Xbox head Phil Spencer hopes for industry-wide game preservation

Spencer wants a future where the history of games is preserved and accessible.

What you need to know

Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, wants better game preservation across the industry, per Axios.
Spencer wants to see legal emulation, allowing players to access any older games.
Microsoft recently added 70 games to its backward compatible program, while noting this will be the last batch of games added due to legal constraints.

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer wants to see industry-wide game preservation, per a report from Axios. "I think we can learn from the history of how we got here through the creative," Spencer told Axios. "I love it in music. I love it in movies and TV, and there's positive reasons for gaming to want to follow."

Spencer also indicates that the main roadblock is legal issues, but hopes to see companies work together. "My hope (and I think I have to present it that way as of now) is as an industry we'd work on legal emulation that allowed modern hardware to run any (within reason) older executable allowing someone to play any game," Spencer explained.

Spencer has spoken years before about the art of gaming, and how backward compatibility is a huge part of preserving that art. During the 20th anniversary celebration of Xbox, Microsoft announced 70 new additions to the backward compatibility program, including titles such as Binary Domain and the Max Payne trilogy.

Several games, both new additions and existing titles, also received 60 FPS enhancements through Xbox FPS Boost. Xbox FPS Boost allows Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S owners to run games at twice (or in rare cases, four times) the original framerate. Microsoft also noted that this is the last batch of games being added to the service, as the team has hit walls with "licensing, legal and technical constraints."