The 7 Biggest Surprises from E3 2017

1RBC: In 2017, the Electronic Entertainment Expo brought some tremendous game announcements- while it seems that this was a bit of a sleeper year due to the lack of crazy groundbreaking announcements (sorry folks, no Vita 2 on the horizon), some of what was revealed will have far reaching effects on the world of gaming. Here are seven of the most important surprises from E3 2017.

A couple of years ago, Microsoft unveiled backwards compatibility for the Xbox One with some Xbox 360 games; this year, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One would also be receiving backwards compatibility with the original Xbox. This is a big deal due to the fact that it means the Xbox One has something that Sony has seemingly ditched: three generations of games on a single machine. When the Playstation 3 originally launched, it featured compatibility for both PS1 and PS2 games- however, later versions of the Playstation 3 lacked this back compatibility for PS2 games.

The Playstation 4 allows emulation of a few PS2 games, but this feature isn't particularly robust.

The only other player in the industry that comes close to offering something along these lines is Nintendo, with their Virtual Console service (and less than consumer-friendly methods of transferring one's games between consoles and generations)- while Nintendo offered back compatibility between Wii and Wii U hardware and software, there's no such compatibility between the Wii U and the Switch. Meanwhile on the Xbox One, players can use their old discs or simply access their digital purchases of games and DLC.

Building a library on the original Xbox and the 360 thus meant building a library on the Xbox One. Will gamers take advantage of this? According to an in-depth study of data, it appears that a small percentage of gaming on the Xbox One actually involves back compatibility; while you can probably expect a little spike in the price of old copies of Crimson Skies, there will probably be very few people actually using it. In spite of diminishing returns, this is a move in the right direction for Microsoft: it's going to instill brand loyalty in those who take advantage of it, and be used as an arguing point when people are trying to decide which console is the right one to purchase.