Halo Reach Performs Poorly on Xbox One

Microsoft stunned attendees during this year’s E3 expo with the shock announcement that backwards compatibility was coming to the Xbox One at no additional cost. In contrast to this, Sony has decided to charge for digital PlayStation 2 titles and offer PlayStation 3 emulation via a paid streaming service. It’s extremely unlikely for Sony to master PlayStation 3 emulation through traditional avenues due to the cell architecture’s complex nature.

One of the Xbox One’s most popular releases is Halo: The Master Chief Collection which contains Halo 1, 2, 3, and 4. Sadly this collection is devoid of Halo Reach as the story doesn’t center on the chaotic exploits of Master Chief. Despite this, Halo Reach recently gained approval to work on the Xbox One without the need to purchase an Xbox 360. Unfortunately, there are a number of user complaints regarding the game’s performance suggesting it frequently dips to around 10 frames-per-second. One disgruntled user said:

“We need to talk about the HALO Reach port to XBOX ONE. It’s unplayable! I’m getting 10-20 FPS whereas my 360 runs it at a smooth 25-30 FPS… This is unacceptable, I even set my XBOX ONE to run in 720p, but nothing changed!”

Another player had a similar experience and proclaimed:

“What the hell? UNPLAYABLE.is this going to get fixed or what? Why advertise backward compatibility of you can’t even actually play the game?”

Microsoft has acknowledged the current performance problems and issued an official statement which reads:

“We’re aware some users are experiencing issues playing Halo: Reach via Xbox One backward compatibility. The Xbox engineering team is currently looking into the issues and are working to address them.”

Some of you might remember the buggy emulation on the Xbox 360 which made older games unstable or difficult to play. At least Microsoft is looking into the performance problems and hopefully they should be rectified soon. On the other hand, it’s vital for Microsoft to ensure each game runs properly before giving it their seal of approval.

Is backwards compatibility a feature you often use?