Almost half of Xbox One owners have used backwards compatibility

Xbox head Phil Spencer says that almost 50 per cent of Xbox One owners have made use of its backwards compatibility service.

It suggests that the decision to introduce the option at E3 2015 was a smart one. The firm stated at the time that backwards compatibility was its most requested feature for Xbox One, but Sony dismissed the move. Jim Ryan, head of sales and marketing at PlayStation, told Eurogamer last year: "It's a feature that gets much talked about. But it's a feature that's not used that much. People move on very quickly."

Microsoft has been utilising its backwards compatibility functions to both promote upcoming games in the same franchise (so releasing Fallout 3 to push sales of Fallout 4), and also to encourage current 360 owners to upgrade to Xbox One over PS4. Harvey Eagle, marketing director for Xbox in the UK, told us last week: "Our data shows that there is still a significant number of households actively using their Xbox 360 who haven't upgraded yet. [The backwards compatibility list] is growing all the time and I think it is definitely a benefit for Xbox 360 owners to know that the money that they've already spent on games won't get wasted when they upgrade to Xbox One."

However, one retailer suggested to GamesIndustry.biz that Xbox should be looking to bring more kids games to the service - as it would go some way to widening the platform's potential reach and attract a younger audience of gamers.

Spencer added in his Tweet that there are currently over 300 Xbox 360 games that are compatible with Xbox One, and that number will increase over the next 12 months.