XboxGamePreservation.com turns players’ requests for Original Xbox and Xbox 360 games into a title-by-title vote tracker. Its numbers show what participating users want—not what all Xbox players want, and not a promise that Microsoft or a publisher will bring any game back. The project is independent; meanwhile, Microsoft has renewed its preservation efforts in 2026, including an early-release PC program that began with four Original Xbox games.
What is the Xbox game preservation project?
XboxGamePreservation.com is an independent fan project maintained by one Xbox enthusiast. It invites users to vote for Original Xbox and Xbox 360 games they would like to see backward compatible on Xbox Series S|X, Project Helix, and PC. The site says it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Microsoft.
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The project describes its purpose as identifying patterns in interest across publishers, intellectual properties, and console generations. It explicitly says it is neither a petition nor an assumption that the previous backward-compatibility program will restart. Its rules allow ten votes per user per day, with one vote per title.
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Those limits make the tracker more structured than an open comment thread, but they do not make it a representative survey. People choose whether to participate, so its totals should be described as votes from the project’s users—not as the views of Xbox players generally.
#1 Best Overall
- FASTEST, MOST POWERFUL XBOX — Experience next-generation performance with 12 teraflops of processing power, delivering smoother gameplay, richer worlds, and faster responsiveness than any previous XBOX.
- TRUE 4K GAMING UP TO 120 FPS — Enjoy breathtaking visuals with true 4K resolution, HDR, and frame rates up to 120 FPS, plus hardware-accelerated ray tracing for a heightened level of realism.
- 1TB CUSTOM SSD AND XBOX VELOCITY ARCHITECTURE — Reduce load times dramatically with the custom 1TB NVMe SSD and XBOX Velocity Architecture, enabling lightning-fast performance and seamless world streaming.
- QUICK RESUME — Seamlessly switch between multiple games and resume exactly where you left off. No more waiting through title screens and loading bars.
- FOUR GENERATIONS OF GAMES — Play thousands of games from XBOX Series X|S, XBOX One, XBOX 360, and Original XBOX, with many titles enhanced for better visuals and performance on XBOX Series X.
What do the votes show?
The project’s analysis page reported 871,129 votes from 91,237 voters across 2,817 games when accessed on October 8, 2026. Those live figures can change. The page also reported 43,236 votes from 14,945 distinct voters across 115 titles attributed to Warner Bros. Games. These are project-maintained counts, not results from a representative poll. See the project’s analysis page.
Mortal Kombat requests
Within the Warner Bros.-attributed titles, the project reported 9,093 votes across six Mortal Kombat games from 4,045 distinct voters. It said more than 8,300 votes were for four Original Xbox Mortal Kombat titles that never received official PC releases. That concentration points to interest in restored console access and possible PC debuts; it does not establish that a rights holder has agreed to make those games available.
Rank #2
- What's in the box: Xbox Series X console, 1 Xbox Wireless Controller - Carbon Black, Ultra High Speed HDMI cable, Power cord.
- Equipped with AMD's Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures, DirectX ray tracing delivers true-to-life lighting, shadows and accurate reflections to create dynamic, living worlds.
- Memory: 16GB GDDR6 w/320 bit-wide bus; Memory Bandwidth: 10 GB @ 560 GB/s, 6 GB @ 336 GB/s; Internal Storage: 1TB Custom NVME SSD
- Gaming Resolution: True 4K; Performance Target: Up to 120 FPS; High Dynamic Range: Up to 8K HDR; Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-Ray; HDMI Features: Auto Low Latency Mode, HDMI Variable Refresh Rate, AMD FreeSync.
- Bundled with HDMI_Cable
Transformers requests
Windows Central reported on August 24, 2026, that the tracker showed at least 58,489 votes for Transformers franchise games, including 33,969 combined votes for Transformers: War for Cybertron, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, and Transformers: Devastation. These are the publication’s reported tracker totals, not a poll of the Xbox audience as a whole. Read Windows Central’s report.
How Microsoft’s position has changed
Microsoft said in a June 10, 2019 Xbox Wire announcement that the Xbox One backward-compatibility catalog had grown to more than 600 titles, including games from the Original Xbox and Xbox 360. The company also said it had no plans to add more titles from those generations to the Xbox One catalog after that week. That was a statement about the Xbox One catalog at that time, not a permanent statement that older Xbox games would never be playable through another effort. Xbox Wire’s 2019 announcement.
Rank #3
- BEST VALUE IN GAMING — Experience next-gen speed and performance in the smallest XBOX ever. The XBOX Series S delivers powerful all-digital gameplay in a sleek, compact design.
- UP TO 120 FPS GAMEPLAY — Enjoy smooth, responsive gaming with frame rates up to 120 FPS, powered by XBOX Velocity Architecture, a custom NVMe SSD, and DirectX Raytracing for a heightened level of realism.
- 512GB CUSTOM SSD AND XBOX VELOCITY ARCHITECTURE — Reduce load times dramatically with the custom 512GB NVMe SSD and XBOX Velocity Architecture, enabling lightning-fast performance and seamless world streaming.
- QUICK RESUME — Seamlessly switch between multiple games and resume exactly where you left off. No more waiting through title screens and loading bars.
- FOUR GENERATIONS OF DIGITAL GAMES — Play thousands of digital games from XBOX Series X|S, XBOX One, XBOX 360, and Original XBOX with backward compatibility. Many titles are enhanced for better visuals and performance. Smart Delivery ensures you always get the best version for your console.
On March 11, 2026, Jason Ronald, Xbox’s VP of Next Generation, said that “As part of our 25th anniversary later this year, we’ll be rolling out new ways to play some of the most iconic games from our past.” The same Xbox Wire post said Project Helix is designed to play Xbox console and PC games, with alpha hardware versions planned for developers beginning in 2027. The announcement did not identify every supported game or promise that the tracker’s most-voted titles would be included. Read the March 2026 Xbox Wire post.
On July 22, 2026, Microsoft announced Xbox Backward Compatibility on PC in early release, starting with four classic Original Xbox games playable on PC and handhelds. Ronald called it “the beginning of a broader effort to preserve XBOX games from the past and bring them to PC over time.” The announcement did not establish that the full Xbox 360 catalog is supported on PC. Read the PC program announcement.
Rank #4
- What's in the box: Xbox Series S 512GB console, 1 Wireless Controller, High Speed HDMI cable.
- CPU: 8X Cores @ 3.6 GHz (3.4 GHz w/SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU; GPU: 4 TFLOPS, 20 CUs @1.565 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU; SOC Die Size: 197.05 mm2.
- Memory: 10GB GDDR6 128 bit-wide bus; Memory Bandwidth: 8GB @ 224 GB/s, 2GB @ 56 GB/s.; Internal Storage: 512GB Custom NVME SSD
- Gaming Resolution: 1440p; Performance Target: Up to 120 FPS; HDMI Features: Auto Low Latency Mode, HDMI Variable Refresh Rate, AMD FreeSync.
Why a popular request may not return
A high vote count can help show where participating users’ interest is concentrated, but it cannot resolve the practical and legal questions involved in restoring a game. The project identifies rights, licensing, regional agreements, and technical feasibility as constraints. A game may involve multiple rights holders, and the availability of its original release does not by itself establish that it can be sold or supported again.
Nor does a compatibility request guarantee a specific route back. A title might be available through a console catalog, a PC release, another service, or not at all; the 2026 announcements have not promised a particular outcome for individual requests.
How to play older Xbox games that are already supported
Compatibility is title-specific: a game from an older generation must be included in the supported catalog. For games that are included, Xbox’s guidance distinguishes digital ownership from disc access.
- For a digital game: Sign in with the account that owns it, then look for the title under Ready to Install on Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S.
- For a supported disc game: Insert the disc so the console can download the game to storage. Keep the disc in the drive whenever you play; it acts as the license.
- Check your console: Xbox Series X can use supported discs. Xbox Series S is digital-only, so it cannot play disc-based games.
Xbox says backward compatibility is free for selected games, not that every Original Xbox or Xbox 360 game is included. Original Xbox online services and in-game marketplaces are unavailable through the compatibility experience. Offline multiplayer and system-link work only when the original game supported them. Xbox’s backward-compatibility guidance.
What compatibility enhancements do—and do not—mean
Microsoft’s 2020 technical announcement described Auto HDR and selected framerate improvements on Xbox Series X|S. It also said the backward-compatibility team had logged more than 500,000 gameplay-testing hours across four Xbox generations during the year leading up to the Series X|S launch. That historical testing figure is not a measure of the fan project, and Microsoft did not say every compatible game receives every enhancement. Xbox Wire’s 2020 technical announcement.
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