Whenever a new gaming console hits the market, there is a surge of new gamers ready to try it out. However, there is also a huge number of old games that will want to upgrade to the new console. This makes “backward compatibility” a very important feature for any new gaming console. For old games, “backward compatibility” is a major consideration point before buying a console. For the Sony PS5, it will only be backward compatible with PS4 games. However, for the Xbox Series X/S, the case is different.
This week, Microsoft’s Xbox project manager, Jason Ronald, officially confirmed that after 500,000 hours of testing, Microsoft can now confidently say that the Xbox Series X/S can play all games on Xbox of the past three generations. From the first day of its launch, users can play all older Xbox games.
Jason Ronald also revealed that for some old games, if players play on the next-generation console, there will even be unexpected surprises (an allusion to the screen effect bonus on the next-generation console).
However, it is important to note that there will be some exceptions within Microsoft’s generous backward compatibility policy. Kinect somatosensory games will not run because the Xbox Series console does not support the kit.
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Sony PS5 Specs comparison with Microsoft Xbox Series X
| | PlayStation 5 | Xbox Series X |
| CPU | 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency, with SMT) | 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz (3.6GHz with SMT) |
| GPU | 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency) | 12.16 TFLOPs, 52 CUs at 1.825GHz |
| GPU Architecture | Custom RDNA 2 w/ hardware RT support | Custom RDNA 2 w/ hardware RT support |
| Memory | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 448GB/s | 10GB at 560GB/s, 6GB at 336GB/s |
| Internal Storage | Custom 825GB NVMe SSD | 1TB Custom NVMe SSD |
| IO Throughput | 5.5GB/s (Raw), 8-9GB/s (Compressed) | 2.4GB/s (Raw), 4.8GB/s (Compressed) |
| Expandable Storage | NVMe SSD Slot | 1TB Expansion Card |
| External Storage | USB HDD Support | USB HDD Support |
| Optical Drive | 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive | 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive |
| HDMI | 2.1 (4K/120Hz, 8K, VRR) | 2.1 (4K/120Hz, 8K, VRR) |
| Backwards compatibility | PlayStation 4 | Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One |
Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X are selling out swiftly globally
According to a recent report, the Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X are selling like hotcakes. For Sony PS5, the inventory on multiple platforms sold out within 24 hours. Microsoft’s new Xbox Series X/S game console has been pre-sold through multiple channels in North America, Japan, and other places. However, it also takes a few hours for these consoles to sell out.