Fable 2 and KOTOR Snubbed as Xbox Back Compat Picks Blinx

"The original Xbox has a roster of fantastic games, yet this Backwards Compatibility launched with BLiNX: The Time Sweeper," wrote PCGamesN's Shaun Walton this week. "I feel like that sums up Xbox right now."

He's not wrong. Microsoft announced on Xbox Wire that its backwards compatibility programme is expanding to PC, letting players buy or access original Xbox titles through Game Pass. The first four games available: BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, Fuzion Frenzy, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, and Conker: Live & Reloaded. Not exactly the murderer's row of classics that fans have been begging for.

I've seen a lot of baffling launch lineups, but this one is hard to defend. The original Xbox and Xbox 360 libraries are stacked with games that have never received a native PC port. Fable 2, the Gears of War sequels, Lost Odyssey, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire. These are titles people have been requesting for years, sometimes decades. Instead, Microsoft led with a party game nobody has thought about since 2002 and a mascot platformer that failed to compete with Ratchet & Clank the first time around.

Fan votes paint a different picture

The community response has been immediate and pointed. Over at Xbox Game Preservation, fans can now vote on which games they want added to PC backwards compatibility. The current leaderboard tells you exactly what people are after: Fable 2 sits at the top, followed by Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Fable 3, Sonic Unleashed, Gears of War 2, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Gears of War 3, Lost Odyssey, and Ninja Gaiden Black. Not a single one of those has ever had a native PC release. Every single one of them would have generated more excitement than what Microsoft actually shipped.

To make things worse, the four launch titles arrived without achievements. Microsoft has acknowledged that players want them and says they're being added later. Launching a nostalgia-driven feature without the one thing that gives old games new replay value is a strange call. If the system wasn't ready, why not wait until it was?

Conker: Live & Reloaded is the only pick I can see generating any real traction, mostly because the internet treats Conker as a meme at this point. Crimson Skies has its fans, and I won't pretend it isn't a fun game, but it's not the title you lead with when you're trying to sell people on a new platform feature. You lead with your heavy hitters. Fable 2 alone would have had Game Pass sign-ups rolling in.

Microsoft has the back catalogue to make this programme a genuine selling point for PC players who never owned an Xbox. Rare's platformers, Mistwalker's RPGs, the original Halo: Combat Evolved timed alongside next week's Halo: Campaign Evolved launch. Any of those would have made a splash. Instead, the first impression is Blinx the Time Sweeper, a character so obscure that most people under 25 have never heard of him.

The backwards compatibility expansion to PC is a good idea executed with a puzzling lack of ambition. Microsoft clearly has the tech working. Now it needs to look at that voting leaderboard and start shipping the games people are actually asking for, because right now the gap between what fans want and what they got is almost comically wide.