a long period of radio silence, the trademark finally expired, and in 2021, Agent‘s official website was taken down.

A former Rockstar developer shared that both Agent and GTA 5 were being developed simultaneously, but more resources and people were eventually moved onto GTA 5, leading to Agent's apparent cancellation.

In other related news, fans have uncovered a collection of hidden Grand Theft Auto 4 assets on a second-hand Xbox 360 that turned out to be a Rockstar Games development kit.

• A thrifted Xbox 360 has been revealed to be an old Rockstar Games dev kit
• The console features a pre-release version of Grand Theft Auto 4 and 120GB hard drive full of unreleased assets
• Some assets included cut content, including an apparent zombies mode

Fans have uncovered a collection of hidden Grand Theft Auto 4 assets on a second-hand Xbox 360 that turned out to be a Rockstar Games development kit.

User 'janmatant' shared their find on the GTA Forums fan website, revealing that they purchased the console from a boot sale in Edinburgh, Scotland, for £5 (roughly $7), the same city where developer Rockstar North is located.

Images posted on the forum show the thrifted white Xbox 360 with a sticker on the top that reads "Rockstar North Ltd" and features the Rockstar Games logo, but its the content 120GB hard drive that has GTA fans going wild.

"Something big has dropped," one user said in the comments of the post.

After some investigation, it was discovered that the hardware appears to contain a 2007 pre-release version of GTA 4, along with a treasure trove of unfinished and unreleased assets that have now been uploaded to the Internet Archive.

Alongside ferry assets that appear to have been cut from the main game but were used in cutscenes and trailers, fans have also uncovered different radio stations and songs that are different from the release version, as well as unused weapons like a revolver, a silenced pistol, unfinished animations, and beta versions of character models.

But the biggest discovery is what appears to be an unfinished zombies mode, which featured specific pickups and assets like bloody police bodies and a hospital gurney.

As Kotaku reports, Obbe Vermeij, a former Rockstar Games developer who worked on GTA 4, has since said that he doesn't remember much about a zombies mode in a post on X / Twitter, and suggested that it was an "experiment" by a team of artists and other devs "that didn't work out.

"There were a lot of those," Vermeij added.

It'll take fans a while to completely pick apart the 120GB worth of content, but at least they'll have something to keep them occupied while we wait for Grand Theft Auto 6, which launches on November 19, 2026, for PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.

• Former Microsoft executive Peter Moore has said that if Xbox hadn't spent so much time and money repairing Xbox 360 consoles, "I'm not sure the Xbox brand would be around today"
• Moore called it a "defining moment" for the company
• He also believes that if Xbox did fall, the games industry would have suffered

Former Microsoft lead Peter Moore believes the Xbox brand might not be around today if the company hadn't focused on repairing countless Xbox 360 consoles.

In an interview with The Game Business, Moore suggested that the company was in hot water trying to figure out how to fix the Xbox 360's "red ring of death", but determined that spending the $1.15 billion on repairs is what ultimately saved its future.

"It took us a while to figure out what was going on," Moore said (thanks, GamesRadar). "Were the fans in the right place? [...] Trying to figure out whether, you know, [...] wrapping the towel around it would create more heat, which would rejoin some of the issues of the cracks in some of the units. All of this was going on, and it was stressful. But the one thing I will always say is, you know, this was, for us, a defining moment.

"If we hadn't done what we did, I'm not sure the Xbox brand would be around today."

Moore continued, saying, "We felt that that was money well spent to hang on to a brand that we built, that we felt had huge viability going forward – and of course it does," he said. "And doing good by the gamers."

However, Moore believes that if Xbox had fallen, the game industry as a whole would have suffered.

"Rising tide lifts all ships. Microsoft's entry into the market created a massive rising tide," he said. "They put billions of dollars into marketing, advertising, R&D, and I don’t think the industry would be anywhere close to what it is today if Microsoft wasn't involved."

In other news, Microsoft recently made significant cuts to its gaming division, laying off an estimated 9,000 staff members, and canceling multiple projects such as the Perfect Dark reboot, Everwild, and an unannounced MMO from The Elder Scrolls Online developer.

You might also like...

• Best Xbox Series X games 2025: smash hits for Microsoft's top console
• I’ve spent 40 hours exploring Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and it’s an incredible sequel that builds upon its unique predecessor to become a masterpiece
• Marvel Rivals season 3 is making big changes to how you earn your rewards, but you can still claim extra goodies by simply watching your favorite Twitch streamer play the game

EA has announced that it will be delisting three Battlefield games from select digital storefronts later this month.

In a recent post shared to X / Twitter and spotted by Eurogamer, the publisher confirmed that as of Wednesday, July 31 it will be removing Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, and Battlefield: Hardline from sale on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

This means users will no longer be able to purchase the titles from the digital storefronts or the extra related content, such as downloadable content (DLC) or any other add-ons.

What's more, online services for Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, and Hardline on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are also scheduled to end on November 7, 2024. 

"While the online components of these titles close for these platforms, if you own the game, you will still be able to play the single-player component," EA explained. 

The publisher also noted that Battlefield 3 will still be playable on PC, and that Battlefield 4 and Hardline will be playable on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, saying that the announcement "does not affect these titles and platforms".

Although EA didn't offer a reason behind the delisting, it did comment on its official help site that, "some games go away for legal reasons, or because players are asking for resources elsewhere" adding, that "there comes a time in every game's lifecycle when it makes sense for us to remove it from online stores. We refer to this process as 'sunsetting'."

Elsewhere, Dice has announced a brand-new Battlefield 2042 collaboration with Dead Space. The limited-time crossover event will introduce a new mode called Outbreak inspired by the horror series and is set to begin on July 9, with free rewards to earn.

You might also like...

• Best FPS games - essential first-person shooters
• The best Xbox deals in July 2024
• Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is getting a re-release this summer for PC and consoles, with enhanced visuals and new PS5 DualSense features

We know that Microsoft is hard at work on its next Xbox console, which Xbox president Sarah Bond has claimed will be “delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation.” And while I’ve little doubt that the next Xbox console will impress when it comes to cutting-edge visuals, it’s what the company is planning for its prior generations that has me most intrigued.

Bond also recently confirmed, via internal emails, that Xbox has “formed a new team dedicated to game preservation,” which suggests that the company will continue to embrace one of its strongest suits: backwards compatibility. Xbox has always been impressive on this front, offering genuinely forward-thinking features like performance-boosting patches and Xbox Cloud Gaming compatibility with a handful of games.

But there’s always more that can be done to cement Xbox as the go-to platform for backwards compatibility. Here are five things I want to see the next Xbox console achieve for backwards compatibility improvements going forward.

Continued support for Xbox Series and Xbox One games

Right now, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles offer backwards compatibility for the vast majority of the last-generation Xbox One library. That goes for physical discs and digital copies of the games via the Microsoft Store.

Granted, supporting the previous generation now seems to have become the industry standard; we also see Sony offering full compatibility for PS4 games on the PlayStation 5. So, I’m confident that this is something we’ll also see going into the next generation of consoles. However, while Xbox will likely offer backwards compatibility for Series X titles, I’d like to see Xbox One games maintain a presence, especially ones that haven’t received an enhanced current-gen patch.

A wider selection of classic, older games

There’s a very good selection of Xbox 360 and original Xbox games currently available via backwards compatibility. However, we haven't seen that many new arrivals added in the last couple of years, which Microsoft has chalked up to licensing issues.

That said, there are still plenty of classic Xbox games that never found a presence on Xbox Series consoles or Xbox One. Off the top of my head, legendary Xbox games like Jet Set Radio Future, Forza Motorsport 4, and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition never got the call-up to being hosted on current-gen systems.

I’d love to see Xbox redouble its efforts on this front and feature even more classic Xbox titles on its next console. The current roster is extremely impressive, so casting the net out a bit wider will go a long way to get the Xbox brand back into gamers’ good books.

More enhanced/FPS boost versions

One of the most impressive features Xbox brought to backwards-compatible games this generation was the enhancement patches. These are incredibly substantial, offering higher resolutions and framerates for many titles that were previously locked to 30fps or were perhaps a little too ambitious for the hardware of the time.

For example, Sonic Unleashed on Xbox Series X is the definitive way to play this much-loved entry. On the console, it runs at a near-flawless 60fps at 4K resolution; that’s a far cry from the sub-30fps performance found on its native hardware. And as the game never got an official PC port, the fact a superior version is available on Xbox Series consoles is extremely laudable.

There are plenty of others that have received this treatment too. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13, Mirror’s Edge, and the Gears of War series among many others are better than ever thanks to these enhancement patches, and it’s something we’re just not seeing on competing hardware apart from games that are lucky enough to receive quality remasters or remakes. 

Have more classic games available through streaming

Sometimes I feel like the Xbox Cloud Gaming service doesn’t often get the praise it deserves. Available through the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription tier, it offers much of that Game Pass library via cloud streaming, with no need to download and making them playable on devices like phones, tablets and even your web browser.

There are some Xbox 360 and original Xbox games hosted on Xbox Cloud Gaming. However, these are typically games from either Xbox Game Studios or Electronic Arts (as part of EA Play). That’s excellent for folks who want to play the Dragon Age series on the go, but it’d be fantastic to expand Xbox Cloud Gaming support to many more backwards compatible games. 

What’s more, such games are likely to burden streaming performance much less overall, allowing those of you who enjoy streaming via mobile a wider library of classic games to experience on the go.

Achievements for original Xbox games

Lastly, while admittedly not essential to the future of Xbox backwards compatibility, I think it’d be very neat for Microsoft to start introducing achievements to original Xbox games. Achievements could add a whole new dimension of play to classic Xbox titles like The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, Crimson Skies and Panzer Dragoon Orta.

Sony has done this a few times for pre-PS3 titles available through PS Plus’s retro catalogue. These include PS1 classics like Ape Escape, Jumping Flash, Syphon Filter, and Everybody’s Golf. It’s clearly something that’s doable, then. While a little frivolous, perhaps, this could potentially encourage familiar players to return to classics to capture fond gaming moments in time or for modern achievement chasers to try out games for the first time.

You might also like...

• GameSir X2s Type-C mobile controller review
• If rumors of new mobile hardware are true, these would be the 7 best Xbox handheld games to play first
• This budget mobile controller beats the Backbone One with one fantastic feature

Dark Souls 2's PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will have their servers taken permanently offline next year.

The news was confirmed by the official Dark Souls Twitter account, which stated the 2014 game's servers will be offline as of March 31, 2024. Players on PS3 and Xbox 360 will be warned of this via an in-game message and, it can of course still be played fully offline.

The Twitter account also confirmed that servers for the game's PC version, as well as for the PS4 and Xbox One's Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, will remain online for players to continue enjoying co-op, PvP, and other online elements such as covenant interactions and leaving messages for others. And yes, this version of the game is backward compatible on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

While it's likely that Dark Souls 2's online user base is relatively minuscule on PS3 and Xbox 360 these days, it's nevertheless a shame to see the game's oldest servers come to a permanent end. Especially so for players who don't own more up-to-date systems or simply prefer the base game before the Scholar of the First Sin version's divisive changes.

Dark Souls 2 is largely considered to be the black sheep of the Souls trilogy. And to an extent that's true, as it features relatively linear and uninteresting level design and a rather bland art direction when compared to the games that bookend the trilogy.

That being said, Dark Souls 2 has arguably the most fun and interesting online environment of the three. Its massive weapon variety has led to a thriving PvP scene, even a decade on from its original release. So it'll be a shame to see that go, even if it's for consoles that are about as old as the game itself.

Interested in playing more Dark Souls-inspired titles? You may want to check out our list of the best soulslike games to see what developers beyond FromSoftware are doing with the popular subgenre.

Stephen Kick, the CEO of Nightdive Studios and director of the 2023 System Shock remake, has hinted on Twitter that the studio may be looking to remaster and port the 2007 first-person shooter The Darkness over to PC. 

As PCGamesN reports, responding to a tweet which pleaded, “somebody please remaster and port [The Darkness] to PC sometime”, Kick wrote: “IT’S ON THE LIST.” This has sent fans of the PS3/Xbox 360 title wild, although it’s not clear at the time of writing what this so-called list actually means for the game.

Nightdive Studios is well known for its modern remasters of older games - this year’s System Shock remake aside, the studio previously developed 2020’s Doom 64, as well as Shadow Man: Remastered and Forsaken Remastered, just to name a few. As such, it’d be hardly surprising if the studio’s attention was turned to The Darkness, which was originally developed by Starbreeze Studios. 

However, whether Kick’s tweet simply reveals Nightdive’s interest in the title or confirms that something is officially in the works is another matter - without a trailer or tweet from the Nightdive Studios Twitter account, it seems safer to assume the former for now.

For those unfamiliar, The Darkness is based on Top Cow Productions’ comic book series (which has the same name) and follows the exploits of Jackie Estacado, who awakens to an ancient force that has been passed down through his bloodline after he’s targeted for assassination by the Don of the Franchetti crime family. It received generally highly positive reviews when it was first released, and also got a sequel in 2012 which was developed by Digital Extremes and did come to PC. 

Although Kick’s tweet is certainly promising for fans of the FPS, be sure to hype responsibly.

For some spicy new game recommendations, be sure to take a look at our selection of the best FPS games, as well as the best PC games available to play now. You can also check out the most exciting upcoming games in our roundups of new PS5 games and new Xbox Series X games. 

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said that he "would love to find solutions" to avoid losing Xbox 360 games when the digital store closes next year.

In a recent Xbox Gamescom 2023 interview with Eurogamer, Microsoft's head of gaming was asked about the announcement that the digital Xbox 360 store will be closing in July 2024 and what his stance is on game preservation.

Spencer explained that Team Xbox ships all of its games to PC because it's "the best ecosystem" and thinks for Xbox 360 games, backward compatibility through the Xbox Series X|S is "the best place to go for those games."

"There’s a list of, what 220 games that are not back compat, and I have that list and I’ve got it stapled on my forehead, and like, how can we make sure [you can play them still?]," Spencer said.

"How many of those are on PC? That’s one thing, because it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be able to play it on the existing hardware that you bought 15 years ago, but preservation is front and centre when all these decisions are made."

He went on to say that preserving games that are linked to only one platform "is a challenge" because there are those who love certain pieces of hardware, but "mechanical things will break over time."

"But that’s why we gave people with this decision a year," Spencer added. "Let’s say 'hey, if you want to go buy things in the 360 store, we’re going to give you a year headstart, and you can go get those things’. And just know that the list of the 220 games is something that we see, and we would love to find solutions for those games to continue to play."

The Xbox boss also recently spoke on the ongoing Activision Blizzard deal and explained that the acquisition is about "mobile capability" as Microsoft looks to grow its mobile audience. 

If you're looking for something to play, check out our list of the best Xbox Series X games you can play right now.

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox 360 marketplace will be shutting down on July 29, 2024. So, Xbox 360 users will no longer be able to purchase and play new games or any DLC from the store.  

November 2023 will mark 18 years since the original release of the console, and with the Xbox Series X and Series S now carrying the beacon as Microsoft’s flagship consoles, alongside several iterations of the Xbox One before the release of the X|S, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the now-dated console is being phased out. But, that doesn’t mean the shutting down of the marketplace won't be a huge loss of titles. 

As reported by VGC, more than 220 titles will disappear when the marketplace shuts down due to them not currently having physical counterparts, which feels like a significant loss for those titles that don’t currently have backward compatibility on Microsoft’s latest consoles. With almost a year left on the marketplace’s lifespan, there’s still a chance for the vast majority of these titles to slowly make their way over to current-gen consoles, but there have been no announcements as of yet. 

Luckily, there is still a huge number of physical Xbox 360 games that you’ll still be able to enjoy on the console rather than writing it off entirely, but these are expected to increase in value as they become harder to find now the online marketplace is closing, similarly to the closure of the Nintendo 3DS store and the fluctuation of physical Nintendo DS games. 

You will still have from now until July 2024 to purchase and download any content from the marketplace, and once the store is closed you will still be able to play your content on the console, but the same doesn’t apply to any TV and movie content. Alongside the closure of the 360 marketplace, the console will stop supporting the Microsoft Movies & TV app, and content will no longer be viewable on the system. 

If you’re waiting for the best opportunity to upgrade your setup, this might be it, and the best Xbox Series X games will help you make the most of your console from the get-go. We’ve also compiled the best games on Xbox Game Pass for those who want to make the most of their subscription service, too.  

Games with Gold is leaving the Xbox 360 behind, but not before featuring one of the console's best games.

On September 16, Games with Gold will receive its last ever Xbox 360 game in the form of Portal 2. If you own an Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One and have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, you'll be able to download and play Valve's classic puzzler via backward compatibility at no extra cost on your subscription.

Earlier this year, Microsoft said it would be retiring support for Xbox 360 games on the Games with Gold service. As of October 1, more Xbox One games will take their place. Though it's possible we may still see some original Xbox games featured through the service.

Portal 2 isn't the only game on the September docket. It'll be joined by fantasy adventure Gods Will Fall, shoot 'em up Double Kick Heroes, and theme park manager Thrillville. But Valve's puzzler is far and away the best of the four, even if it's being emulated from older hardware. That means a lower resolution, 30fps framerate cap and longer load times.

Was it all worth it?

Since the advent of Xbox Game Pass, the Games with Gold service has always felt like a damp squib. Doubly so, considering many of the games that the service features are often also available on Game Pass, and for much longer periods.

Games with Gold has often been criticized as an afterthought. Most of the time, it certainly doesn't keep up with PS Plus's free monthly games, which frequently dazzles us with its high-profile offerings.

I'm personally not sure why Microsoft feels the need to hold onto Games with Gold as a service. Xbox Game Pass achieves much the same, albeit with a much larger library stuffed with triple-A blockbusters, indie darlings and no shortage of day-one releases.

In future, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft phases out Games with Gold entirely. Hopefully not by the time it's run out of Xbox One games to feature, though, otherwise it'll be around for potentially decades.

And as for Portal 2, sure, it's available on a number of other platforms, including PC and Nintendo Switch. But if you only own an Xbox, and have yet to play Valve's mind-bending adventure, set a couple of afternoons aside. It's one of the best puzzle games to date, and the brilliantly witty script will have you hooting and hollering throughout its 8-10 hour runtime. Oh, and you can grab a buddy for one of the best co-op experiences out there, too.

• A new PS5 model just dropped – but won't solve the console's biggest problem

Xbox Games with Gold is about to get a lot better. Or a lot worse, depending on how much you like Xbox 360 games.

Both Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles are backwards compatible with older Xbox games. As such, users with an Xbox Live Gold subscription have been able to download Xbox 360 games each month as part of the Games with Gold monthly lineup.

But that's about to change. A user on the r/Games subreddit posted an official Microsoft email that confirms Games with Gold's Xbox 360 support is ending this October.

The email states that Xbox Live Gold users (or those who get its benefits as part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription tier) will stop seeing Xbox 360 games on the monthly service from October 1. The reason being that the company has "reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games to the catalog."

It's not all bad news, though. In the same email, Microsoft confirmed that Games with Gold will continue running. Albeit with more Xbox One games to replace the 360 omissions.

Additionally, come October 1, you won't lose access to any Xbox 360 games you've downloaded via Games with Gold. If you've downloaded them even once, they're yours to keep for good.

The shot in the arm Games with Gold needed?

Xbox's Games with Gold has been a controversial service for some time now. Many have felt that the monthly offerings are severely lacking in comparison to the vast and evolving library offered by Xbox Game Pass. Not to mention those offered on rival subscriptions like PS Plus and Nintendo Switch Online.

Microsoft's comment about reaching the limit of available Xbox 360 games checks out, too. Last year, the tech giant added over 70 titles via backwards compatibility. And even back then, the company was adamant about that being the extent of their efforts.

I think removing Xbox 360 games from Games with Gold is for the best. While plenty of great 360 games have appeared on the service, their presence does have the unfortunate effect of making it look a bit dated. Swapping older games out for more recent Xbox One titles should help to modernize Games with Gold, at least a little.

Ultimately, Games with Gold is still somewhat anomalous among Xbox's various subscription tiers. Xbox Game Pass achieves the same goal of providing downloadable games on a regular basis, and many of them are day one releases.

Games with Gold feels like a relic in comparison. So much so that I wouldn't be surprised if the service eventually becomes fully absorbed into the Xbox Game Pass ecosystem somewhere down the line.

• We interviewed Xbox Series X's dev chief on backwards compatibility

Ubisoft has shut down online multiplayer for 90 games, including Rayman Legends on PC, and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 on Xbox One. 

The announcement on Ubisoft’s website lists the full 90 games affected, which span a range of platforms such as PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360, and even the ill-fated OnLive cloud gaming service. These titles will no longer feature online multiplayer, but offline features for each game will remain available.

The server shutdown means that in-game news and play statistics for these Ubisoft games will also be disabled from now on. And any title that used Ubisoft Connect services will no longer let players earn Units and complete Challenges.

While there’s an argument to make that many of the titles are old at this point – along with the platforms included – backward compatibility means that a number of these games will now no longer be fully complete if players revisit them. Several of the affected games can be played on Xbox One, like Just Dance for instance, but won't have online support anymore.

Here’s the full list of Ubisoft games that no longer have online multiplayer support:

Another blow to video game preservation

Seeing so many Ubisoft games lose online support is concerning, especially as there will be people out there who were still playing these games. While it's easy to understand why a publisher makes these types of decisions – hosting and maintaining servers isn't free – it's still disappointing nonetheless.

Thankfully, we've seen a resurgence in recent years to preserve video games via backward compatibility. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have all been guilty of abandoning the old for the new, but there's definitely been a clear shift to do more to ensure that older titles can still be played and enjoyed by a new generation of players.

Microsoft, in particular, has led the way with its Xbox backward compatibility program, while Sony will soon offer access to its older titles via its new PS Plus subscription service. Nintendo has taken a similar route, granting Nintendo Switch Online subscribers access to hundreds of NES and SNES games, while those who subscribe to the Expansion Pack tier can play N64 and Sega Genesis games.

In an ideal world, no game would ever need to lose features, nor would gamers need specific hardware to enjoy them. Unfortunately, though, we expect to see more games lose online functionality in the years to come, and more digital storefronts will likely close down.

• Nintendo Switch Online is ready to rival PS Plus and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

When Microsoft ruled out backward compatibility during the Xbox One’s launch in 2013, it just seemed like par for the course. 

At the time, consumers were generally expected to start their gaming collection from scratch whenever a new console came out and hold on to the necessary hardware if they ever wanted to replay older games. 

There was also a common consensus in the industry that people probably didn’t want to play last-gen titles, something which Microsoft has since categorically disproved. 

In an interview with TRG, we spoke with Xbox’s director of program management Jason Ronald about the team’s backward compatibility journey, the challenges they faced along the way, and the importance of game preservation in the future.

Power your dreams 

In 2015, Microsoft rocked E3 with a seismic announcement: backward compatibility was coming to Xbox One. Fans could look forward to playing Xbox 360 and original Xbox games again, and even use the original disk, play over Xbox Live, and access their old save files if they’d been uploaded to the cloud. 

The raucous cheers that erupted throughout the Microsoft Theater on that day ultimately solidified one thing: people still wanted to play these older games that were cherished by the gaming community.

Jason Ronald, director of program management at Xbox, still remembers those cheers today, and how they helped invigorate the team behind Microsoft’s ambitious project.

“When we announced it – it's probably the biggest reaction I've ever seen at one of our press conferences,” Ronald says with a smile. 

“It just really gave confidence to the team. Like, we're on the right path. We're listening to the fans, we're listening to the community, and they love what we're doing. And that's really been what's powered the entire backward compatibility program since then.”

But how did Microsoft overcome the seemingly impossible technical challenges that prevented backward compatibility on Xbox One in the first place? Ronald stressed that, once again, it was the community that initially inspired the team at Xbox to focus on making backward compatibility work.

“We had seen the feedback from the community that backward compatibility was one of the top requested features to try to add to the Xbox One program. But to be completely honest, we actually didn't know if it was going to be possible,” Ronald explains.

“If you look at the architecture of an Xbox 360 versus an Xbox One, they're fundamentally different architectures. And we didn't know if we were going to be able to emulate some of these games, or what kind of problems we would run into.”

Undeterred by the possibility that the team might hit a dead end, Ronald and a group of colleagues set off on tackling the monumental challenge set before them.

“We built a small team of some of our top engineers and we kind of squirreled them away,” Ronald recalls.

“We said, ‘Hey, give us a year. Let us see if we can actually make this work.’ And I remember the first time I saw an Xbox 360 game running – it was that moment where, all of a sudden, you believed it was possible.”

As Ronald reiterates, the team at Xbox really didn’t know if backward compatibility would even work, nor could they predict the other hurdles they’d face along the way.

“We had no idea what kind of challenges we'd run into, whether they're technical or legal or licensing. So it was an entire journey. Over that year, we really had all these amazing milestones where we started instilling more and more belief in the team and our ability to go do it,” Ronald says, clearly brimming with pride.

Level up

The team's belief led to a number of innovations that could modernize some backward compatible games, and it all started with Xbox One X enhancements. Using the additional graphical horsepower of the Xbox One X, Microsoft was able to bring 4K resolutions to 720p games like Red Dead Redemption and Final Fantasy XIII, along with many others.

On the newest Xbox Series X and S generation of consoles, things went even further. Microsoft introduced FPS Boost and Auto HDR, which could double and even quadruple the frame rate of older titles, as well as add high dynamic range to games that were released before HDR was even invented.

Not only did these technical improvements help transform original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games into feeling new again – something that was typically only reserved for full-priced remakes or remasters – but these updates were completely free.

So will we see any more FPS Boost titles in the future? Ronald refused to rule it out but did explain why it isn’t as easy as flicking a switch.

“To be honest, we don't really know right now,” Ronald says candidly.

“One of the challenges that we have on some of the enhancements and the capabilities that we have is that we do all of this with no code changes to the actual original game. So, as we identify new techniques of enhancing and optimizing titles, oftentimes, we know it won't work on all games. And I think FPS Boost is a great example of that, where we're kind of tricking the game into running at a much higher frame rate.

“And some games it just works really well. But there have been other games that 99% of the game looks and plays amazing. But then we actually discover a game-breaking bug 80% of the way through or 90% of the way through,” says Ronald. “And a lot of times, we try to come up with solutions, and we see if we can work through those issues. But since we treat it as a black box, we don't have the ability to change the game code directly.

“It's one of those challenges. But we’re also kind of pushing these games further than they've ever been pushed before. And unfortunately, some of the techniques just don't work across all games.”

Digging up the past 

As is human nature, the success of the backward compatibility program has ultimately led to one familiar question arising: why isn’t every game backward compatible on Xbox Series X and S? Much like FPS Boost, it isn’t as straightforward as you might think. 

Ronald admits that part of the challenge was that Microsoft, and the video games industry as a whole, hadn’t really designed games with future generations in mind, which posed a number of unexpected problems.

“A lot of the games in the original Xbox generation or the Xbox 360 generation, at that time, the idea of forward compatibility – and thinking about how these games will live on – was not part of the DNA of the industry,” says Ronald. 

“There would be titles that we would be working on, and we would get them technically working. But then all of a sudden, we’d realize all the different approvals that we would need: whether it's a publisher or developer or a license holder. 

“And that actually created a lot of work and a lot of challenges,” Ronald goes on to explain. “In some cases, when you think about the consolidation of companies, or IP being purchased, sometimes it's even difficult to figure out who you need approval from!

“But I will say every game is a unique challenge. And that’s one of the harder things to get across to the community. Because people are like, ‘Oh, well, you did this game, you should do that game’. Every game is a unique set of challenges and that's where a lot of the work goes behind actually bringing a game forward.”

Barriers to entry 

Issues with licenses, publishers, and technical quirks would mean Ronald’s team could often start with a list of hundreds of games they wanted to add to the Xbox backward compatibility program, but with the understanding that they had no idea how many would make the cut or how long it might take. Some titles, as Ronald shares, have taken years to be added to the program due to the aforementioned issues. 

“When we started this last patch [over 70 back-compat titles were added on November 20, 2021], we actually started with a list of hundreds of games that we were going to go try,” says Ronald. “And we didn't know if we were going to get five [titles], if we were going to get 10 [titles], or if we're going to get 20 [titles]. 

“And to be honest, there are some games in the program that I just never thought we would be able to bring forward. It’s a labor of love and it takes, in some cases, years to be able to bring these games forward, but the team has always been really committed to doing everything we can for the fans.” 

Remembering the OGs 

Fundamentally, it’s Xbox fans, young and old, who have benefited most from the backward compatibility program. But has it been worth it for Microsoft as a whole? Ronald refers to his own personal experience for an answer.

“Obviously, we’re really happy with the response to the program. And we've seen a lot of new players come into franchises they've never played before,” says Ronald. “My son, he's 13. His first Fallout was actually Fallout 4, and he's really started to love the world and the universe that they made. 

“For him to be able to go back and play Fallout 3, or to play Fallout: New Vegas. He's now getting to experience the games that I loved when I was younger, so it's just a great experience. I think it absolutely brings people back into the ecosystem. It rekindles people's memories and love for some of these franchises. And it also introduces new players to the games that we all love.”

Game preservation could shape future consoles 

Game preservation has become a more prominent issue in recent years, specifically how video game manufacturers need to do more to ensure that the great games of the past can be enjoyed by generations to come.

Ronald says the team at Xbox is committed to game preservation, and that the backward compatibility program helped the team get a better grasp of how to handle it in the future. 

“Game preservation is definitely in our DNA,” says Ronald proudly. “I think over the course of this program, we've learned a lot about game preservation, whether it's technical decisions, the way that games are actually ingested into the catalog, the way that we sign contracts and deal with licensing, and whatnot. I think it's actually informing not only us but the entire industry of what we can do to preserve these games moving forward.”

Interestingly, Ronald also shares that Microsoft’s commitment to backward compatibility helped shape the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and will likely influence the next Xbox consoles.

“When designing the Xbox Series X and S, backward compatibility was a tenant of the program from day one and actually influenced the design of the silicon, the design of the hardware. It was like, ‘Okay, how do we make sure that these games not only work but play better than ever before.’ So absolutely, as we think about future devices, as we think about future platforms, we're always thinking about what unique things can we do to enhance or optimize these games?”

Ronald rightly points out that it’s not just about making older games look at play better, though, but also about accessibility. 

“I think about something like Project X cloud [Xbox Cloud Gaming], and the fact that I can play a game that was written on the Xbox 360 on a phone. Trust me, when you were writing a game on the 360, nobody was thinking about a future where the game is gonna be running on the cloud. It can be streamed to my phone while I'm on the go, but my progression moves forward with me. So not only is it about optimizing enhancing games, but it's about how we can provide new ways for people to play these games.”

Jump in 

The Xbox team has been on quite the journey with backward compatibility, then. There have been numerous challenges from day one, but thanks to the support of the community and some dogged determination from Microsoft’s engineers, we’re now able to enjoy and rediscover these games once again. 

“A great game is a great game,” says Ronald. “It doesn't matter if it was written today, or if it was 15 years ago. We want to preserve that art form, and we want to just be able to reach more players across the world.”

We couldn’t agree more.

• Xbox Series X vs Xbox Series S: which Xbox is right for you?

Microsoft is commemorating the Xbox 360’s infamous ‘Red Ring of Death’ hardware error with a new poster that costs $25.

The glossy, fingerprint-resistant 18 x 24-inch poster, which is available from the Xbox Gear store and ships internationally, shows the all-too-familiar Red Ring of Death that plagued thousands of Xbox 360 owners 15 years ago – a hardware failure that cost Microsoft more than $1 billion in warranty expenses. 

Alongside the poster, Microsoft is also releasing a six-part online documentary, Power On: The Story of Xbox, which touches on key moments of Xbox history, including the story behind the Xbox 360’s Red Ring of Death debacle.

Of course, not every Xbox 360 owner encountered the Red Ring of Death, but it’s fair to say that those who did weren’t exactly delighted by having to ship their console off for a repair. Fifteen years on, though? Well, maybe enough time has passed that we can now look back with a more jovial perspective.

Analysis: Xbox is embracing its history

It might seem distasteful to create a poster of a hardware error that seriously inconvenienced gamers – and charge for it – but the Red Ring of Death has certainly gained iconic status in Xbox history. The poster also serves as yet another example of Microsoft leaning into its past failures and criticisms in a way that's won the admiration of many fans.

The team most recently turned the internet’s mockery about the Xbox Series X’s design into an actual consumer product in the Xbox Mini Fridge, which promptly sold out. And Microsoft responded to major leaks, like the Xbox Series S reveal, in a tongue-in-cheek way, much to the enthusiasm of the community.

With Microsoft releasing a poster of the Red Ring of Death, then, could we see a PlayStation Network hack poster from Sony in the near future? Or perhaps a poster from Nintendo affectionately mocking the Wii U from Nintendo? And might we, in a decade or so, see a glossy fingerprint-resistant poster from Google making light of the demise of Stadia? Time will tell.

• Xbox Series X vs Xbox Series S: which is right for you?

Microsoft has added over 70 Xbox 360 and original Xbox games to its backward compatibility program on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. It's also enabled FPS Boost for 37 more titles and has begun rolling out the technology to Xbox Cloud Gaming.

The announcement was made during Microsoft's Xbox 20th Anniversary Celebration show and continues the company's commitment to preserving games that span Xbox's 20-year history.

Xbox owners can now enjoy the entire Max Payne and F.E.A.R. franchises, along with the whole Skate franchise as Skate 2 has been added. More than 20 original Xbox titles are also playable, including Dead or Alive Ultimate, Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2, and the Otogi franchises.

If you own these games on disc or digitally, they'll now be available to play, with the majority open to purchase through the Microsoft Store.

As we've seen with previous backward compatible titles, every game added will benefit from upgraded visuals and Auto HDR on displays that support it. Original Xbox games will benefit from a 4x resolution increase on Xbox Series X and Xbox One X, a 3x resolution increase on Xbox Series S, and a 2x resolution increase on Xbox One S and Xbox One.

Titles that support FPS Boost will also allow games previously locked at 30fps to run at 60fps. Binary Domain, Nier, the entire Gears of War franchise, and all three F.E.A.R. games will benefit from FPS Boost, including many more. 

For those who like to play Xbox games via the cloud, 34 titles will benefit from FPS Boost, including Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and The Evil Within 2. 

Of course, players can toggle FPS Boost and the Auto HDR feature on or off by heading to the 'Manage Game' section if you'd like to play each title without any enhancements.

Analysis: keeping old games alive is important

Microsoft's commitment to backward compatibility is admirable. Video games can often become inaccessible as hardware moves on and digital storefronts close, a trend that we've seen occur in the console gaming space for far too long.

With Microsoft's latest console now supporting every generation of Xbox, long-forgotten classics can be replayed and discovered once again, and often look and play better than ever before.

Microsoft's backward compatibility program has also shown its competitors like Sony and Nintendo that consumers value playing the games they already own instead of having to pay for remasters and remakes. It's also an essential step in video game preservation and stops games from being lost to the annals of time.

To celebrate Xbox's 20th anniversary, we've been reminiscing about Microsoft's big bulky box and our favorite memories, games and moments. It might not have been the greatest console ever made, but there's no doubt that Xbox has had a massive impact on the gaming industry as a whole. 

• Best Xbox Series X Black Friday deals: don't miss a bargain

It had a production run of more than ten years and in that time it became one of the top ten highest selling consoles of all time. 

It’s safe to say that the Xbox 360 is one of the brightest stars in Microsoft’s sky. Not least because it’s outlined by a big red ring of death.

Though the red ring of death nightmare will no doubt always cast a shadow over the Xbox 360’s historical reputation (both in gamers’ personal memories and generally) it’s an incredibly important console both for Microsoft and the wider gaming world.

In the era where online gaming was beginning to flourish, the 360 was at the forefront, pushing it mass market with an excellently redesigned Xbox Live infrastructure. In addition, its introduction of Achievement Points and Gamerscores added a new competitive dimension to games that helped players extract as much as possible from their games. 

Great games, great controller, great times

As well as building on and massively improving the online infrastructure of the original Xbox, the 360 offered a much more attractive and streamlined design. A design that only improved with the Elite version of the console.

Not only did the console itself look good, its controller was a joy to use and was a massive improvement in terms of ergonomics over the original. Large enough to feel substantial in your hands but with buttons close enough together that you weren’t forced to stretch, it was comfortable to use for long periods and didn’t require any thought to get to grips with.

It was for the best it had a comfortable controller, too, since the Xbox 360 collated an excellent library of games, both exclusive and non-exclusive. It was the only place you could play the Halo, Gears of War, and Forza franchises and arguably they've helped define its identity as a console. 

Halo 3 in particular is a game that's inextricably tied to the Xbox 360 and in a time of increasing cross-platform development and decreasing console mascots this is an achievement. 

In 2007, it was the biggest selling game in the US which is incredible considering it was only available on one console but it's a testament to the influence of the franchise. Not only did it raise the bar for first person console shooters, it showed just how good mass online multiplayer gameplay could be. 

In fact, the Xbox 360 had many games that made the most of its power and made it worth buying. 

Defining Xbox 360 games

Fable 2

The knowledge that this game was in development was one of the main reasons I picked up an Xbox 360. Though the Fable franchise has always promised more than it’s capable of delivering it’s an excellent series and the second installment is arguably the best. It has a distinct sense of humour and visuals, an atmospheric soundtrack, and a genuinely imaginative and enjoyable world to explore.

Though Fable 3 was a relative disappointment, I still cherish my Fable 2 memories.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts 

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was another title that made the Xbox 360 worth buying. The third title in the Banjo Kazooie franchise, it focussed on vehicle construction. Though this was divisive it was enormous amounts of fun. 

To be honest, though this is a standout title, there are many games developed by Rare exclusively for Xbox that would convince us it’s a console worth owning including, but definitely not limited to, Kameo: Elements of Power and Viva Pinata.

Alan Wake

Last but certainly not least: Alan Wake. This was the game that brought psychological horror elements similar to those of the hugely enjoyable Fatal Frame series and so innately tied to PlayStation over to Xbox and it definitely worked. 

The game was intense and cinematic, pushing the Xbox 360’s HD visuals and processing power to show exactly how good it was. Not only that, it was a different kind of title for Xbox showing that it was a console for much more than just sci-fi shooters and driving games.

For me, the Xbox 360 was the console that signaled Microsoft was serious about becoming a success in console gaming. It was a huge step up from the original Xbox in terms of power and design, with solid online services and an attractive library of games that made the most of its power. We just won’t talk about the Kinect, okay?

• Vote for your Ultimate Game of All Time and Best Gaming Hardware of All Time by visiting goldenjoysticks.com - voting ends on Nov 12.

Xbox Games with Gold presented a selection of games each month for no extra cost for its subscribers, offering a great opportunity to add some extra titles to your library which you may not have initially thought to. But the service comes to a close this August, and the last two games have become available before the service shifts to Game Pass Core.

Due to the new service coming into play at the end of the month, the staggered approach that Xbox Games with Gold usually takes is being disregarded, and the free games are available from the start of the month until the very end, so you won't have to worry about rushing to get through them in time to play the other. 

Here are the free Xbox Games With Gold games that you can pick up in August 2023. This month, you can embark on a journey to explore temples filled with platforming challenges, and master the perfect drift through a 90s retro future. 

Xbox Games with Gold: this month's free games

Xbox Games With Gold (August 2023)

Blue Fire

Evil forces have taken over the world of Penumbra. They need a warrior of light and darkness! Embark on a journey to explore temples filled with 3D platforming challenges, battle wild enemies, and go on side quests. Master the art of movement as you face increasingly challenging Void Puzzles and unlock the secrets that will save the day.

Available August 1 - August 31

Inertial Drift 

Can you master the perfect drift? Drive through a 90s retro future in this arcade racing game that leverages a unique handling model and twin-stick drift mechanices. Choose from 16 unique cars across 20 wild tracks to tear through the neon streets. Rev up your skills in single-player story move and then prove you’re the best in multiplayer.

Available August 1 - August 31

Xbox Games with Gold: last month's free games

Darkwood

Roam by day, survive the night. Darkwood is a different type of survival horror game that builds tension through a slow-burn atmosphere without relying on jump scares. Explore an open world of the corrupted woods to scavenge weapons and materials, but once the sun dips, you’ll need to hole up surrounded by whatever traps and barriers you can build and pray you can hide from or fight the creatures that emerge in the dark. 

Available July 1 - July 31

When The Past Was Around 

Discover the touching and bittersweet love story of Eda and Owl. Unlock the puzzles in a beautifully rendered point-and-click adventure with hand-drawn art and a magical score that will stick with you for days. This is a calming, meditative game that reflects on love and loss in a surreal world made up of disjointed rooms from memory and time.

Available July 16 - August 15

If you're looking for more titles to add to your library, we've pulled together the best Xbox Series X games so you'll know which adventures are worth embarking on. However, if you're looking for an upcoming game to get excited about, it's worth checking out the Clockwork Revolution release date. 

In some very good news, Microsoft's backwards compatibility and Cloud gaming efforts are synchronizing. Today, Microsoft announced that 16 backwards compatible Xbox and Xbox 360 games are joining Xbox Cloud Gaming, including a host of fan-favorite titles such as Fable II, Perfect Dark Zero, and three Gears of War games. If you're tired of waiting for The Elder Scrolls 6 to release, you can hark back to the days of Oblivion too.

This comes just a short time after several Bethesda games were added to Xbox Game Pass, with Bethesda Softworks now a part of the Xbox first-party development studio slate – making the addition of The Elder Scrolls III and IV to these cloud-supported games all the more understandable.

• Check out upcoming Xbox Series X|S games
• Should you buy an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S?
• Where to find Xbox Series X in stock

Microsoft has truly led the way with backwards compatibility in the past console generation, and it shows no sign of changing track now. But what's most exciting is how Microsoft is connecting its various services, bringing cloud gaming to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a combination subscription service that also bundles together Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold.

The addition of these backwards compatible titles makes it easy to drop in to classic games from the first two Xbox console generations, and we only expect to see more added down the line.

Here's the full list of games newly supported through Xbox Cloud Gaming:

• Banjo-Kazooie
• Banjo-Tooie
• Double Dragon Neon
• Fable II
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Gears of War 2
• Gears of War 3
• Gears of War: Judgment
• Jetpac Refuelled 
• Kameo
• Perfect Dark
• Perfect Dark Zero
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• Viva Piñata 
• Viva Piñata: TIP 

Additionally, three of these games will support touch controls: Jetpac Refuelled, Viva Pinata, and Viva Pinata TIP.

How can I play them?

Right now, Xbox Cloud Gaming is limited to Android devices. Microsoft has announced its intent to bring this game streaming support to iOS devices and PC at some point in Spring 2021, so hopefully we'll learn more about that soon.

Even if you're not on Android, you may want to consider signing up for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to get ready for the eventual multi-platform support for this cloud functionality – and all the great games that entails.

• The best Xbox games you need to play

Microsoft’s new FPS Boost feature on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S has the potential to quadruple the framerate of older games without any input from developers – and it could be used to improve Xbox 360 and original Xbox games. 

Xbox director of program management Jason Ronald revealed the news during an appearance on the Kinda Funny Podcast (thanks, Pure Xbox), but noted that the team is focusing on Xbox One generation titles first.

“Right now, we're focused primarily on Xbox One generation titles because we've seen the best results there. We're still evaluating, can we bring this technology back to Xbox 360 games or original Xbox games?” Ronald said.

• Best Xbox Series X games: don't miss these titles
• Xbox Series X vs Xbox Series S: what's the difference?
• Xbox deals: latest offers on consoles, games and accessories

The majority of Xbox 360 games and original Xbox games in particular ran at 30 frames per second. Using the FPS Boost feature, it’s possible that Microsoft could retroactively double or even quadruple the frame rates of these titles, which would provide a smoother, more responsive gameplay experience.

FPS Boost only works with a small selection of titles currently: Watch Dogs 2, Far Cry 4, UFC 4, New Super Lucky’s Tale and Sniper Elite 4. It’s not something that can be easily applied to every backwards compatible game, though, as the technology can create some problems depending on how a game is coded.

“The techniques that we've come up with will not work on every title. We've actually gotten some games working, and honestly, I'm playing the game, it's super awesome, it feels great, it's buttery smooth, but then all of a sudden we realize, ‘oh, this character over in the corner is animating twice as fast.’” Ronald explained. “Or, maybe three-quarters of the way through the game, all of the sudden we find a physics-breaking bug because the system's running the game so fast that the game doesn't actually know how to handle that.”

Smooth operator

Despite the challenges that some games may pose, Ronald expects new batches of games that support FPS Boost to be announced every couple of weeks. It means that your existing library of Xbox One games could be dramatically improved, with zero cost to you or input from the original developer.

FPS Boost is another sign that Microsoft is fervently committed to backwards compatibility. The company has previously improved the resolution of older 360 and Xbox titles on Xbox One X, like Red Dead Redemption which now runs at 4K, and added features like Auto HDR which cleverly adds high dynamic range to Xbox One games that didn't originally support the technology.

• Hear the difference: best Dolby Atmos Xbox Series X games

Microsoft have now launched a fleet of discounts across its Xbox One and Xbox 360 game libraries in its annual Ultimate Game Sale.

Until July 30, Xbox owners can access over 700 discounted titles through the Xbox games store on their console. Despite previous indications of discounts peaking at 67%, there are various games available for 75% off – while Xbox Live Gold members will find savings of 85% on selected titles.

• New Xbox bundles and accessories coming to Gamescom next month

While a fair share of the current discounts are pretty conservative – in the 10-30% bracket – even those few pennies saved may be the difference between reluctant deliberation and impulse buy.

You can also get your hands on a three-month Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass subscription for only $10 during the sale – which will run throughout the month, ending on July 30.

You can find our pick of the very best deals in our list below.

The best Xbox One game deals

• Get Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for 70-80% off RRP
• Get Titanfall 2: Ultimate Edition for 75-85% off RRP
• Get Life is Strange: Complete Season for 70-80% off RRP
• Get Metro: Redux bundle for 67-75% off RRP
• Get Sunset Overdrive for 67-75% off RRP
• Get Borderlands: The Handsome Collection for 60-67% off RRP
• Get Bioshock: The Collection for 60-67% off RRP

The best Xbox 360 game deals

• Get Tomb Raider for 80-90% off RRP
• Get Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons for 70-80% off RRP
• Get Mighty No. 9 for 65-75% off RRP

The tank warfare simulator and global phenomenon World of Tanks is getting its largest free expansion to date on consoles.

World of Tanks has been a sleeper hit since its first iteration came out on PC in 2010, pitting players against each other in WWII-era tanks with an unrivaled eye for historical accuracy in its vehicle design.

In the years since, the series has moved onto Xbox and Playstation consoles, seen a World of Tanks: Blitz spin-off for mobile, reached over 250 million players, and even earned a world record for the most players online simultaneously on one MOG server (Multiplayer Online Game).

• The best new games to play in 2018

On June 26, players owning the Xbox 360, Xbox One or Playstation 4 version of the game will have access to the all-new, and free, Mercenaries expansion, marking a whole new stage in the series’ evolution.

After the teaser trailer below, we’ve run through the four biggest changes coming to the sim.

1. This is for the console players

Mercenaries is the first expansion that's been entirely developed with consoles – and console audiences – in mind. 

It will be released simultaneously across Xbox 360, Xbox One and PS4, with a new story campaign designed to align itself closer to the faster, action-focused play style of younger and more Western audiences.

2. You’re playing for yourself

Since its inception, World of Tanks has been committed to historical accuracy. The design team spend as much time with real tanks as possible, usually attempting to take their own measurements rather than rely on decades-old records, and pore over every detail for their loving recreations.

In a series first, players won’t be playing in affiliation to a specific historical nation. In Mercenaries’ alternate timeline, WWII was dragged out for many more years, crippling the finances and resources of the major world powers.

As a mercenary in a fractured European continent, you’ll be taking on paid contracts from governments or organizations hoping to lease your firepower; in return you’ll get those sweet, sweet tank upgrades you’ll need to survive in the continent-wide war zone.

3. The tanks have got a major refit

The series has gradually built on its early foundations to now offer 680-plus versions of tanks in full editions of the game. But there are only so many varieties of tanks made in the mid-20th century, and the alternate timeline of Mercenaries offers wide scope for expanding beyond those restrictions.

Faced with increasingly scarce resources, savvy engineers and soldiers have had to scavenge spare parts and piece together their own patchwork tank creations. 

You’ll find American caterpillar treads or Russian cannons on German panzers, and a huge variety of imagined vehicle combinations that should make warfare less predictable than ever.

4. You can customize your own ride

There’s a clear move towards a more individual player experience, with Mercenaries allowing you to choose between a ragtag team of characters developed in tandem with the new tank designs – this is an expansion that's as much about soldiers in war as it is about tanks.

There’s also the option of customizing your own tanks with spraypaint ‘tags’ and toothy designs (above), allowing you to rain cannon fire on your enemies in a machine that suits your own personal style.

• E3 2018: all the announcements from gaming's biggest show

If you're like us, the upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2 has you extremely eager to get back into the saddle for some gun-slinging cowboy action in the Old West. 

But if you're having trouble keeping your spurs from jingling and jangling in the lead up to its October 26, 2018 release date, Microsoft's got the cure for what ails you — the original Red Dead Redemption has joined the list of Xbox 360 titles that are now Xbox One X-enhanced, so you can re-experience New Austin, West Elizabeth, and Nuevo Paraiso with a shiny new 4K sheen.

Along with the aforementioned Rockstar classic, Darksiders, Gears of War 2, Portal 2, Sonic Generations and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed have also received the 4K treatment and join previous Xbox 360 fan faves such as Crackdown and Forza Horizon, adding to the growing list of older titles that now offer enhanced visuals when played on the Xbox One X. 

We can say that Red Dead Redemption looks incredibly good on Xbox One X — check out the staggering difference in visual clarity that this 8-year-old game has received in this comparison video from ElAnalistaDeBits.

More backwards compatible titles announced

Xbox One X-enhanced titles aside, two more rounds of new backwards compatible Original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles have been announced for this month. 

April 17 sees Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Breakdown, Conker: Live & Reloaded, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Hunter: The Reckoning, Jade Empire, Panzer Dragoon Orta and SSX 3 become playable on Xbox One.

And on April 26, Destroy All Humans!, Full Spectrum Warrior, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, MX Unleashed and Panzer Elite Action: Fields of Glory will all be backwards compatible on Xbox One, as well as a bevy of Star Wars titles, including Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars Battlefront II, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Star Wars Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Star Wars Republic Commando.

• The best Xbox One X games: what to play on the world's most powerful console

Have an Xbox One, but missed out on the classics of the Xbox 360 generation? Fancy reliving the glory days of Microsoft's previous console? Well here's your chance – Microsoft is putting massive discounts on a huge variety of back catalogue items.

There are some real gems to be had here with prices cut by as much as 75%, putting many games firmly into impulse buy territory. 

It's a 'who's who' of the last Microsoft generation, with the likes of Fable II, Red Dead Redemption, multiple Call of Duty titles, the original Gears of War trilogy and tonnes of other games up for grabs. In total, 275 games are on sale.

Looking back to move forwards

Microsoft gathered a great deal of good will for its flailing Xbox One console when it made a solid effort to get Xbox 360 games backwards compatible for its newer machine. With 378 last-gen titles currently working on the newer console, it makes Sony's streaming-only alternative option on the PS4 seem lacking.

Hopefully Microsoft will continue in this direction with it's upcoming Project Scorpio machine, which it's touting as being the most powerful home console ever created.

It's a top sale from Microsoft then, with discounts valid until May 22. And to think – we're still months away from the deals madness of Black Friday. Who knows what will happen when price-slashing season kicks in.

• We bet you won't care about the latest backwards compatible Xbox 360 games
• The best Xbox One deals and bundles

Microsoft has added five more games to its ever-growing list of backwards compatible Xbox 360 games, meaning you’ll now be able to play the games on Xbox One.

However, whether you’ll want to play the most recent additions is another matter entirely. No one in the TechRadar offices had even heard of the five Xbox Live Arcade games, and we’re guessing this means it’s unlikely that many people out there are keenly anticipating being able to play them again. 

The five games in question are: Hard Corps: Uprising, Harms Way, Band of Bugs, Bullet Soul and Bullet Soul - Infinite Burst. 

Niche pursuits

In the name of good journalism we’ve hunted down all the hottest details about the five games in question to aid you in your retro gaming quest. 

Hard Corps: Uprising is the thirteenth entry in the Contra series, and acts as a prequel to the original game. In classic Contra fashion, the game sees you fighting your way from left to right through waves of enemies with a seemingly endless supply of bullets. 

Harms Way, meanwhile, was one of the winners of the Doritos-sponsored ‘Unlock Xbox’ competition. It’s an action-focussed racing game set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where players attempt to get over the line first without being shot to pieces by the opposition. 

Band of Bugs is a Worms-like turn-based strategy game where you fight battles between various bugs. Ironically enough, several reviews at the time criticised the game’s numerous software bugs, leading to an overall mixed reception. 

The final two games, Bullet Soul and Bullet Soul - Infinite Burst appear to be so niche that they don’t even have Wikipedia pages. From the listing for Bullet Soul on the Xbox Live store, it appears to be a shoot ‘em up in the vein of the classic Konami arcade game Gradius or R-Type. 

Both games have zero reviews between them on review-aggregator Metacritic, but the PC version has a fairly respectable aggregate rating of 76. 

Not the most interesting collection of games to make it to the new console, but at the very least it’s nice to see that it’s not just the big games getting the backwards compatibility treatment.  

15 years ago, Microsoft released its Xbox console to the world, and replaced Sega as Sony's biggest competitor within the console space. 

Nintendo fell away into third place and Microsoft and Sony set to work fighting a console war that has continued to this day. 

The various Xbox consoles have had a variety of excellent (and some not-so-excellent) games. Here are a list of the most important in the console's history. 

1. Fable

Although its good name was sullied by a disappointing third instalment, Fable is an undeniably influential role playing series and a gem in the first person shooter-heavy Xbox Exclusive crown. 

The world of Albion might not have had the realism and scope of the worlds in titles such as Mass Effect and Skyrim, but it had a charm and sense of magic all of its own. This is largely thanks to its distinctive storybook visuals, enchanting soundtracks, and simplistic morality mechanic which effectively drew players into the world. 

One of the biggest things that helps Fable stand apart from other role playing titles, though, is its sense of humour. Tongue-in-cheek and unmistakably British, Fable’s writing stopped the series from feeling like it was taking itself too seriously which was key in balancing out the unwieldy ambition of Peter Molyneux.

2. Halo: Combat Evolved

It’s tough to know what can be written about Halo at this point. It didn’t quite invent the modern shooter, but it gave it just the right pace and amount of auto-aim that it allowed the genre to work on consoles for the first time. The N64’s Goldeneye got the genre halfway there, but Halo finished the job. 

Had it stopped there that would have been enough, but the game still holds up brilliantly today, and the Anniversary Edition remake for the 360 is a great way to experience the game (although unfortunately it’s not yet backwards compatible on the Xbox One. 

3. Splinter Cell

Originally an exclusive to the Xbox in 2002, Splinter Cell was a genuine competitor to the behemoth of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, which had just performed a major win for the PS2 with Sons of Liberty. Splinter Cell showed off exactly what the original Xbox could do and cemented its position as a console for serious gaming.

4. Dead Rising

Dead Rising was not a game that was without fault. It had clunky controls, a difficulty curve that was like running headfirst into a brick wall, and controls that had a unique feel to them to say the very least. 

But no other game has quite replicated the classic zombie movie experience like Dead Rising, and it was a game that made a lot of early PS3 owners very jealous until its sequels took the series multi-platform. 

5. Knights of the Old Republic 

Star Wars is a film franchise that has infiltrated every game genre imaginable, from shooters, to side-scrollers, RTSs and flight-simulators. 

But no Star Wars game has had its own personality quick like Knights of the Old Republic, which took the unique step of choosing to set its story thousands of years before the events of the films. 

What followed was one of the best non-film Star Wars stories that has been told, wrapped around an RPG that could have easily stood on its own away from the Star Wars branding. 

6. Gears of War

The last console generation was absolutely dominated by 3rd-person cover-based shooters, and it was a trend that was almost single-handedly started by Gears of War. 

Yes, it’s cover-mechanics were lifted almost completely from Kill.switch, but Gears got the feel of it so right that it inspired a dozen imitators, and soon every game was rushing to let its characters pin themselves to cover during firefights. 

7. Braid

In one fell swoop, Braid legitimised the Xbox 360’s nascent Xbox Live Arcade distribution platform and brought the concept of indie gaming to the masses. 

Helmed by auteur designer Jonathan Blow, Braid mixed up the side-scrolling platformer rulebook with its time-turning mechanic and drip feed of narrative elements. 

When the idea of downloading a console game was still met with raised eyebrows by gamers, Braid encouraged people to take a chance. 

Those that did were met with a platforming experience like no other, earning Jonathan Blow mountains of awards and accolades, and inspiring a generation of indie developers to get coding.

8. Mass Effect

Mass Effect is our second entry from Bioware on this list, but it proved that the KOTOR developer was more than capable of building its own sci-fi universe outside of the Star Wars license. 

It’s later (multi-platform) games would feature a much more seamless merging of its third-person shooter and RPG elements, but the original Mass Effect did space opera on a scale that was unprecedented at the time. 

9. Forza Motorsport

For years the console racing scene was utterly dominated by the Gran Turismo series, which has been a mainstay of Sony’s PlayStation consoles since the beginning. 

But when it came to the Xbox 360 and PS3 there was a new competitor on the scene, and it’s name was Forza Motorsport, a game which managed to almost effortlessly overcome the issues that had been plaguing the Gran Turismo series for generations like bad AI and a lack of vehicle damage. 

Forza has since spawned five sequels, as well as a spin-off open-world racing series, Forza Horizon. 

10. Geometry Wars

Geometry Wars for the Xbox 360 brought the dual-stick shooter back in a big way, and reminded everyone that games don’t have to be the biggest to be the best. It was a game that harked back to the classic arcade experiences of Robotron 2084 and Smash TV, but perhaps the highest compliment we can give it is that certain one particular TechRadar editor still keep an Xbox 360 around specifically to play Geometry Wars 2. 

11. Kinect 

When Nintendo showed how willing non-gaming audiences were to embrace motion-controllers, Sony and Microsoft were quick to respond. Sony’s effort were the short-lived and under-supported PlayStation Move controllers, but Microsoft went bigger with its Kinect camera, which the company promised would usher in a new era of controller-free gaming. 

It didn’t, of course, and remains as a potent reminder of Microsoft’s hubris at the beginning of the Xbox One generation of consoles.

12. Titanfall

Call of Duty has for many years been one of the biggest game series in the world. Each one of its yearly entries is almost guaranteed to sell in excess of a million copies, and will sit happily as one of both PSN’s and Xbox Live’s most played games. 

So when its two founders were unceremoniously fired from Infinity Ward (the studio behind the most popular games in the CoD franchise), the who industry held its collective breath to see where they’d end up. 

The result was Respawn Entertainment, whose first game, Titanfall, was one of the Xbox One’s early big exclusives. It didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but it was an important moment for the platform. 

13. Morrowind

Sure, we’d had the first open-world Grand Theft Auto game by the time of Morrowind’s release, but, landing alongside the PC version on the original Xbox back in 2002, The Elder Scrolls’ third instalment felt revelatory to console gamers. 

An expansive fantasy epic which offered true freedom to explore and interact in any way you chose, it captured the imaginations of RPG gamers long before Skyrim came to define the series.

14. 1 vs 100

An online game show where you could actually win real-world prizes? 1 vs 100 truly showed off the power of the Xbox Live network. 

A massively multiplayer title, based on the gameshow of the same name, real players faced off against each other for the chance to win a ton of Microsoft Points - the Xbox’s now-defunct digital store currency. 

Though its short lived nature suggests it didn’t prove as popular as Xbox had hoped, it was in many ways ground breaking. In a world now driven by social media, it’d be good to see if Xbox could resurrect the game successfully in our current hyper-connected world.

15. Rise of the Tomb Raider

No game is more closely associated with the original PlayStation than the original Tomb Raider games, which is precisely why it’s so surprising to see Rise of the Tomb Raider on this list. 

By itself it was nothing especially groundbreaking, and best described as a solid follow-up to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot, but above everything else, it’s Xbox exclusivity symbolises how far Microsoft’s consoles have come in fifteen years, although it would later make it’s way to Sony’s console in late 2016. 

They’ve come from being a solid piece of hardware that lacked in exclusives, to snatching one of Sony’s prized exclusives from under its nose.

• Check out our  guide to the best Xbox One games.

When Microsoft launched backwards compatibility for the Xbox One last November, there was one slight hurdle: all the games it supported only had a single 360 disc, because the engineers hadn't yet cracked the code for multi-disc games.

That has all changed now, with Microsoft's Major Nelson confirming on Reddit that the backwards compatibility engineers have worked hard to enable multi-disc game support.

The first Xbox 360 title across multiple discs that Xbox One users can now enjoy is Deus EX: Human Revolution Director's Cut. While the original Human Revolution shipped on a single disc, the Director's Cut required a second disc.

According to the Reddit discussion, users are required to insert the first disc of a multi-disc game into the Xbox One, which then downloads the entire game to the console's hard drive.

Naturally, this development opens up the Xbox One's backwards compatibility to a much larger collection of games, so here's hoping that popular titles like Mass Effect 2 and 3 will be added to the list of supported titles before Mass Effect Andromeda gets released.

It might sound a little disingenuous to lop Sony's current-gen powerhouse in with the likes of an old Microsoft console, but that's exactly what Xbox 360 was for the better part of a decade.

It shifted superior numbers, offered a more robust online infrastructure and had a public profile the PS3 could only dream of.

In an age where online gaming had finally come into its own on home consoles, where high definition was finally a standard, the 360 brought Microsoft into the eternal console war by building on all the groundwork that had been laid down by its predecessor: the original Xbox one.

Original gangster

Microsoft did pretty well with 'Xbox the First', selling around 24 million units by the time it was discontinued in 2005.

It never matched Sony's PS2 sale for sale, but Microsoft was already looking to the future with its configuration. Xbox Live, in its earliest form, was already running rings around Sony's effort, while its internal hard drive (a first for consoles of the time) and powerful Nvidia GPU gave it all the chops Xbox needed to run multiplatform and exclusive titles alike with vigor.

When Xbox 360 arrived in November 2005, it took all those concepts and made them all the more attractive. Xbox Live was retooled and redefined for a new generation where online multiplayer and co-op would become a standard, the GPU and processor were beefed up to support HD, higher framerates and larger worlds that required fewer loading times. In short, Microsoft had birthed a beast.

Technically, the PS3 was a more powerful console - but gamers didn't really see the benefit of that processing power until late in its lifecycle with the likes of the last two Uncharted games.

Even the red ring debacle, which saw thousands of consoles die due to motherboard overheating issues, wasn't enough to tarnish its memory and performance. That's the kind of disaster that would have crippled most consoles, but the sturdy Xbox 360 survived. Better yet it thrived.

Even its controller - a sleeker, more ergonomic design that was a world away from the clunky brick that came with the original Xbox - became a classic in its own right. Sony's decision to stick with the iconic yet ultimately outdated DualShock design for PS3 created a peripheral disparity the firm didn't manage to reduce until the DualShock 4 (which, even now, isn't quite as good as that memorable 360 design).

Design darling

It's no secret the PC components of the Xbox 360 made it significantly easier to code than the obtuse architecture of the PS3 (so much so that it common for studios to write code based on builds similar to 360 and simply port it over to Sony's machine).

That's an undeniable testament to the goodwill the 360 inspired not just in players and critics, but in developers themselves. Much like the Xbox, the 360 was designed with developers in mind, and such a design mantra secured its place in all our good graces.

In a foreshadowing of the exchanged roles to come in a generation later, Xbox 360 pounded PS3 in almost every area. It arrived a year earlier, was cheaper to buy, had better overall exclusives (yes, I know, Uncharted was and is brilliant, but come on, Gears, Halo, Fable? No contest) and wasn't prone to online outages that saw untold amounts of private data hacked.

Even something as simple as a UI was vastly superior. Sure, the original Blades were pretty naff but even they were better than the dross that was the PS3's XMB.

Once Microsoft introduced the New Xbox Experience in 2008, the Xbox 360 became as intuitive as it was inclusive. Even to this day, few UIs feel as easy to navigate as the NXE. Oh, and Avatars! So much money wasted on costumes. So, so much money.

Indie indeed

And while Sony continues to be lauded as the true patron of modern indie gaming, Microsoft had invested in this growing bedrock of the games development community for years. Xbox Live Arcade added a whole new dimension to your gaming library with everything from Trials HD to Bastion finding success on Xbox 360 first before anywhere else.

Better yet, you could make your own game and submit it for sale. Sure, some of these titles were about as palatable as being Donald Trump's reflection, but the simple fact that you could have your very own game up on a global gaming network was unprecedented on consoles.

Here's another hot take for you: XBLA made digital downloads a viable addition to the console landscape. The likes of Steam have made non-physical media as commonplace as oxygen on the overclocked grasslands of PC, but they were a relatively new concept on closed-box machines in the mid '00s.

XBLA's Summer of Arcade drives (where a selection of up and coming titles were promoted and sold together at a discount) gave the likes of Trials HD and the like the platform to grow into the cult hits we know today.

Lest we forget there was a time where practically every advert for the latest big franchise entry had a swooshing flash of green at the end of it. The Xbox brand was everywhere - even the likes of Halo 3, Halo Reach and Gears of War placed a considerable Microsoft presence in the burgeoning eSports scene (and one that's paid dividends years later as eSports exploded onto the mainstream).

Even with the failure of Kinect (or Project Natal as it was for so many years), Xbox 360 still feels like a triumph. With that in mind, the Xbox One feels more of a misstep not so much for its flagging pace behind the PS4 but for how so many advantages were lost in the transition between the seventh and eighth generations.

If there's one thing tech firms fear, it's an EU investigation: Microsoft is still recovering from its EU anti-trust battle, and now it's Google's turn. Facebook will be under growing scrutiny too as it adds ever more forms of communication to Messenger – but at least it isn't embroiled in a racism row over a face-swapping filter. On a brighter note, we've got some good news for Playstation fans and Netflix addicts. It's Week in Tech!

Is Android a bad robot?

The EU has launched an anti-trust investigation into Android, amid claims that by making manufacturers take all its Android apps Google is using its power to crowd out competitors. As anyone who watched the EU do significant damage to Microsoft over anti-trust claims knows, this could have big implications for the smartphone industry. James Rogerson explains that not only could it cost Google "billions of dollars in fines, but it could also be a big deal for hardware manufacturers and users of Android". Fancy more fragmentation and more expensive phones? That could be the result.

Meet the Neo boss: it's the 4K PS4

While the Xbox 360 faced its final red ring this week, Sony unveiled big plans for the PlayStation: it's making PSN accounts much harder to compromise – and rumours are swirling that it's about to release a 'PS4.5'. The new console, dubbed Neo, will be more powerful than the current PS4 and should support 4K gaming, but there's a risk of fragmentation here: game developers will be asked to make two PS4 versions, one for the existing console and one for the Neo. Dom Reseigh-Lincoln is worried. "Creating a new improved version of your console this soon into a generation will certainly ensure Sony is geared up for the years to come, but it'll be leaving a lot of its own early adopters in the dust," he says.

50 shades of yay

Facebook Messenger has put another nail in the coffin of your phone app: Messenger now enables you to share calls with up to 50 friends at once, which is great if you have 50 friends and like to hear lots of people yelling over each other. "Group calling shows Facebook is dead set on replacing your phone app," Lewis Leong says – and video chat is next. "Facebook plans to add group video calling to Messenger in the future, but has to tackle video stabilization first, since users will almost certainly be using it on their phones."

Netflix: HDR is here, and we might do downloads

There's lots of exciting news coming out of Netflix HQ right now: not only is it bringing 150 hours of HDR content to the service by the end of this year, it seems to be doing a U-turn on offline content too: what was "never gonna happen" in 2014 is now apparently in development. The reason? 4K. Jon Porter explains: "It's not exactly a solid confirmation, but it's nice to see Netflix admit that not everyone has access to the types of network speeds that will allow them to stream pristine 4K video. This will become especially apparent as Netflix moves into countries with more ropey internet infrastructure."

What about Bob?

In an entirely avoidable scandal, Snapchat has come under fire for a new Bob Marley filter that some people think crosses the line into offensive 'blackface' territory. As many people observed on Twitter, the Bob Marley estate has lent its approval to all kinds of old rubbish over the years, so it wasn't a huge surprise to discover that the filter had the estate's full approval. They obviously aren't offended, but lots of people on the internet are.

Go East

The new Red Dead Redemption 2 map has leaked, and sources have "confirmed that the game will be set before the events of Redemption, and that the new map is just east of the one that featured in Red Dead Redemption". As Hugh Langley reports, "The overarching theme of Red Dead Redemption was the 'death of the West', so a prequel, rather than a sequel, makes sense."

Robots in disguise

What would happen if you tried to recreate the world's most famous robots in Fallout 4? SJ Azar can tell you, although if we're being pedantic Ripley's power loader from Aliens isn't actually a robot. But if you like robots and you like Fallout, you'll love the bots SJ built.

The Xbox 360 has had a long storied history of establishing Microsoft as a household name in the game console world, overheating units and a ton of redesigns. However, that story is finally coming to a close.

In a blog post, Microsoft's head of Xbox Phil Spencer announced announced it is ending production of the console after more than a decade since its initial launch.

"Xbox 360 means a lot to everyone in Microsoft, and while we've had an amazing run, the realities of manufacturing a product over a decade old are starting to creep up on us," Spencer wrote in a statement. "Which is why we have made the decision to stop manufacturing new Xbox 360 consoles."

For the foreseeable future Microsoft plans to sell its existing inventory of Xbox 360 consoles, of which availability will vary across different countries. Microsoft has also vowed to keep Xbox Live services running on the outgoing console, allowing users to play multiplayer, form parties as well as Xbox Live store specials through Games with Gold and Deals with Gold.

Originally launched in November 2005, the Xbox 360 has sold more than 80 million units. It established Microsoft in the console world and game franchises like Gears of War and Forza. The console also saw more hardware revisions than most platforms

Of course, the Xbox 360 had its share of issues with overheating consoles and the dreaded three rings of red death that accompanied it.

The news is inevitable as Microsoft has shifted its focus on pushing the Xbox One. Even after a decade and this latest development, the 360's spirit will live on through backwards compatibility on current generation systems and Xbox games available on Windows 10.

• The 10 best backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games you can now play on Xbox One

Back in 2006, word surfaced that Free Radical Design had been tasked with developing Star Wars: Battlefront 3. Two years later the company announced the game had come to a halt before EA snapped up the rights to the Star Wars franchise - with just a few videos of footage from the canned title surfacing since.

Now, a playable version of the game has seemingly appeared, courtesy of someone on Reddit who claims to "take interest" in prototype games.

You'll need an Xbox 360 development kit in order to run it, according to the poster. As of writing this I've been unable to try it myself, so I can't say for sure if it works. So far nobody else has claimed to have got it working.

The uploader also posted a series of videos showing footage of the build.

Space pirates

"I know not everyone will get the chance to play this immediately," they wrote, "but over time I expect the modding community to be able to change that."

I've watched a number of Battlefront 3 footage videos over the years, and while I do think EA's Battlefront game has its merits, Battlefront 3 looks like the game that fans have really been clamouring for.

Obviously it looks quite dated now and the build is still quite sketchy, but everything we've seen so far points to a more well-rounded game. The video below shows off some previously leaked footage.

Though the Stan app arrived on PlayStation consoles in November last year, Xbox One users have been left waiting for the streaming service to arrive on their consoles with baited breath.

Well, they can breathe easy now, as the Stan app has finally arrived on Xbox One consoles today.

The Xbox One version of the Stan app offers exclusive Kinect-enabled features, including the ability to use your voice to browse the service's catalogue and for controlling playback.

Users will also be able to use Xbox Snap functionality to snap Stan to the side of their screens while they perform other activities.

Xbox, go to Stan

Though it isn't available at launch, Stan promises that OneGuide integration is coming soon.

It's also worth noting that no mention has been made of an Xbox 360 version of the Stan app. Unfortunately, Stan has nothing to announce regarding a 360 app at this stage.

Perfect timing, too – Stan recently announced that it's doubling production of local original programming in 2016, giving Xbox One users plenty to look forward to this year.

Existing Stan subscribers can simply download the app from the Xbox One store and login, however, new customers will have to sign up at Stan's official site.

• The techradar guide to the 25 best shows on Stan

It may sound a little kitsch to call Xbox 360 a retro console, but that's exactly what it is. It's been two years since Xbox One puttered onto the scene and with a trove of next-gen exclusives (and a string of poor cross-gen performances on Microsoft's once great console) have accelerated its antiquity in the meantime.

Xbox 360 is very much watching from the shadows now, the sparkling future of the new generation twinkling sadly in its metaphysical eyes.

But being the former king of the consoles doesn't mean 360 has to wander off into the wastelands in search of an honourable death - there's a whole new crowd of prospective gamers who either signed up to the best pastime in the world with Xbox One and have no perspective on what went before, or those that simply haven't ever picked up a controller before.

Doing a 360

And while Xbox One is only now just starting to find its feet (even with the Fable Legends beta - one of the poster games Microsoft has been selling its lead console on hard - has slipped into 2016), Xbox 360 hit the ground running - and it's been sprinting like a boss ever since.

It won the console war of the seventh generation not because it has great exclusives (and it has, it really has, but I'll get to those later), but because it became the most welcoming and intuitive place to play the triple-A multiplatform releases of yesteryear.

Everything about it just worked. The intuitive user interface; the ergonomic controller (even the DualShock for and its sleek redesign can't quite match up to 360's little pad of joy); the stability and reliability of Xbox Live (which fundamentally rewrote the rules of what a good online infrastructure should be on console); even the Rare-developed avatars were brilliant.

Honestly, the amount of real-life money I spent on Assassin's Creed and Batman costumes for a pretend version of myself would make me cry if I ever saw it in front of me.

Even now, with less oomph under its hood in comparison to the new-gen, Xbox 360 is a little powerhouse encased in plastic and flashing green lights. Remember, a significant proportion of the games available on its platform were developed specifically for it and then ported over onto Sony's bloated monstrosity, the PlayStation 3.

With that in mind, games just ran that bit better on 360 and it made investing in that tech back in the day all the more satisfying.

Success by degrees

Ah yes, the games. Imagine investing in a console for the first time. skipping into your game retailer of choice and surveying the acres of software before you. There are over a 1,000 games on 360 and while there are some real stinkers (so that's pretty much everything released in its first year, bar first-party titles), but there are some of the best games ever made just waiting for you to pick for next to nothing on eBay or from a pre-owned section.

The exclusives are rock solid; Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST; Fable 2; Fable 3 (shut up, it was good and is definitely worth your time, don't listen to those dumbass critics); Gears Of War 1-3, and Gears Of War: Judgement (again, another decent game that had its face kicked off critically); Forza Horizon; Forza Motorsport 3; The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings (yes, technically on PC but this paired down console version is still brilliant, just not as pretty) and Bully: Scholarship Edition to name but a few.

Xbox 360 is bursting at the balls with exclusive gems just begging to be spun in your disc drive.

There are all the amazing cross platform games (even the ones that have been given the pointless cross-gen upgrade because MONEY!). The horrific joy of Bioshock; the tragic beauty of Bioshock 2; the grand vision of Bioshock Infinite; the comic book-esque brilliance of Grand Theft Auto IV; the underrated kung fu madness of Sleeping Dogs; the gothic fun of Darksiders 2; the even gothic-ier fun of Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow; the harmonic gore of God Of War 3; the rhythmic death of The Darkness 2; the Life On Mars-esque car shenanigans of Driver: San Francisco.

Independent thinking

Then there's the indie side of things. Think Sony invented the 'indie love-in' with PS4? Think again, kiddo.

Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) was another feature that set the bar for the rest of the industry by mimicking the friendly open-platform nature pioneered on PC by Steam and bringing it to a whole new audience. Remember Trials?

It was on Xbox 360 that the two-wheeled pain simulator made its name.

Same thing for Jonathan Blow's wonderful time travelling platformer Braid and Supermassive Games' mesmerising top-down epic, Bastion.

And that's not to mention the fact you could make your own game and quite easily get it published on XBLA. Sure, it needed to work and be, you know, worth playing, but it was just another feather in the cap of an ever impressive package.

Take that, Sony.

Honestly, I could keep quoting these games for hours, but I won't, because the message is clear: Xbox 360 isn't some giddy old codger padding into the sunset.

It's one of the best consoles of all time and here and now in 2015 - the tenth anniversary of the little beauty - there's never been a better time to give the last generation the love it still deserves.

For the uninitiated, Xbox 360 is an entire gaming experience wrapped up with an affordable bow. Sure, pubs and devs are still developing titles for it, but most of these are cross-gen tie-ins - and with the exception of Yakuza 5 (which is actually a two-year-late Japanese port) there are no more platform-exclusive blockbusters headed to the ageing console.

The Xbox 360 experience is now a self-contained glimpse into the not-too-distant past, a generation frozen in time that combines recognisable and impressive software with a new retro feel that only makes this green-swirled wonder seem all the attractive.

• Xbox One vs. PS4: which is best?

The New Xbox Experience update for Xbox One has turned Microsoft's console into something almost entirely different to the original console that launched in 2013.

In addition to a new UI powered by Windows 10 and a revamped media hub, the big draw of the Xbox One's latest update is that it makes the console backwards compatible with 104 Xbox 360 games.

While it may be tempting to toss out your Xbox 360 now that its successor can work with your game library, the catch is that the list of compatible games isn't without a few notable omissions.

Thankfully, Xbox plans to roll out additions on a regular basis, with titles like Halo Reach, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and the entire BioShock series (including the criminally-overlooked BioShock 2) making their way to the One in December.

Since publishers get a say in what games can work with the Xbox One, several games that have recently been remastered for new consoles, such as Dishonored, DmC: Devil May Cry and Saints Row IV are unlikely to make a comeback.

However, we've found a list of games that, barring some unknown legal hassle, should join the ranks of backwards compatible titles on Xbox One as soon as possible. Most if not all will likely make it to the One at some point, but we just can't bear to wait that long.

Why it should be on Xbox One Rockstar's open-world Western blew us away when it debuted in 2010, and ever since, news on the series' return has been as elusive and mysterious as protagonist John Marston himself. While it may be a while before we can get back in the saddle, our memories of our first ride into Mexico, as José Gonazalez's Far Away kept us company, will remain a defining moment of the past generation of consoles.

Where is it available? Red Dead Redemption only made it onto the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, much to the chagrin of PC owners who are still waiting to walk a mile in Marston's spurred boots. Thankfully, a Game of the Year version for both consoles is available, which collects all the downloadable content for Red Dead Redemption, including the standalone Undead Nightmare expansion.

Why it should be on Xbox One Because it's Skyrim! Bethesda's fantasy adventure stole the acclaim, awards and free time of millions of players when it debuted in 2011, and, thanks to a vibrant modding community on PC and a steady release of expansions, stayed in public consciousness well past the lifespan of your average video game. Heck, Skyrim's popularity managed to even outlast its own silly meme about knees and arrows.

Where is it available? Skyrim came out on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, the latter of which is consistently available (often at a discount, even) on Steam. The 'Legendary' version of the game also includes all three major expansions, if you're looking to spend the rest of the holidays slaying dragons and shoplifting cheese.

Why it should be on Xbox One Let's face it, Call of Duty is a cultural force of nature. The latest release, Black Ops III, made near-Dethlokian amounts of money last week, for cryin' out loud. While it seems redundant to demand more Call of Duty make its way to the Xbox One, there's a reason Treyarch's own Black Ops series sticks around: the public demands it!

Xbox's own polls for what games should become backwards compatible show 'BlOps 2' as the crowd favorite, pulling ahead of Red Dead Redemption AND Skyrim by a good 10,000 votes as of this writing.

Where is it available? Black Ops II made its rounds on Xbox 360, PS3, PC and even the Wii U, making it not terribly difficult to get your hands on it. Considering the clear popularity of the series, we wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a copy in every secondhand video game store in the country right now.

Why it should be on Xbox One 2008 was a different time for video games. Ninja Gaiden II was a direct representation of this, bringing ridiculous amounts of blood, dismemberment, tight leather outfits, and every other ninja action trope you could want. It was also tough as nails, requiring actual skill and old-fashioned trial and error to get past even the earlier levels. It made 'hard' games cool well before Bloodborne or even Demon's Souls.

Where is it available? Ninja Gaiden II was originally an Xbox 360 exclusive, but a re-release titled Ninja Gaiden Σ2 (yes, that's a sigma) exists for the PS3 and PlayStation Vita. Even though we just made a dig at Bloodborne and the Souls series, those are entirely different and awesome games that are way-easy to get on both this gen and the last.

Why it should be on Xbox One To this day, Alan Wake remains an enigma that should be played more than talked about. It's pretty much if Max Payne (a series created by the same developer) was set in Twin Peaks (or Gravity Falls, for the millennials in the audience) and was structured like a television show featuring paranormal activity, oddball characters, and demonic creatures with an aversion to light. The shooting was pretty awesome, too.

Where is it available? In addition to the Xbox 360, Alan Wake made its way to the PC in 2012. If you're looking for something a little more 'out-there', the standalone spinoff, Alan Wake's American Nightmare is also available for download on PC and Xbox 360, and is as pulpier and action-oriented as its brooding older brother.

Why it should be on Xbox One As much as we loved Batman: Arkham Origins in 2009, the follow-up in 2011 opened up a giant world for the Dark Knight to explore, filled with criminal scum to stop, classic villains to tangle with and ample secrets to collect. Considering the success of the sequels (even the somewhat disappointing Arkham Origins), it's curious how Arkham City didn't make its way onto Xbox's list of backwards-compatible g... oh, that's why.

Where is it available? You can be the Bat on Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii U and even OS X. There's also the sequel, Batman: Arkham Knight, which came out this summer for Xbox One and PS4, but if you're looking at getting the PC port you're in for a gamble.

Why it should be on Xbox One Left 4 Dead 2, simply put, is about cooperating under pressure. It's just you, three trusted friends, and a mad dash to the safe house amidst a 28 Days Later-style zombie apocalypse. The game's 'Director' system, which throws you a bone when your team's hurting but will just as easily throw a wrench in the works if you're doing too well, makes sure every game is tense, and impossible to complete without teamwork.

It's probably a long shot, but if developer Valve decides to bring L4D2 over to Xbox One, that could open the gate for The Orange Box and Portal 2, two greats that didn't quite make the list.

Where is it available? Left 4 Dead 2 is available for Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Linux and OS X. This was back when Valve gave consoles a chance, but if you're looking for the best version out there, head to Steam.

Why it should be on Xbox One Before moving on to work on the Need for Speed franchise, Criterion Games was the developer behind the 'racing-meets-demolition-derby' Burnout series. The arcade-style racer went open-world in 2008, enabling players to rip across an entire city to race, crash, and break speed laws to their heart's content. Honestly, we forget if this game had a button for the brake - if it ever did, we certainly never used it.

Where is it available? Burnout Paradise can be played on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. There is also 'The Ultimate Box' edition for purchase and digital download that will ensure you have plenty of cars, motorcycles and missions to keep you busy. And thanks to a shout-out from our comments section, the wait for Burnout Paradise to come to Xbox One won't be long. Criterion has confirmed the transition, though it hasn't specified a date yet.

Why it should be on Xbox One Also known as 'That Game That Had The Halo 3 Beta', Crackdown's brand of over-the-top comic book justice had us jumping over buildings, blowing up gang members by the dozens, and picking up entire cars in the name of showing criminals that 'The Agency' meant business. With a new entry in the series making its way to Xbox One soon, now would be a perfect time to revisit the original.

Where is it available? Crackdown is one of the few games on this list that remained faithful to the Xbox 360, though it's available as both a disc and download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Unfortunately, the Halo 3 Beta has since expired.

Why it should be on Xbox One A throwback to classic role-playing games, Blue Dragon brought Final Fantasy's own Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu together with Dragon Quest artist Akira Toriyama (also of Chrono Trigger and Dragon Ball fame). It was an old-school game with modern production values. While RPGs of all makes and models were found on the Xbox 360, Blue Dragon had a unique charm of its own that we think should make a comeback on the Xbox One.

Where is it available? The original Blue Dragon was a 360 exclusive, but the series has found its way to a variety of media, including a manga and anime series, along with a couple of spinoffs on the Nintendo DS to boot.

Really? This again? Yes, really. We want Red Dead Redemption on Xbox One.

Can't you think of something else? Actually, it's peculiar that none of Rockstar's games made it onto Xbox's list of backwards-compatible games. No Max Payne 3, no Midnight Club, no Grand Theft Auto IV, no Bully, no Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, no L.A. Noire, not even Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis.

It's more than likely that Rockstar wants to give Microsoft the okay to make its old games work on the Xbox One, but the sheer amount of licensing for actors, music and other deals Rockstar works with must mean that it takes a lot of time and legal consulting before it can approve anything for release on current-gen.

While we understand there might be forces in play that we don't know about, we want Red Dead Redemption. Seriously.

The Xbox One has done something no console has ever done before: it gained the ability to play older games after a year of not being able to, without releasing new hardware. Until now, backwards compatibility was binary - consoles either came with it or they didn't.

Thanks to the addition of backwards compatibility, the Xbox One's catalog of games has grown 27% from 355 titles yesterday to 450, last I counted this morning.

For gamers who are used to a slow trickle of games, this torrent of titles can be overwhelming. If you're short on time and just want the best of the best Xbox 360 games you can play on the Xbox One today, consider this list a lifejacket.

(Editor's note: These games, like all backwards compatible titles, require you to already own a digital version of the game or own a physical disc that can be loaded into the Xbox One.)

• Xbox One backwards compatibility could change consoles forever

EA has said on numerous occasions that it has no plans on remastering the Mass Effect trilogy for Xbox One. It loves the system (it's making a brand-new game called Mass Effect Andromeda for it, actually), but it just doesn't see the need to HD-ify the original franchise for no good reason.

What EA has done instead, however, is approved the original Mass Effect for backwards compatibility on Xbox One, allowing you to relive the start to the space epic opera on a faster, smoother system.

Just thinking about Mirror's Edge gives me goosebumps. If you've never played it, the first time in the weird dystopian world can be jarring, sickness-inducing even. The controls are simple: run. Run fast. Run hard. And above all else, don't get caught.

Mirror's Edge is worth revisiting because it's one of the few times in the past seven years that a major publisher went out of its way to take a risk on a new franchise. Instead of releasing another year of the same titles, there was a game that made you stop - or in this case, slow down - and think.

The Behemoth, BattleBlock Theater's developer, built the game on two key principles. They knew that a.) people liked having fun, and b.) people missed couch multiplayer. Combining those two ideas and tossing in a dash of mayhem, they created one of the most enjoyable downloadable games on the Xbox 360.

BattleBlock Theater is wacky, weird and totally worth replaying now that you've had a few years to forget how funny it is.

OK, Beyond Good & Evil HD is kind of a copout, I admit. I'm basically suggesting to play the HD remastering of an original Xbox game. That's going quite a ways back but, I can assure you, the trip down memory lane will be worth it.

Beyond Good & Evil was a game ahead of its time. It took ideas that the industry deemed too creepy (an anthropomorphic pig and a mass conspiracy plotline) and banded them together with a well thought-out protagonist. It's pure magic.

Condemned is a great pick-up for the Xbox One because not only is it one of the cheapest games in the bargain bin at this point, but if scary horror games are your bag, it's one of the best, too.

It's a detective game meets a horror-survival title, and it's scary good despite its initial April 2006 release date and several years of sitting on the shelf.

While I'm not going to promise the world on this one *cough, cough* Peter Molyneux, what I will say is that Fable 2 was a surprisingly fun action-RPG that may not have had the deepest gameplay in the world, but had its shining moments that made it one of the standout titles on the Xbox 360.

Fable 2 stayed true to the roots of the franchise (a fun, self-aware overworld and simple, entertaining combat) and until Fable Legends comes out, the second entry in the franchise is the best way to stay entrenched in the world of balverines, demon doors and fart jokes.

Shadow Complex is the lovechild of Metal Gear Solid and Uncharted that mixes stealth, exploration and tremendous voice acting in equal spades to produce a dangerously good Xbox Live Arcade romp that easily could've passed for an ephemeral full release.

Super Meat Boy is intentionally frustrating in the best way possible. It wants you to die, and die often, but still remain committed to saving your love interest who happens to be a bandage.

Playing it again on Xbox One you'll appreciate the clever level and markedly retro design. It's new meets old in gameplay and visuals that will only deepen your appreciation for the addition of backwards compatibility.

Another entry in the "it's so good, but so cheap" pile, South Park: The Stick of Truth is a 2014 role-playing game made by the show's creators that had no problem making everyone feel awkward while showing us a great a time.

It's only about nine hours long but, considering that's about how long it takes to install a game on the Xbox One (I'm kidding), you should have more than enough time to go give Trey Parker and Matt Stone's hilarious and disgusting adventure one more go.

Before you bounce along to our best games on Xbox One list, check out Viva Piñata. One of the last games to be made by Rare, Viva Piñata will tug at your heartstrings as you build a farm of cuddly, lovable, candy-themed animals only to see them get torn apart by slightly larger cuddly, lovable, candy-themed animals.

Why is it worth the space on your hard drive? In a world of fast and frantic first-person shooters and annual sports releases, sometimes it's just nice to spend some time zenning out in a literal candy land.

The new Xbox One update is dropping today, and it's a biggy. While we'll be getting an improved dashboard and faster navigation, backwards compatibility is easily the biggest new feature, making it possible to play 104 Xbox 360 games on the One console - and with more to be added each month.

Backwards compatibility is one of Xbox One's big wins over the PS4, which remains staunchly forward-looking and only lets users play old games via its paid subscription service PlayStation Now.

So how come the Xbox One has the feature and the PS4 doesn't? In some ways, even Microsoft is surprised. "I'll be honest with you, at the beginning we said it was impossible - but we hadn't tried," Xbox UK Marketing Director Harvey Eagle told techradar.

Solve the impossible

"And when it became the number one feature that fans were requesting, Phil instructed the engineering teams to try to solve the impossible, and they came back with this solution."

An Xbox spokesperson also told us that a member of the team had gone to Phil Spencer and told him that he had found a way of making backwards compatibility happen. "[Spencer] told him to go away and make it happen and that's how it happened," the spokesperson said.

Eagle also added that he believes the Xbox One has done a lot to win back the hearts of gamers who were put off by the bungled launch back in 2013.

"I think we've made great strides in the last couple of years," he said. "I feel like we're in a good place. I feel like we have good momentum at the moment."

Starting today, Xbox One owners will be getting the biggest update to the console since it launched two years ago. The 'New Xbox One Experience' is built on Windows 10 and brings a new user interface and a handful of added features. It also kills off a pretty big feature, which we'll touch on shortly.

While the improved UI is great, it's Xbox 360 backwards compatibility which is the killer app here - and something it can now laud over the rival PS4. Over 100 Xbox 360 games will be compatible from launch - you can see the whole list here - and Microsoft promises us that the list will grow "every single month".

"We think this is going to be one of the key reasons why an Xbox 360 owner is going to want to migrate to the Xbox One," Xbox UK Marketing Director at Microsoft Harvey Eagle told techradar.

Tied to the new experience, backwards compatibility works by emulating the 360 software. Just stick in a disk and the Xbox One will boot it up (so long as it's supported) but with the addition of the Xbox One Guide to capture screenshots and recordings.

However, press the menu and view buttons on your controller and you'll be able to bring up the original Xbox 360 guide.

A better home screen

The new Xbox One home screen has been moved around and polished up a bit. That, combined with the fact it's built on the Windows 10 platform, means navigating around the Xbox One dashboard is a better experience.

"We believe that makes it 50% faster to get to the content that you want," said Eagle. "And it's based on feedback we've had over time".

Along the top of the dash you'll now see 'Home', 'Community', 'OneGuide' and 'Store' divided into their own sections. In the Community you can post updates and videos as well as comment on, like and share friends' posts.

Meanwhile, 'Store' now splits up apps, games and media into easier-to-navigate categories.

You'll also see a new guide along the left hand side of the screen, granting faster access to the console's biggest features, including your friend list and the console settings.

What you won't have, however, is gesture control. Microsoft has killed Kinect gestures for the home screen due to lack of interest from consumers. Fair.

One direction

The OneGuide has been given an overhaul with the new update, and will now give you an at-a-glance view of the latest additions to your favourite video apps including YouTube and Amazon Instant Video. Microsoft also revealed to techradar that TV from Sky will be coming to Xbox One in the near future.

The Windows 10 foundation means that developers will be able to make software that easily runs across desktop, devices and the Xbox One console. Eagle told us that Cortana is coming to Xbox One for preview members later this year, but won't get a wide rollout until 2016.

He also emphasised that the new experience was a big part in positioning the Xbox One as foremostly a gaming machine.

"Under Phil Spencer's leadership we've really been fixated at putting the gamer at the heart of everything we do," said Eagle.

"I think this is the greatest lineup in Xbox history, maybe in console history. I think we have a range of exclusive games that the competition cannot match."

Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, revealed via Twitter that the list of Xbox 360 games making a comeback on the backwards-compatible Xbox One will be announced November 9.

One hundred different games from across the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade library are set to be making a return.

While which games will make the cut are still up for speculation, titles such as Mass Effect and Viva Pinata have already been confirmed and even demonstrated working on Xbox One.

Originally announced during this year's E3, the backwards-compatibility feature will allow Xbox One owners to play Xbox 360 games on their console without making any additional purchases. For verification purposes, all you need is either the original disc or a valid Xbox Live account if you bought a digital copy of the game.

YouTube : Xbox's original backwards-compatibility announcement at E3 2015

Once installed to the hard drive and verified, running old games on Xbox One works just the same as playing a contemporary game from the Xbox Dashboard. While users can interact with players still clinging to their older consoles, 360 backwards compatibility on Xbox One doesn't extend to older accessories, such as specialty controllers or headsets.

Techradar asked for comment on whether downloadable content originally purchased for Xbox 360 games will also make transfer. As of right now, the odds seem unlikely of One owners having their games and add-ons, too.

While Xbox has plans to expand its backwards-compatible list beyond this initial 100, it's primarily up to publishers to provide permission for which old-gen games can be emulated on Xbox One. This means that games recently re-released, tied up in a licensed property, developed by a now-defunct studio, or sued out of existence will not likely pop up on the list this coming week.

• PS4 vs Xbox One - which is better?

Big changes are coming to Xbox One this fall, but even bigger ones might be on the horizon, at least according to Xbox Chief Phil Spencer.

In a recent interview with Gizmodo Brazil, Spencer had heaps to say about the recent addition of Xbox One-to-PC streaming and backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360 that was arguably one of the biggest announcements for the company during E3 earlier this year.

In an off-the-cuff remark Spencer also mentioned that he's given some thought of bringing the catalog of original Xbox and Xbox 360 games to PCs, however, there's really no timeline or team dedicated to it yet.

Here's the translation provided by Google:

"Gizmodo: But do you plan for the future [to] include original Xbox games?

Phil Spencer: It's something I want to do. It is a matter of priority. I would love to have the ability to play Xbox 360 on PC at some point too, [but we] have different things to think [about] when we plan these things. But it would be great to have support for original Xbox games.

So yes, I want to do [both], but [we] have many other things we want to do as well. People fight with me for not having background music (laughs), so we have [a lot of] work to do. Which is great! It's great to have that feedback."

Both features would likely be appreciated on gamers with massive backlogs stretching back to the original system, but just how - or even when - Microsoft would do this remains unclear.

Xbox One will receive Windows 10 in November, alongside rolling out backwards compatibility to the community at large.

Via VentureBeat

• These are the best Xbox One games, period.

For the first time almost since Microsoft started taking votes on which games should get the Xbox One backward compatibility vote, Red Dead Redemption has dropped from the top spot.

It obviously had to be a Call of Duty title which took the top spot and it's Black Ops 2 which has wrestled the lead away from Rockstar's third-person Western romp.

It's obvious because the monster franchise has a vice-like grip on the wishlist with half of the top ten being various iterations of the first-person shooter.

The backwards compatibility list is in place to give Microsoft an idea of the titles it needs to chase and plug into the upcoming Xbox One feature. At the moment it's only available to the Xbox Preview Members, but the feature is likely to go live with the big holiday gaming push towards the end of the year.

Microsoft was being rather conservative with its estimate on the number of games that will be available to the service when it goes live, figuring that by December it would be around 100 classic Xbox 360 titles.

So you want to make sure it knows the favourites to add to that shortlist.

It's still a close run thing up top, with the top CoD game garnering over 78,000 votes with Red Dead Redemption following with 76,000.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is the closest of the rest of the pack on 70,000, but the rest are falling further behind.

If it were based on the comments thread though Black Ops 2 would be running away with it.

The same would be true if it was based on the vitriol evident in those comments too - the thread is almost as verbally violent as the game world itself...

• How Windows 10 will benefit Xbox One gamers

If we were to describe the past seven days in a word, that word would be "week" – and if we were to describe that word in another word, it'd be "trouble". Windows Phone's hit the skids, Apple's Watch might be heading that way too, there's a rumpus over at Reddit and Flash is in a pickle too. Plus: bears! It's week in tech!

Microsoft says ByePhone

Remember last week's rumour that Microsoft is planning to kill Windows Phone? Microsoft's shedding nearly 8,000 jobs, and most of them are in its phone division. It's also writing off $7.6 billion from its acquisition of Nokia, a deal that only cost $7.2 billion at the time. Looks like Nokia should have stuck with Android after all. In a statement Satya Nadella said that Microsoft would "run a more effective and focused phone portfolio" in the short term, but the Lumia range and Windows Phone are clearly on life support – and Nadella's getting ready to pull the plug.

Is the Apple Watch on borrowed time?

The Apple Watch is a flop. That's what US analytics firm Slice Intelligence reckons, anyway, estimating that Watch sales have dropped to fewer than 5,000 units per day. However, those are US-only figures, they're taken from a period when Apple couldn't make a fraction of the Watches it needed to meet existing orders and they're estimates, so we'd take the news with a pinch of salt. Even if the numbers are accurate, the Watch is still stomping its rivals into the dust.

Game over for last-gen consoles

Come in, last-gen consoles: your time is up. That's how Bioware appears to see it, anyway: the Dragon Age: Inquisition developer says that future DLC for the game won't make it to Xbox 360 or PS3. As Dave James explains, "We're already into a stage where it's mostly only the iterative sporting titles which are producing new versions for the older consoles" and the big releases are PC, Xbox One and PS4 only. Will Rockstar do the same as Bioware with its imminent DLC for GTA V?

Flash! A-aaaaagh!

Reasons to uninstall Flash number 3,257: there's a major, major vulnerability in the Flash Player, a vulnerability so vulnerable that Hacking Team describes it as "the most beautiful Flash bug for the last four years." A patch was issued this week, but more vulnerabilities are expected to be uncovered in the coming days.

Reddit the news today, oh boy

If your favourite subreddit's gone dark, it's because of the "genuinely lovely" Victoria Taylor: the brains behind Reddit's Ask Me Anything was dismissed by Reddit bosses in mysterious circumstances, and Redditors took many popular subreddits down in protest. We still don't know why Taylor was dismissed, but she's popped up to say how she's been deeply moved by the response and that while you can take the woman out of Reddit, you can't take Reddit out of the woman.

HTC update borks batteries

Do you have an HTC One M9? Don't update the software to 1.40.401.8 unless you really like charging batteries. A bug means that some phones are now taking up to 13 hours to charge. HTC reckons you can fix the problem by uninstalling Google Photos or by restarting the phone, but a proper fix hasn't been issued yet.

Don't take selfies with bears

You'd think most people would know that cuddling up to snap selfies with enormous, hungry, human-killing bears was a bad idea, but apparently the message isn't getting across in Russia. Concerned that people are – yes! – ursine about, the Russian police have issued guidelines on the art of safe selfies. They're clearly needed: one young woman accidentally shot herself in the head while taking a selfie, a teenager died falling from a bridge onto an electrified railway in pursuit of the perfect selfie, and two young men discovered that pulling the pin on a live grenade results in a very different kind of flash than they were planning. Honestly, we aren't making any of this up.

Is Bioware acting as the harbinger of doom for the last-gen consoles? The Dragon Age: Inquisition developer has announced any future DLC for the open world fantasy fest will only appear on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

There is no more content coming for the Xbox 360 or PS3 versions.

Sound the claxons, ring the alarms, bring out your dead. The new age of consoles has now truly arrived, relegating the last-gen machines to the gaming scrap heap.

We're already into a stage where it's mostly only the iterative sporting titles which are producing new versions for the older consoles, with big budget franchises, like Assassin's Creed and Fallout, only coming to the current-gen machines.

But you know it's truly the end when an existing last-gen title gets support cut for future content releases. Imagine what would happen if Rockstar announced the same thing for the surely-incoming DLC episodes for GTA V…

It's not all totally doom and gloom though.

If you did start out playing Dragon Age: Inquisition on either PS3 or Xbox 360 you can now migrate your original save from the last-gen consoles onto the current gen version for either PS4 or Xbox One.

That will allow you to carry your adventure from where you left off without having to start again from scratch. It will also let you migrate your previously purchased DLC content onto your new console too so you don't have to re-buy anything you've already picked up.

Bioware has all the necessary info here if you want to shift your adventure over.

• Check out the best games for Xbox One and PS4

Happy New Year! If you thought 2014 was pretty cool, you ain't seen nothing yet: 2015 has barely begun and we've already discovered a whole bunch of really exciting phones, the future of Windows and why Samsung wants you to watch some milk. But new years aren't just about looking forwards. They're a time to reflect too, to look back at the year just gone and to mock people with bent iPhones. It's 2015's very first week in tech!

No Xmas cheer for consoles

It's been a rubbish Christmas for gamers: both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network suffered severe outages which have been blamed on Lizard Squad, the Chingford R&B group that had a hit with Crossroads in 2002. Or was that Blazin' Squad? Either way, one of the alleged ringleaders is currently helping police with their enquiries.

Payback time for Apple

While Apple gets ready to launch Apple Pay in the UK, it's quietly introduced a big change to iTunes purchases: European customers will be able to get a no-quibble refund on digital purchases if they request it within 14 days. That effectively means every app now has a two-week trial period whether the developers want to offer one or not. We're torn: on the one hand the new refund policy might rid the App Store of bad apps, but on the other it does seem wide open to abuse.

Samsung: got milk?

Remember Milk Music, Samsung's music streaming app? It's got a new sibling called Milk VR, which promises to deliver free 360-degree content in both 2K and 4K formats including sports, music and action videos. It's currently US-only but will launch in other countries in early 2015, and you'll need a Gear VR headset and Note 3 tablet to use it. You might want to wait and see what content it offers before shelling out on any new hardware.

Google and Apple: the good, the bad and the bendy

In 2014, two firms dominated the tech headlines: Apple and Google. But while both firms had some big hits they also encountered a few big problems. In our look back at Apple in 2014 we got excited about the Apple Watch and praised Tim Cook's decision to talk publicly about his personal life, but we also recalled the iOS 8 release fiasco, the disappointing Mac Mini refresh and inevitably, Bendgate.

Google had a mixed year too. Google Glass remains a non-starter, there was a little too much vapourware for our liking and the Lollipop launch was fumbled a bit - but the Chromecast, new Nexuses and latest Android were all brilliant.

What about the future? Naturally we've looked ahead too: here's what we think Apple will do in 2015, and what we think Google will get up to.

Will Windows win in 2015?

Windows 10 is coming, and Microsoft is building a brand new browser for it. Today's Microsoft appears to name everything after things from Halo - the Cortana personal assistant, Windows 10's "Threshold" codename - so it's no surprise that the browser has been called "Master Chief". Er, we mean "Spartan".

The best tech at CES

The CES 2015 tech splurge is just days away, and it'll feature new goodies from the likes of Samsung, Sony, LG, Asus, HTC… you name them, they'll be there with boxes of brilliant new toys. We've rounded up the best bits before the show even begins, and of course we'll be updating you throughout the whole shebang.

Phew! It's a phone frenzy!

Remember the Nokia 3210, the Sony Ericsson K800i or the Nokia N95? We do, and we think 2015 will bring phones that you'll love as much as you loved those classic bits of kit. Our look at the most exciting smartphones of 2015 includes the HTC One M9, the Samsung Galaxy S6, the iPhone 6S and many, many more. Your next favourite is in there somewhere.

It seems odd to describe Ridley Scott's version of the future as 'retro' but there's really no other word for it. The world of Alien is one where space travel is the norm but smartphones, holograms and LCDs are unheard of. It's a grounded vision built using only the technology available at the time, yet one that went on to influence countless movies that followed it. The interior of the Nostromo itself, as complex as the biological design of Giger's xenomorph, has had an enduring legacy.

And still, to date, no one's quite managed to translate Alien to the videogame format; James Cameron's sequel has understandably lent itself far better to the medium, though with arguably less brilliant results (no one mention Colonial Marines).

So enter The Creative Assembly, who are here to prove that it can be done by building the world of Alien: Isolation on the same foundations as Scott's - a 70s aesthetic, a dark, threatening soundtrack, and an overpowering and pant-soakingly scary foe.

This is a nostalgic world. One of chunky analogue buttons, not touchscreens. One of CRT, not LCD. One where your most essential tool, the motion tracker, is frustratingly limited in scope and usability. These intentional technological limitations are core to what makes Isolation feel like the Alien game we've long been waiting for.

But it wasn't just a case of placing the odd Apple II around to retain the film's consistency. From the distortion of the familiar 20th Century Fox logo at the start of the game to stripping back the game's UI, every effort has been put in to make this feel like a true homage to Alien's lo-fi world. "We really like that glitchy feel, so we tried to incorporate that," says Creative Lead Alistair Hope. "We did that physically with VCR, using magnets and crushing cables. So we took our assets, filmed those onto a VHS tape, and then played the VHS tape back through a standard-def goldfish bowl TV.

"We filmed that, and then as we were filming it we used magnets around the sides of the TV and crushed cables to get those glitches texturally. When we tried digital effects, they were ok but they didn't give us what we were after."

That said, from the brief intro spent on The Torrens (Amanda Ripley's starship), the game is filled with plenty of 70s tech trinkets and throwbacks. Old tape recorders, CRT monitors, arcade machines and telephone receivers litter the bowels of the Sevastopol space station.

Xenophobia

The alien is always there. Somewhere. You can shoot it. You can torch it with a flamethrower. Hell, you can go and smack the bastard if you've the guts. But you'll never kill it (though it can and will kill you). You can only try to outwit it, and that's not as easy as you might think. It adapts, you see. "You throw one flare… if you're lucky the alien will go and investigate allowing you to navigate your way around," Hope tells us. "Do it again, it might happen. Do it again and it probably won't happen. It will realise there's someone there throwing flares around."

But as the alien AI adapts to your behaviour, you in turn can try to outsmart it. "I don't know about outsmart, but outsurvive," Hope corrects us. "By constantly changing, moment to moment, making the right decision. Even as something as simple as 'should I stay or should I go?'. Each action has a consequence.

"With the motion tracker blurring the background, we wanted every action to have a risk associated, so the motion tracker gives you information on the box but we take away information in the background. There's no one magic bullet."

Ridley Scott's world may be built from the technology of four decades ago, but ours is not. So Alien: Isolation makes use of the PS4 and Xbox One hardware. Breathe too loudly and the alien will hear you through Kinect or the PlayStation Camera; switch on the head tracker and you'll be able to peek around corners to discover if your nemesis has disappeared back into the air vents - or if its just centimetres away, toying with you.

But appropriately, Isolation's best scare tool is also its simplest. The PS4's DualShock light bar blinks along to the motion detector, which is downright terrifying when you're playing in the dark (which we strongly recommend).

Then there's the opportunity for virtual reality. A portion of the game was demoed with Oculus Rift back at E3 2014, but Hope tells us that they're still working things out. "For us, it's our first steps into VR. We need to figure out where we go from there. We tried this thing, it was really cool and we're so pleased people liked it, but we need to figure out what it means." It's neither a yes or a no, but The Creative Assembly leave us with a feeling of 'watch this space'.

Audio resurrection

When you play Alien: Isolation, it's hard not to wonder why no one's tried taking the franchise back to its roots like this before. "It feels like no one really tapped into that," says Hope. "But it's so unique. It's weird, because I think a lot of games have been influenced by it, like Metroid, famously so. Everyone is focused on the alien experience, but no one's really tapped into that."

Which brings us to the other essential ingredient: sound. Jerry Goldsmith's original score was celebrated for avoiding narrative themes and instead focusing on providing a dark, dissonant soundscape - another hallmark that The Creative Assembly has honoured with Isolation.

"I was really adamant when we started that audio is such a massive part of any horror experience and Alien has its own distinct sound," Hope tells us. "It's a very tangible, physical world. But at the same time it has its lo-fi sci-fi 70s sound as well as the machines and technology.

"Then you've got Goldsmith's score which is a signature element. And we were really fortunate to work with his estate and licence the music, and so that's been weaved into the experience as well. So audio is a massive part of the experience."

Alien is a film about birth. From the moment the crew are awoken from stasis by the ship's computer, "mother", to the more obvious maternal metaphors in the iconic Chestburster scene. It feels appropriate that Isolation is one of several games to help mark the rebirth of a genre.

This is survival horror at its most essential. You are alone. You are vulnerable. Nothing you possess can kill this thing. Sure, maybe you can craft yourself a nice little EMP from some trinkets you found lying around the place. But that's little comfort when you're hiding under a table, desperately holding your breath as the gangly leg of Giger's creation stands just inches from your face.

As Hope puts it, "It's a world where technology won't save you."

Haven't you heard the news? Racing games are in trouble. If you didn't get the hint when Activision shut down Blur and Project Gotham developer Bizarre Creations in 2011, citing "fundamental" changes in the genre, perhaps the absence of a Need for Speed this Christmas (the first time for over a decade) will convince you that something is wrong.

Then again, despite what the naysayers might claim, we're about to see the launch of four huge racing games within the space of just a few weeks: Driveclub, Project Cars, The Crew and Forza Horizon 2. Driveclub alone will more than cater for the tastes of the true motoring aficionados, but it's Horizon 2 that could be just the shot in the arm that this genre needs right now.

Because, unlike Driveclub, which prides itself on the granular details, Horizon wants to cater for the car enthusiasts and the casual sunday drivers alike. While it holds many of the ideals of Forza 5 close to heart, it wants to make racing, well, fun again.

To do that it's tearing out the boundaries to let players race across open world environments and just indulge themselves in the pleasure of driving once again. But you can't launch your first game on a new console without wax and polish, no matter how many fun features you throw into the bag.

And what's interesting is that, while Playground Games and Turn 10 have carried over Forza 5's rendering engine and core systems on the Xbox One to make sure the cars feel as real as possible (with the option of various driving assists should you desire them), it found that it's the eyes, not the hands, that are always the final judge. You can have a car that handles identically to its real-world counterpart, but if it looks jaggy or the spoiler doesn't reflect light in just the right way, people won't buy into it.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," Turn 10 Studios Content Director John Wendl tells TechRadar. "We did some testing and evaluation, and we found that visuals more than the handling of the car influence how real something is. We came to the conclusion in many cases that if it looks real, it is real. And if it doesn't look real, it doesn't matter how accurate your physics are, people won't believe that it's real. Because at the end of the day you're driving a car in a video game, you're not getting seat-of-the-pants feedback, the world is not zipping by you."

Real Racing

But the team were faced with an interesting dilemma early on: the cars until now had looked too good. For a car to look truly real it needs imperfections, so the developers decided that this time they needed to tease out the flaws.

"With Horizon one and Forza 4, we would often get feedback saying 'your cars look perfect, how are you ever going to make them any better?'" says Wendl. "And we looked at them and we realised they were perfect, in fact they were too perfect, they were so pristine they almost looked fake"

"We'd sort of stumbled into this uncanny valley with cars. And when we went to the Xbox One we had this new horsepower and this new resolution, and we were thinking, how can we leverage this to really bring that visual realism to the next level?

"When we looked at cars up close we found all these minor imperfections. When you paint a car, no matter how many times you sand it, as you paint and put clear coat on it, there are these slight imperfections in the paint. When you look into the reflection it's slightly warbly, and that's called orange peel.

"It's one of those kind of things where we recreated that in the game but it wasn't until we had the Xbox One that we could do it right because at lower resolution it looks like visual artifacts, it looks like bugs. But at 1080p it looks like the real thing, and it's cool because car guys see it and theyre like 'oh wow man, they even recreated orange peel'.

"The cool thing is that the people who don't know what orange peel is or don't know cars, they see it and they just say 'man that looks real, I don't know what it is but theres something very real about it and it's because that's how they're used to seeing things in the real world with these slight imperfections. Machine marks on the brake rotors, the orange peel in the pain, these little micro scratches in the headlight covers and things like that, those are the things that, whether they consciously process it or not, they're used to seeing. And when they see it in the game there's something very comforting and real about it."

Blame it on the rain

Forza Horizon 2 runs at 1080p on Xbox One but sticks to 30fps, which ruffled a few feathers among gamers when it was confirmed. But Wendl says it's all part of the "balancing act", telling us that the game's weather system was the main culprit.

"Honestly a lot of it was the open world, but also the dynamic night and day lifecycle. Along with rain. Rain is a very heavy effect, with particles and drops and reflective surfaces and things like that. It's a very expensive environment to render, and you combine that with an open world and dynamic time of day, and Playground felt like, and we agreed, in order to get the level of visual fidelity with those features they would go to 30. And we agreed for that game in particular, because it's more of an open world and not such a serious simulation racer, they could afford to give up our framerate a little bit to get that over the top visual spectacle."

So what of the state of the racing genre then? Is it in need of a shakeup, or is it a case of just waiting for some fresh meat on the new consoles?

"I don't believe there's anything drying up," Wendl tells us. "I think racing is bigger and better than ever. I think the response to Forza 5 has been great, the response to Driveclub will be great, and when a new Gran Turismo ships on the next gen as well I'm sure that will be great and people will love it.

"I think the situation with Need for Speed is just that it's a development challenge. They went through some turmoil with different developers and they had some turnover, and hitting an annual cadence is a hard thing to do. We've been doing it for the last four years now and it's not easy so it doesn't take much to go wrong to miss that window.

"So for them to stand back and say 'you know what, we're actually going to hurt our franchise if we try to ship something this holiday, lets regroup, let's try to figure out the right thing to do'... I'd be very surprised if they don't come out swinging next holiday with a great product as well. I haven't seen any indication that that space is waning or that customers aren't very passionate about it. In fact, there are better efforts being put into it. and I know we haven't seen the last of Need for Speed."

But until then we have Horizon 2, Driveclub, The Crew and Project Cars to look forward to. Don't call it a comeback.

• The devil's in the details for Driveclub

What's big, has everybody talking and will cause a great deal of joy and sadness on Friday morning? No, not the Scottish independence referendum: we mean the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which go on sale Friday - but not to many of the people who ordered theirs from Phones 4u, which went into administration this week after everybody else's pre-orders had already sold out.

This week we discovered whether Apple still leads, or if others have taken its crown. Not only that, but we've got the latest Sony Xperia, a bunch of new Kindles, the Moto 360 and a date with Destiny.

Has Apple perfected the phone?

The iPhone 6 is bigger, better, sleeker and faster than ever before - but the days when Apple had the good smartphone market to itself have long gone. How does the iPhone 6 fare against Android's finest? Gareth Beavis knows, and he reckons it's "sensational, but not flawless."

The screen isn't full HD and, as we're sure you already know, it's awfully expensive - although not as expensive as the even bigger iPhone 6 Plus. The good Mr Beavis reckons you should make sure you really want one: it's designed for "a very particular client base." We think he means rich giants.

iOS: is 8 great?

New iPhones mean a new version of iOS, and the arrival of iOS 8 appears to have many iPhone 4S owners cursing Tim Cook as their smartphones slow to a crawl. On more recent devices, though, there's a lot to like - and Matt Swider can explain what, where and why. Not everything works yet (don't enable Cloud Drive until Yosemite ships if you want to keep syncing with your Mac) but there's lots of cool new stuff. We're particularly pleased about the third party keyboards.

Sony's premium push

Sony, it's safe to say, isn't doing very well at the moment. Its solution? Shift strategy and in mobiles, concentrate on the premium smartphone market. Sony's problem isn't so much the hardware - devices such as the new Xperia Z3 are great - as Sony's relationship with carriers, particularly those in the US and China.

Amazon's Kindle Kollection

You can tell Christmas is coming: Amazon's announced a whole bunch of new Kindles it hopes you'll buy for everybody you know. There's a new Kindle Fire for kids called the Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition, updated Kindle Fire HDs and Kindle Fire HDXes, and a new higher resolution ebook reader called the Kindle Voyage.

Moto 360-uh-oh

Matt Swider has spent a week with Motorola's Moto 360 smartwatch, and that time has exposed a fatal flaw: its battery life is terrible, which means that after a long day it's not much more useful than a sundial. It does look quite nice, though.

A date with Destiny

This week Bungie's Destiny broke records: its launch is the most successful of any new gaming franchise, which is a corporate way of saying it's sold a bajillion copies. Unlike Bungie's Halo franchise it's available on PS4 too, and that encouraged us to revisit our PS4 review to see how it looks now there are lots of decent games and streaming services for Sony's console. It's still the most powerful console in the world, and now it's starting to deliver on its promises [].

Google 2.0

The Scots aren't the only people who want to change the world this week. Google wants to change the world too, and CEO Larry Page has set up a special Google 2.0 task force to solve issues such as, er, making Google more accessible to kids. Thankfully Google 2.0's other plans are more ambitious: they're designing cities of the future, more efficient airports and better forms of security. Google's Calico still beats them on ambition, though: it's trying to cure death.

Galactic revelations

And finally, Samsung has confirmed the release date for the Galaxy Note 4. The phablet will go on sale in the UK on October 10 and in the US on October 17, with pre-orders now open. You can see what we thought of the phone in our Galaxy Note 4 hands on review.

• Check out our best iPhone 6 deals

When Microsoft announced its Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles had won exclusive rights to the next Tomb Raider game, it was heralded as a lift that may help the firm reel in the PS4's next-gen lead.

However, it appears Microsoft's dibs on Rise of the Tomb Raider, expected during the 2015 holiday season, won't be permanent.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Xbox chief Phil Spencer confirmed Microsoft's exclusive was for 'a duration' rather than for entire life-cycle of Square Enix's next Lara Croft adventure.

The admission, which was expected to a certain degree, opens the door for Rise of the Tomb Raider to come to the Sony PS3, PS4 and Windows once the as-yet-undetermined period of exclusivity has ended.

No fake outs

Spencer said: "Yes, the deal has a duration. I didn't buy it. I don't own the franchise.

He had earlier laid it out thus: "I have Tomb Raider shipping next holiday exclusively on Xbox. It is Xbox 360 and Xbox One. I'm not trying to fake anybody out in terms of where this thing is. What they do with the franchise in the long run is not mine. I don't control it. So all I can talk about is the deal I have. I don't know where else Tomb Raider goes."

Spencer refused to confirm how long the exclusivity will last, but for those fans accusing Tomb Raider publisher Square Enix and developer Crystal Dynamics of selling out to Microsoft, you can now rest easy.

It seems the next installment of Tomb Raider will reach your gaming system ... eventually.

• The white Xbox One will be available to buy in October

Via Forbes

Superheros often come with initiate or mutant powers, but some of our favorite comic book characters also rely on technology to save the world.

Where would Batman be without his utility belt? Could Captain America really carry on without his shield? What would Iron Man be made out of without his life-saving suit?

San Diego Comic-Con cosplay and exhibits are incorporating more and more technology every year, and we had a hand in introducing new gadgets like Google Glass to classic characters.

While cosplay weapons are sometimes checked at the door and, apparently, a Google Glass ban existed at panels, here's what we found at Comic-Con 2014.

1. Oculus Rift in as the X-Men leader

I was able to step into the mind of X-Men leader Professor X this weekend thanks to an Oculus Rift and a pair of Beats headphones.

Twenty Century Fox's booth brought the smart-minded superhero's brain amplifying mutant detector to reality, or at least virtual reality in a three-minute demo.

It was used to pick out shapeshifting mutant Mystique from a crowd of innocent humans while looking 360 degrees in any direction.

Looking down at Professor X's stationary wheelchair in real life and in virtual reality was the best part. I saw his hands laying on the chair's armrests, mapped exactly where my hands were.

This worked well because the professor doesn't... exactly move much. The developers behind The X-Men Cerebro Experience could predict where my arms and legs were going to be.

In fact, the only movement involved a tiny control stick on the right armrest that sent the chair in a limited forward direction and rumble technology that vibrated the seat intensely.

All of this was captured by a GoPro 3 camera that Fox used to record each Oculus Rift demo, though the camera was often not working. That's what happened to me right before sitting in the chair.

2. Into the Storm with Oculus

Warner Bros. showed me an even more action-filled Oculus Rift demo that sent me into the eye of a tornado with 4D weather effects inside a glass booth.

This simulation promoted the studio's new Into the Storm disaster movie with the recreation of a scene that had characters hunkered down behind a sewer entrance.

Through the first-person perspective of one of the characters, I saw the intense winds carry trucks into the barred sewer entrance until it gave way and underground pipes burst with water.

Meanwhile, WB's two-person glass enclosure was filled with powerful fans that reproduced the wind effects that went as far as to send my badge flailing in the air.

When Into the Storm premiers in August, it'll be one of the new 4DX movies that bring wind, smells and seat-rumbling effects to properly equipped theaters.

• For more impressions: Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 review

3. Beam brings cosplay from far, far away

Some people will do anything to go to San Diego Comic-Con, but one person in particular didn't even have to leave his Palo Alto office in order to roam around the show floor.

Suitable Technologies CEO Scott Hassan had the most inventive cosplay outfits yet thanks to a steampunk version of his company's Beam remote presence robot.

Hassan, an early Google architect, traveled the exhibitor hall without making the seven-hour drive and donned Google Glass.

Best of all, his high-end video conferencing robot blended into the new Star Wars characters. This is the droid we're looking for.

4. Google Glass on classic characters

More Google Glass wearers could be found around the San Diego convention center on the faces of characters that would ask me for a demo.

Game of Thrones' Jon Snow supposedly "knows nothing," but the HBO character sure knew how to work Google's wearable computer.

Even though it should be old news to Back to the Future's Marty McFly, he seemed kind of excited by it. He was less excited by the already depleted battery life, however.

We even paired up with X-Men's Cyclops to pretend to send some optical blasts into the crowd. The idea behind this was to eliminate sweaty nerds. It didn't work.

It was surprising to see the excitement that the friendly Comic-Con cosplayers had for Google Glass. It was a much warmer reaction than I experienced at CES, which had a "been there, seen it, judged it" attitude.

5. Robotic Legos

Beam wasn't the only robot found roaming around Comic-Con 2014. Lego had an impressive number of beeping and buzzing master builder creations.

Lego Chopper was by far the most popular, as the the new droid is going to be part of this the Star Wars Rebels animated series later this year.

This life-sized droid is made out of more than 10,000 bricks and includes a rotating head that brought the R2D2 predecessor to life.

Batman's Lego Batcycle was also a big tech-infused hit with just as many pieces to assemble. Everyone at Comic-Con was reminded that while the bike life-sized, it's not meant for you to sit on.

6. Alien Isolation Experience brings out big guns

There were no shortage of fictitious weapons, but one of our favorites found its way to the Alien Isolation Experience booth.

This custom-made Alien gun had an gruesome alien head chomping on the trigger of an approximately 50-inch barrel that lit up in blue.

It really set the tone for the October-bound game that was also on hand and the gun sure as heck would beat the normal pulse rifle Sigourney Weaver carried around.

7. E.T. for Atari finally phones home at Comic-Con

Microsoft's Comic-Con presence included games like Sunset Overdrive, Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Forza Horizon.

However, its documentary about E.T. the Extraterrestrial for Atari 2600 was something we didn't already see at E3 2014.

Atari: Game Over isn't just a feel-good movie about the Spielberg film. It takes a look at the ill-fated game that found its way to a New Mexico landfill in 1983 and was unearthed in April.

This fall-bound Xbox 360 and Xbox One exclusive survived the Xbox Entertainment Studios layoffs and is perfectly timed with the similarly themed Angry Video Game Nerd the Movie.

Expect even more tech this time next year at Comic-Con 2015 considering the popularity of Oculus Rift. Sony's Project Morpheus may be ready in time.

Likewise, more wearables are predicted for the next several months leading up to CES 2015. That means people dressing up with even more tech-focused cosplay.

Nvidia believes it's seen the future of portable gaming, and it's a future where tablet and controller live not as one, but side by side - however Microsoft's glanced into the crystal ball and seem something quite different.

Spotted by Patently Apple, a new patent suggests that Microsoft has plans for a unique style of controller to improve gaming on a Surface tablet.

By "unique", we mean a standard-looking Xbox controller that can be cut down the middle, with each half attached to either side of the tablet to create a Razer Edge-style device. And it looks as bizarre as it sounds.

Take these broken wings

At least the Razer Edge keeps its controllers reasonably flush with the device - Microsoft's controller gives its tablet a massive pair of Xbox wings that don't look too conducive to comfortable gaming.

Still, this is just a patent, so it could go down as nothing more than yet another of the many whacky ideas we love to speculate about.

Nvidia Shield Tablet: hands on review

The Xbox One will be around for as long as its hugely successful predecessor, according to UK marketing director Harvey Eagle.

Talking to TechRadar at an Xbox event, Eagle confidently predicted that, despite a rocky start for the Xbox One against the PS4, time will prove the great healer.

"Look I mean the Xbox 360 generation is 9 years old and still going strong," he told us.

"I think [Xbox One] is going to be around for equally long time and if you think about it we're really at the very start and I am very optimistic about the future."

Eagle also insisted that the wealth of negative feedback that was received for the Xbox One - much of which was from the passionate fanboys of Microsoft's gaming wing - should be something to be proud of.

"You can't change things, and we understand the feedback," said Eagle.

Lucky

"In one sense we're quite lucky that we have bunch of people that care and want to tell us how we can make it better," he added.

"I've been around the business for 14 or 15 years and we didn't have the benefit of that insight in the past.

"You didnt get that real time feedback and I think we're quite lucky and I'm really proud that we listen and act and we've done that quickly.

Eagle admitted the 'turbulence' that has haunted the early part in the Xbox's life has not been fun, but insisted that things had changed direction.

"I'm more confident now than I have ever been. I wish we didn't have some of the turbulence of the early part but c'est la vie."

Sony announced it's remastering The Last of Us for the PS4 during E3 2014, and soon it will be joined by many other PS3 titles.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Sony Computer Entertainment boss Andrew House shared Sony's plans to remaster older PlayStation titles for new audience on the PS4.

Naughty Dog's game was released in June 2013, the early twilight days of the PS3 when many gamers avoided buying new games knowing that next-gen consoles were just around the corner. House said that because of this, Sony believes there's a contingent of PS4 players who've never played Last of Us or other games released late in the PS3's life.

"I hesitate to say this because I know committed gamers may roll their eyes about it," House said. "But there's an opportunity with some of the remastering or re-imagining from PS3 franchises that will potentially find an audience that hasn't played them in the previous generation because they skipped that generation."

Another remastered title to join Naughty Dog's second party hit is Grand Theft Auto V.

Skipping a generation

Beyond these two titles, House believes there an even larger swath of PS4 users who skipped last gen all together. Now House hopes to remaster more gaming experiences for anyone who opted to buy a Nintendo Wii rather than a PS3 or Xbox 360.

Last generation, the Wii sold roughly 20 million more units worldwide over Microsoft and Sony's consoles of yesteryear. Now with the booming success of the PlayStation 4, shipping nearly seven million units around the globe, House explained he wants to turn the PS4 into a broader entertainment device.

"We're only just getting into our stride with people who now have been playing for 10, 20 years, who have a nostalgia factor, who want to see those franchises come back and be reinvented," House said.

Rumors have suggested Sony will bring back old-school franchises, including Syphon Filter. In a separate interview with the Telegraph, House also suggested Sony has been contemplating the return of Crash Bandicoot.

Sony might just be testing the waters to see what reactions it can get draw with quotes like these, but just imagine what if there were finally a new PaRappa game.

• Check out our PS4 review!