The Xbox Backward Compatibility Microsoft’s 2015 initiative has been one of the firm’s biggest strengths in the gaming business, with countless longtime fans appreciating the ability to port their original libraries. Xbox and Xbox 360 titles Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S families of consoles.
Although the program took a break in 2021 due to licensing issues preventing backwards compatibility add-ons, this feature is still frequently used by many Xbox gamers to enjoy their older games. However, over the past two weeks, an increasing number of users have reported that they are unable to connect to the Xbox network when trying to play backwards compatible games. Xbox 360 prevents games from starting.
Article continues below
We are aware that some Xbox Series X players are unable to play select backward compatible Xbox 360 games, and our team is actively investigating.April 22, 2026
Note that there hasn’t been a public update on this issue from Xbox Support in over a week, as it says the issue is under investigation, so ultimately we have no idea when a fix will arrive at this time. Since then, more users have continued to report the connection error, so this has yet to be resolved.
But lots of responses from Xbox Support staff individual users have confirmed that this is a problem with Microsoft servers one answer in particular states that this is due to newer Xbox Series X consoles not being properly authenticated with the Xbox 360 servers.
With that in mind, if you’ve owned an Xbox Series X for a few years, you’re unlikely to run into this problem. If you bought it recently, you may not be able to play some or all of your backwards compatible Xbox 360 games until Microsoft develops a fix.
Finally, it’s good that Microsoft is working to fix the problem, although accessing backwards compatible titles is still quite unfortunate for many – especially Xbox gamers have made it clear how much they care about backwards compatibility. Hopefully a fix will come sooner rather than later, though the lack of one after two weeks is more worrying.
It should be noted that this problem appeared at the same time Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 servers are offline for a long time; We have reached out to Microsoft and Activision for comment on this matter. Ironically, this also comes after Microsoft said The Xbox Backward Compatibility Program is back this yearwith many speculating that the firm plans to make Xbox games playable on PC through emulation as it prepares to support the upcoming console-PC hybrid system. Project Helix.
Have you been affected by this issue when trying to play backwards compatible Xbox 360 games on Xbox Series X? Did you just get your Xbox Series Xi or have you had it for a long time? Let me know in the comments and vote in our backwards compatibility poll too.
Join us Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your thoughts and discuss our latest news, reviews and more.
