Now this came as a surprise - Microsoft just blew open its E3 press conference with the announcement that backwards compatibility will be coming to the Xbox One. That's right, early adopters - all your Xbox 360 games will soon be playable on your new-generation console.
An early stage demo showed Mass Effect being played on an Xbox One, natively with an Xbox One controller. The presenter then used Kinect to take a screenshot, before jumping back to the Xbox One dashboard. It works almost exactly the same way as playing a regular Xbox One game.
According to the brief announcement, developers will just need to approve their titles for inclusion in the programme - Microsoft will do all the work and activate each game ready for players to access. Apparently games saved to your Xbox account will be available as soon as the dashboard update arrives, although it's not clear if Xbox Live Arcade games are included in that list.
An initial set of backwards compatible titles (most likely first party releases like Halo and Forza, until third party developers start adding their old games libraries to the list) will be made available to Xbox Preview members today, and eventually make its way to all Xbox One consoles in time for Christmas this year.
This is a huge step forward for the Xbox One, which has admittedly struggled with a mediocre library of games - many of the first party games at launch received middling reviews, and multi-platform games typically ran at a higher, more consistent frame rate on Sony's rival PS4.
This new announcement could give gamers still waiting to upgrade the nudge they needed to opt for a Microsoft console over a Sony one - we'll just have to wait until Sony plays its hand at its own conference tomorrow morning to see whether it has anything to announce in reply.
