Microsoft has stated for several months that what works on Xbox One will also work on the Xbox Series X.

The slight change in position was hidden in a blog post by Phil Spencer, Microsoft's head of the Xbox division." It is our intention that all Xbox One games that do not require Kinect will be playable on the Xbox Series X when the console launches," he wrote, "Most of your favorite games will load faster, look and run many times better on the new console! " he added.

Two things stand out from this statement. First, the word "intent" could be doing some very heavy lifting here. I intend to run a marathon one day, but if you look at me, you will see that the ambition is optimistic at best and delusional at worst. Still, I think this is a fairly innocuous precaution to take to protect yourself from some strange use cases. For example, the plastic instruments for Rock Band 4 don't work out of the box.

Even finer is the mention of Kinect. Does this mean that anything that requires Kinect will not work on the Xbox Series X? Unfortunately, yes. Spencer later confirmed to The Verge that "there is no way to make Kinect work."

That's not so surprising in some respects; Kinect was originally a core part of the Xbox One experience, but was increasingly pushed aside, and with the advent of the Xbox One X, the dedicated port was removed entirely. If Microsoft has no plans to make a third-generation Kinect for the Xbox Series X, why bother supporting the previous generation and increasing the cost of the hardware?

According to Reddit's tally, there are only 44 Xbox One games that support Kinect, and even fewer where Kinect is essential (FIFA's implementation, for example, was limited to changing tactics via the microphone). Unless you are a big fan of dance games, which make up 20% of the list, or Kinect Sports is your favorite, you won't be too disappointed.

On the other hand, it is a little disappointing that backward compatibility for the Xbox Series X is incomplete. Microsoft has made a big deal about cross-generational compatibility, even going so far as to guarantee that the Xbox Elite and Adaptive controllers will work on the next generation of consoles. The company writes, "We believe our investment in gaming should move with us into the next generation."

While that may be true, it rings a bit hollow if you are in the minority that once believed Kinect was the future of gaming and invested accordingly.