Xbox 360 goes further backwards

Wednesday 30 August 2006
Xbox 360's backwards compatibility list has been updated, revealing many more Xbox games that can now be played on Microsoft's next-gen machine. This is despite Xbox head Peter Moore's comments earlier in the year that Xbox 360 backward compatibility was unimportant.

The list includes heavy hitters Burnout 3: Takedown and Sid Meier's Pirates!, as well as an update for Half-Life 2 compatibility, rounding out a somewhat lower-key line-up elsewhere (including some unloved Japanese-only releases). It's also notable for some titles that haven't actually been released yet - a case of forwards compatibility - such as Lego Star Wars II and Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run.

Still conspicuous by their absence are Sega's Xbox-exclusive titles, from OutRun 2 right back to the likes of Gunvalkyrie and Panzer Dragoon Orta, even though they've been the subject of wailing and gnashing of teeth since the very first backwards compatibility list. Perhaps the Sega teams' unconventional approaches to Xbox coding are defying 360's software engineers?

The following games have been added to the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list.

Aggressive Inline
Aquaman: Battle of Atlantis
All Star Baseball 2003
All Star Baseball 2005
Burnout 3: Takedown
Catwoman
Crash Nitro Kart (updated)
Counter-Strike
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Dead to Rights
Digimon Rumble Arena 2 (updated)
ESPN Major League Baseball
Fatal Frame 2
Ford vs Chevy (updated)
Freaky Flyers
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows
Ghost Recon: Island Thunder
Half-Life 2 (updated)
The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer (updated)
IndyCar Series 2005
Kabuki Warriors (updated)
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Links 2004
Magatama (updated)
Maximum Chase
Mortal Kombat: Deception (updated)
MTX: Mototrax
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection
MX vs ATV Unleashed
Outlaw Tennis
Over the Hedge
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Richard Burns Rally
Rogue Trooper
Serious Sam
Shinchou Mahjong
Smashing Drive
Sneakers (updated)
Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run
The Legend of Spyro: A Beginning
Taz: Wanted
True Crime: Streets of LA
The Suffering
Trigger Man
Torino Winter Olympics 2006
Vietcong
Wrath Unleashed
X-Men II: Wolverine's Revenge