This article was published on October 23, 2017

You can now buy (but not play) original Xbox games from the Xbox Marketplace


You can now buy (but not play) original Xbox games from the Xbox Marketplace

The tastiest bit of news out of this year’s E3 was that Microsoft was updating the Xbox One to allow it to play original Xbox games. As someone who spent his formative years with his hands around one of those absurdly massive controllers, I’m pretty damn excited.

And now, it seems like the feature is tantalizingly close, as original Xbox games have appeared on the “games on demand” section of the Xbox Marketplace. Here’s what’s coming:

  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
  • Neowave: The King of Fighters
  • Prince of Persia
  • Red Faction 2
  • BloodRayne 2
  • Dead to Rights 

Some pretty decent titles there (KOTOR!), although every atom of my being wishes the list included The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Burnout 3: Takedown, and Jet Set Radio: Future. 

This lineup matches closely an earlier leaked list, although that also contained the following games:

  • Crimson Skies
  • Fuzion Frenzy
  • Grabbed by the Ghoulies
  • Ninja Gaiden Black
  • Pirates! 
  • Psychonauts

Fingers crossed we’ll see these on the store soon, as I’d love to revisit Grabbed by the Ghoulies at some point.

Each title currently available costs $9.99, with the exception of Red Faction 2, which runs for $14.99. That may seem like a lot, especially when you consider most of them are over ten years old, but it’s worth remembering that it probably took a lot of effort to get them to run on Microsoft’s newest gaming hardware.

Annoyingly, while you can purchase these titles, they won’t show up on the Xbox One dashboard, which suggests we’re waiting on Microsoft to flick a switch, or push a system update that’ll make it happen.

Please hurry, Microsoft.

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