"We're delivering four generations of content better than you've ever seen them before".
Microsoft's wording in the Project Scarlett trailer towards the end of the Xbox E3 2019 Briefing definitely made it sounds like the new consoles that will launch late next year will be able to play games from the three previous generations of consoles Microsoft has been a part of. But it doesn't stop with the games.
Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, joined the Inside Xbox stream today to give us even better news by announcing that the backward compatibility also applies to accessories:
"We stood on stage at E3 a few years ago and talked about Xbox 360 games coming to Xbox One and then, a couple of years later, we talked about original Xbox games coming to Xbox One. So really, when I look at my Xbox One today it's probably the most compatible console I've ever had, so we thought about our design for Project Scarlett we definitely wanted to make sure that we were compatible across all the generations. Not just with the games, but the accessories.
"Obviously, Xbox Live will continue and you are who you are across the whole ecosystem, which creates for us... it's really us respecting the purchases that our gamers have made on your platform."
This means that we'll be able to play the same games and use the same controllers, including the newly announced Xbox Elite Controller Series 2, headsets, keyboards, chargers and everything else we're using when gaming these days.