For those who don't follow these types of things, today was the beginning of E3 - the biggest gaming conference of the year. Each year the big players make major announcements about their game and consoles. This morning was Microsoft's presentation. While there was the usual game announcements and some cool hardware previews (new Xbox One controller called the Elite and a great HoloLense demonstration), the biggest news was that the Xbox One will soon be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games.

When the Xbox One first came out the biggest complaints I read were that people were not going to spend another $500 for a new game console that they couldn't even play all their old games on. Some people have hundreds of games costing thousands of dollars so you could see their point. Today's announcement, while still not 100% clear, alleviates this problem. Not all games will be available to play right away when the update is released later this year, but more and more games should be added to the list of 360 games playable on the One.

The update for this is supposed to be out later this year and those, like myself, who are part of the Xbox One preview program some games should start working today. I'll post an update when and if any of my 360 games work on the One.

This is big news for the Xbox One and I'd be surprised if the Xbox 360 will be available this time next year if Microsoft has indeed cleared this major concern of Xbox gamers.

UPDATE: here is a list of the current backwards compatible titles - this should be updateto as games are added http://www.xbox.com/en-CA/xbox-one/backward-compatibility