MS Expands 360 Backward Compatibility

Dozens of Xbox games added to the slowly-growing list, which now includes not-yet-released games.

The Xbox is massive, and the Xbox 360 is massive. It seems logical that owners of both would like to forklift the parent console into storage at some point, but when that will be possible depends on when the Xbox 360 supports all your Xbox games. Perhaps you're closer now.

Lego Star Wars II will be supported from the start

Microsoft added nearly 40 games to its list of backward compatible Xbox games this week, according to Xbox Live's Larry Hryb. The retro-wonks at Microsoft have also update the code for nine already-backward-compatible games to make them more so.

The update covers some classics (Burnout: Revenge), some not-so-classics (Catwoman) and even a few games that haven't been released yet (Lego Star Wars II). There's still no sign of compatibility for Psychonauts, though, despite the pleas from Tim Schafer, the game's creator, after his game was left out at the last update.

Microsoft now has around 300 Xbox games working on the Xbox 360. The company was forced to take the drastic step of resorting to software emulation for backward compatibility because of the new hardware that went into the Xbox 360.

The complete list of newly backward compatible games and those recently updated is below:

• Aggressive Inline
• Aquaman: Battle of Atlantis
• All Star Baseball 2003
• All Star Baseball 2005
• Burnout 3: Takedown
• Catwoman
• Crash Bandicoot: 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 Warrior (Updated)
• Lego Star Wars II
• Links 2004
• Magatama (Updated)
• Maximum Chase
• Mortal Kombat: Deception (Updated)
• MTX: Mototrax Featuring Travis Pastrana
• 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
• Shincho 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

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games