14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has teased its fans regarding what games it will have on display at the upcoming Gamescom in Germany, and possibly hinting at plans for backwards compatibility.
The tease itself is an image revealed via Twitter, spelling out "Xbox @ Gamescom 14" using letters from various games. Although the games themselves are hardly surprising and probably what most of the company's fans expected to see at Gamescom, the second "x" has most likely raised some eyebrows.
Let's break it down really quickly: the artwork used by Microsoft in the message hails from the Xbox One logo, Scalebound, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the original, old Xbox logo, the ID@Xbox logo, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Fable Legends, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Evolve, Sunset Overdrive, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Ori and the Blind Forest, Quantum Break, FIFA 15 and Far Cry 4.
The games teased were all announced before, and they're part of the lineup that everyone expected Microsoft to present at Gamescom, all of them coming soon to Xbox platforms, with the exception of Scalebound, Quantum Break and Fable Legends, which will most likely take a while longer to get here.
Quantum Break developer Remedy Entertainment has already announced that the upcoming title's gameplay debut will be unveiled at Gamescom 2014, after having skipped E3 in June, and the devs have teased that the demo will leave audiences speechless.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will also see the world premiere of its multiplayer modes at Gamescom this year, and there will most likely be a heavy Xbox One presence there, due to Microsoft and Activision's long-standing partnership with the Call of Duty series, including timed exclusive DLC and other such features.
There are some games missing from the image, from the ones expected to have a presence at Gamescom, such as Forza Horizon 2, Killer Instinct Season 2 and Project Spark.
The most curious inclusion by far is the image of the original Xbox logo, which might be signaling a possible announcement regarding backwards compatibility is on its way.
It might just be the fact that it's not so easy to find a second "x" in Microsoft's portfolio, but this wouldn't be the first time that the company mentions backwards compatibility.
Microsoft has officially stated that it has no plans to offer a backwards compatible streaming service on the Xbox One, but the division's head, Phil Spencer, along with Xbox Partner Development Lead Frank Savage, mentioned that the corporation had some plans regarding backwards compatibility, but no concrete information to release to the public, back in June.
Porting classic Xbox titles to the Xbox One isn't such a far-fetched idea, since both the original console as well as the next-gen one share the x86 architecture for their CPUs, as opposed to the Xbox 360, which is a whole other beast, sporting a Power PC architecture.
In any case, with Gamescom 2014 starting on August 11, we'll know what the company's plans are soon enough.
How many of these #Xbox games can you ID? (And yes, we know the Xbox logo isn't a game.) pic.twitter.com/2N5zeTYDRv
— Xbox (@Xbox) August 9, 2014