Microsoft is continually adding stuff to its services, from shifting around the rules of Xbox Live/Xbox Network, to introducing more features for older games. Backwards compatible games have been a big deal at Xbox, but up until now streaming them wasn’t available, even with remote play. Until now. Well, still not with remote play.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers now have access to 16 backwards compatible games for Xbox Cloud Streaming. Perhaps an even bigger surprise is that a smaller handful of these games have been updated with touch controls! The following games are included, with touch control titles noted:
- Banjo-Kazooie
- Banjo-Tooie
- Double Dragon Neon
- Fable II
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Gears of War 2
- Gears of War 3
- Gears of War: Judgment
- Jetpac Refuelled (touch controls enabled)
- Kameo
- Perfect Dark
- Perfect Dark Zero
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Viva Piñata (touch controls enabled)
- Viva Piñata: TIP (touch controls enabled)
It’s mostly Rare Replay games, but hey, you can also run through all of Gears of War on your phone now. Go figure. Adding touch controls to those specific games makes sense as well, for the kinds of games those are. Keep in mind the first touch controlled game was Minecraft Dungeons.
Related: Microsoft Launches FPS Boost for Xbox Series X/S, Starting With Five Games
This is only the initial rollout for what the Xbox team says is “one of the most requested features” for its Cloud Gaming service. The article on Xbox Wire announcing this update notes that more games are on the way.
Call me when Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon show up. Also, uh, iOS compatibility…
What do our readers think of this news? Is it great to see the backwards compatibility team at Xbox doing that work? Let us know at Prima Games’ Twitter and Facebook feeds.