The original Xbox (and thank you once again Microsoft for making it confusing to say the Xbox 1) was the first console I bought with my own money. I'd been a Nintendo kid virtually all of my young life, but I needed a console to play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and later on*, so I compared the three consoles and went with Microsoft's new hotness. I eventually bought the other two as well, but the Xbox was my standard console for that generation. That's why I was so excited to hear that Phil Spencer was bringing Xbox backwards compatibility to the XBone and now it seems that titles are starting to pop up. The current suspects are...

• Crimson Skies (obviously, Phil said so)
• Ninja Gaiden Black
• Psychonauts
• Fusion Frenzy (Bill Gates will be PSYCHED)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
• Sid Meier's Pirates!
• Dead to Rights
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
• Bloodrayne
• Grabbed by the Ghoulies
• Red Faction II
• King of Fighters NeoWave

I think the list is interesting. I have fond memories (and in some cases, discs) of a few of these like Psychonauts and Ninja Gaiden, but I completely missed others like Prince of Persia and Bloodrayne. I've also heard good thing about Pirates! but never played it myself. I was totally surprised to see Grabbed by the Ghoulies since it's already in the Rare Replay collection, but I guess if you just want that game, why not have it be loose and available. How about y'all? Anything big missing (I know Project Gotham Racing is a sad omission) or an old original Xbox fave you wanna see?

*Yes, THPS 1 and 2 were available on the N64. No, they weren't good, but I played them.

Edit: For the record, I pulled these games from an image in this Polygon article.

Glad to see KOTOR and Ninja Gaiden Black. Two of my favourite games! Personally I'd like to see them bring Otogi 1&2 and Panzer Dragoon Orta. I'm sure Sega wouldnt mind.

Still holding out hope for GunValkyrie. I've been itching to replay that lately for some unknown reason.

Hopefully they end up getting PGR and Burnout 2 and 3 on there. Maybe there's some licensing stuff in the way of those. I figure they're going to focus on stuff that was more exclusive at the start, but I'd love to have a copy of those again. Also Stubbs the Zombie, why the hell not.

I don't know why I am excited for KOTR. I have it for the Mac and iPad and I never played it there... but here I am getting excited again for it. Maybe the third time will be the charm and I will finish it!!

Dead to Rights woo

wait

Ninja Gaiden Black has decapitations. You can see them if you buy Ninja Gaiden Black. The other Ninja Gaidens don't have that. They should but they don't. Ninja Gaiden Black. In stores now.

All I need is Freedom Fighters and Jet Set Radio Future.

I feel the same way, though the version I got on a Steam sale a while back is so goddamn glitchy that I barely got off the first ship and never got off the first planet before getting too frustrated to continue. Hopefully this version will let me enjoy it in all its original glory.

This isn't a slam on the game, it clearly has a devoted fan base, but I never really got the big deal about Jet Set Radio. I played it on a friend's Dreamcast and later got a free copy of JSRF when I bought my Xbox, but I never really got into it. Maybe I was just too invested in the Tony Hawk trick system or something. What did I miss about Jet Set that literally everyone else seemed to latch on to and enjoy?

Burnout yesssss. Such good times with 2's crash mode and pretty much all of 3.

Also, anyone every played Quantum Redshift? It was a Mario Kart + Pod Racer kind of game, was actually pretty good from memory, but I have no idea if it holds up. Early Xbox exclusive.

So do you just pop your old disk in or do you need to rebuy them?

I cannot wait for this to officially launch. I need to re-play Crimson Skies, because I played that game so much on the original Xbox.

All I remember are drunken missiles (my first, glorious exposure to those as a concept), a giant metal snake thing, and a giant metal zeppelin that ate other zeppelins.

A fucking zeppelin that ate other zeppelins.

@oursin_360: I think either option works, it should be similar to the Xbox 360 back compat. You can either (A) buy them digitally and play with no disk or (B) put in a disk, the system will download the game and essentially use the disk as verification that you own a copy. Details here, a story from E3 earlier this year.

Give me Kotor and Morrowind! On another note, do we know how this is going to work? Will I be able to purchase a digital version of original Xbox games?

@phoenix654: JSRF is one of my favorite games of all time and personally, what really resonated with me was it's sense of sssssssstyle. On one hand, it feels like this weird mashup and appreciation of hip-hop, punk, rock, pop, and rave/techno culture with a quirky Japanese spin. Between making up most of the track list, influencing characters and their clothing, and DJ Professor K being one of if not the most prominent character, hip-hop is easily the most dominant of those aspects and since I've always been a fan of that culture and Japanese media, the game immediately grabbed me.

The game both does and doesn't take itself seriously. First of all, you and half the youth of the city are on fucking skates fighting back against "the man," and forming gangs consisting of punk rockers, mummies, old bikers-turned-skaters, and a bunch of other shit. The world and premise are clearly fucking insane, but the game presents all of this with a straight face which I think is really important because it keeps you immersed. It just wants you to get sucked into this world and come along for the ride. It's not sucking you out every 30 seconds by breaking the fourth wall.

To top it all off, the game was given what I consider to be a beautiful, vibrant artstyle. The characters were all very striking and unique, but every part of that city - even the goddamn sewers - were just like some visual feast to behold. And I may be remembering wrong, but very little of the game felt like a "skate park." It felt like an actual city for the most part...which was super important to the gameplay in my mind.

The game was, to me, much like a Mirror's Edge where getting around can be incredibly fluid and fun if you could find the right "line." And in that sense it was almost like a puzzle/rhythm game where your objective was secretly to spend as little time as possible on the ground and look good doing it. Handrails, train tracks, power lines, billboards, buses, walls, pipes, etc - it had all these ways to get around and because it was realistic in a sense, you kinda knew what to look out for wherever you went. You could enter a new area and immediately come up with a million different lines in your head after having a look around. The only thing left then was to use them to cover the city in graffiti and win the occasional race...or fight the cops.

But that's just my opinion.

What's the chance we will be able to some day play games like these on Windows 10? That would be my dream scenario. Really want to play Ninja Gaiden Black again, but I'll probably never buy a new "big boy console". My PC and Switch is more than enough. I've packed away my 360 after not using it for over a year, and my PS3 is a blu-ray movie player. Since Microsoft has started toying with the idea of using Windows 10 as an addition to Xbox, is this a remote possibility?

@phoenix654: ok, thats cool. I am mulling over getting an xbone at some point and the fact i haven't been able to play xbox games since my console broke when the 360 came out makes this seem appealing.

I picked up a new One S last week dirt cheap - a cousin got it along with his cellphone contract, and already had one - and all I've used it for is 360 b/c stuff, which has generally been excellent. I hope the OG Xbox stuff is of the same standard.

I'm looking forward to the random "Really that game" type of releases that I hope we'll eventually see. Also Jade Empire might be nice in addition to the KOTOR games. Freedom Fighters and Jet Set Radio Future would be rad as well. And how about Dino Crisis 3 or Stubbs?

KOTOR baby! Replaying that shit for sure

Not enough talk if Blinx The Timesweeper in here!

I wouldn't mind playing Crimson Skies, Jet Set Radio Future, or Panzer Dragoon Orta again. Maybe Shenmue II and Jade Empire. I struggle to think of much else I enjoyed that hasn't already been ported or had a better sequel.

@babychoochoo: I remember getting blisters on my thumbs from GunValkyrie. I loved the concept, but the game was far too demanding for me. I never did make it past the second zone.

@msx2: Yes, really hoping for Jet Set Radio Future, i actully think that game holds up.

I'd really like Mercenaries 1 and Jade Empire, and maybe Guilty Gear XX Reload.

@babychoochoo: Dayum. That is a far better explanation of JSRF than I've ever received. Perhaps if they put it out, I will give it another try. Hell, might even dig out my copy and see if it works on my 360 come Extra Life day this year.

Oh, great. Red Faction 2 and Bloodrayne.

Guessing the only reason those two were picked was that it was easy to do so. Still, this is a cool feature and definitely something Microsoft has over Sony.

Out of the day 1 list: KotOR, NGB, and Crimson Skies will be mine. Very excited for this.

It's a good start!

It'd probably be a licensing nightmare, but I'd really like to see the Buffy games and The Warriors. And Urban Chaos Riot Response. Not much on the current list that really excites me, but I'm still just glad they are actually doing this.

Freedom Fighters pls.

I'm actually excited for Dead to Rights. I played that game before Max Payne so I was pretty blown away by it at the time.

IGN apparently has confirmed that list (their wording was that microsoft revealed the list to them)

so, KOTOR!!!!!!!!!!

I'm genuinely excited for KOTOR here, because KOTOR with a controller is how I remember it and how I feel most comfortable playing it. I've tinkered with it on the PC (which is a bit buggy and weird at times) and it's just one of those things where it's hard to recreate exactly how you experienced something the first time on a completely different platform. Popping in my disc and playing it with a controller sounds great. I actually have my old Dead to Rights disc too, so neat.

Edit: Hot damn, it looks like these games are going to be backwards compatible starting tomorrow, all up-rezzed to 1080p. How could I not re-play KOTOR now?

Black, Red Faction II, and Crimson Skies tomorrow?

FUCK. YES.

Black felt terribly clunky to play a few years back, wish they could modernize the control scheme with this whole thing.

They better play Fusion Frenzy on UPF. It was such wonderful garbage during the Extra Life.

For better or worse that lineup certainly screams Xbox. Not much there for me personally but NeoWave and Sands of Time sound like what I'll be checking out as I've never played NeoWave before and I've never beaten Sands of Time.

I'm glad to see KotoR, Sands of Time, and Ninja Gaiden Black...

...but Bloodrayne 2! I have an irrational love of that game, I bought it the same day as KotoR 2 and didn't get to KotoR 2 until a few days later. I miss the series horribly and I never thought this game would be one of the OG games available, let alone day one. So excited!

My main memories of the original Xbox are of Halo: CE, Crimson Skies, and Dead or Alive. The first and the last are unnecessary, so I guess I'm set.

I thought Red Faction 2 was rad. The campaign wasn't on par with the original, but I had loads of fun with local multiplayer/bot-slaughtering, and I dig the future-Soviet style of that game. It already played pretty well, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's better than ever on a XB1 controller, as the old dualshock I originally played it on wasn't sensitive enough on some of the "press-to-zoom-in" kind of stuff. I think it's a cool and fairly unexpected inclusion here.

I sold my OG Xbox and all the games years ago, but my nostalgia for KOTOR and Crimson Skies is strong. $10 each? Sure. Bought.

They got the big ones with that initial list for me: Ninja Gaiden Black and Psychonauts!!!!!

EDIT: I'd love to see those two Prince of Persia sequels added, and some Burnout.

That Burnout Paradise came out gives me hope for Takedown and Revenge. Seemingly, they've already navigated the weird Criterion/EA rights issues, so fingers crossed.

I'm pleasantly surprised that there will be a few of my wishlist available at launch, but I'd still like to see the Burnouts, Rallisport Challenge 2, Rainbow Six 3, and the first three Splinter Cell games make their way to OG Xbox back compat.

Black was a nice surprise

Black, huh? I remember wanting to try that but never got it. Might do that now.

But more importantly, Crimson Skies tomorrow woooooooooooo!

Can't wait to be a Sky Pirate again.

Really excited about this. One thing I'm curious about is whether or not I will get Black for free since I bought it when it was BC on the 360.

And I don't wanna sound demanding, but I hope GB covers this in some way, maybe on a UPF or something.

Are they bringing back the servers for Crimson Skies or will it just be single player?

And it's launched! Getting Crimson Skies installed right now

Seems likely, Jeff talks about it briefly in the beginning.

Played about an hour of NGB, still plays great and looks quite a bit better. Installing KOTOR atm. One cool thing is you can install games from any region. I have a bunch of PAL and NTSC games lying around and I was worried I wouldnt get to install the NTSC ones. (since i'm using a PAL XBO) I know it's region free but you never know what weird restrictions might pop up.

(In case anyone was wondering I bought an American Xbox because it came out in states quite awhile before it came to the UK, and I later bought an english one because the cost of importing games was too high and I couldnt trade them in.)

The only disc from the initial list I still have is KOTOR, and I'm really happy with how good it looks now. I'd need to take my 360 out of its crypt to compare but it seems an awful lot better than last gen's Xbox compatibility.

I'm happy to report this works as well as expected. I only got to play a couple of matches of Red Faction II because I got home late last night, but it was still a lot of fun. The game controls are still really tight and it holds up, aside from some weird button-mapping stuff where I had to try and figure out what the ol' black and white buttons correspond to on an Xbox One controller.

I underestimated my nostalgia for seeing that old Xbox logo as well. It's really rad that they did this backwards compatibility for both the 360 and OG Xbox, and it's impressive how seamless it is to use. In most cases, there's a pretty good argument that these are the best versions of the games (e.g. Red Dead running noticeably better), so that's a huge bonus from both a gameplay and preservation standpoint. It's a cool feature.

@capum15: same boat on Black, I have always been curious about it with how much it comes up with Jeff. Just downloaded it and played the first level with Dolby Atmos for headphones in my nice cans and the game actually feels pretty good. A little simple and easy but the shooting feels nice and the sound is a combination of amusing and actually pretty good. Plus as a firearm guy I appreciate that they got burst fire half right: it only fires as long as you squeeze the trigger but doesn’t fire the remainder of the first burst on the next pull if said first squeeze was less than a full burst. but most games are binary, you pull once and it goes for a full burst on platforms that don’t behave that. Granted this was on an AK which I don’t think generally does burst fire.. but pretty cool! Interesting bit of gaming history to be sure.

And boy, the soundtrack is kind of like the outlast (? The game they did on Random PC Game) which is neat.