Can you play Xbox One game discs on Xbox Series X or S?

The Xbox Series X and Series S are, each in their own right, really enticing propositions. With the Series X, Microsoft has got the most powerful games console ever released into people’s homes, powering amazing new technical feats and way better performance.

The Series S, meanwhile, is unthinkably affordable for a new next-gen platform, and brings superb upgrades in the smallest Xbox ever made, perfect for familys or anyone with a smaller TV stand who still wants to enjoy new games. However, if you’ve been on the Xbox bandwagon for a while now, you might have yourself a collection of great games on disc already, and be wondering whether they’ll work on a new console – don’t worry, it’s not just you! We’ve got the answers you need, below.

Will my old discs work on Xbox Series S?

We’ll get this one out of the way first as it’s the simpler answer – no! The key thing to know about the Xbox Series S before you buy it is that there’s no physical disc drive whatsoever, which means that you’ll have no way at all of running games from your discs on the new compact console.

That means that if you have a big library of Xbox One games on disc that you know you’ll be wanting to dip back into fairly regularly, it might not end up being the best choice for you as a next-generation machine.

Will my old discs work on Xbox Series X?

This side of the question is a little more complicated. Microsoft made it clear from a very early stage that the Xbox Series X is going to support a massive degree of backward compatibility for older Xbox games, especially those for Xbox One.

With a 4K Blu-ray drive on board as part of the hardware, that means that you’ve got an extremely high chance of your Xbox One discs working without any hassle on your Xbox Series X, and in fact benefitting from potentially faster loading times and superior performance as a result of the upgraded hardware.

However, there are a few wrinkles here. Microsoft explained in a blog post earlier this year that one area of complexity surrounds Kinect, its ill-fated exploration of motion-sensing. If you want to play a game that relies on Kinect, you’re out of luck – the Xbox Series X doesn’t support the peripheral, which means the game won’t work.

It’ll also be a little more complicated when it comes to older discs, from the Xbox 360 era, some of which should be supported, but in the absence of a final list of these games we can’t be certain which will work. However, it’s relatively safe bet that discs that work in your Xbox One should be happy with your Xbox Series X, too.

In due course, though, Microsoft will likely release a full list of compatible titles to make it easier to be 100% certain about a given game. As and when that appears, we’ll update this feature to reflect the new information.

Original Article