Not forever, though
Next fall, you won’t need an Xbox Series X (or a high-end Windows 10 gaming PC) to play the next chapter in Master Chief’s saga. Halo Infinite will be the flagship showcase of everything the Xbox Series X is capable of, that much is certain. High resolutions, high framerates, real-time ray tracing — all that stuff will be on full display. But for those who won’t immediately buy into the next generation of Xbox, they won’t be left out.
Halo Infinite will launch on Xbox One during holiday 2020, simultaneously alongside Xbox Series X and PC. That’s not a one-off exception. In an interview with MCV, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty pledges that Xbox Series X games will be playable on Xbox One for at least a couple of years.
Booty says: “As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices. We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”
The PC analog tracks insofar as the mindset Microsoft is trying to bring to consoles. A top-of-the-line rig (Xbox Series X in this case) will be able to play everything at the highest settings. A machine that’s a little outdated (Xbox One here) will be able to run software but with some concessions. Eventually, as technology pushes far enough forward, that older PC won’t be able to keep up.
Microsoft has a commitment to both backward and forward compatibility with the next Xbox. That means the consumer has options next fall. Getting the newest games doesn’t necessarily come with the expense of getting the newest hardware. At least for a while.
