The Xbox 360 Pocket Guide

5 Backward Compatibility (Xbox Games)

One aspect of the current generation of video game systems is that you can (for the most part) play games created for the previous system on them. For example, the PlayStation 2 plays almost all of the games created for the original PlayStation, and most GameCube games work perfectly on the Nintendo Wii. This backward compatibility (as it is called) is highly attractive to console owners because, let’s face it, we don’t want to have to lose an investment that can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars in video games for an older console.

For example, if someone owns an original Xbox and they bought 25 games for it over the years, that means that they likely spent in the neighborhood of $1,500 on those ...