One of the coolest things about the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles is that it's possible to play the vast majority of original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles via backwards compatibility.
Even if you don't happen to have your old discs lying around, you can still purchase most old games via the Microsoft store - giving you the chance to download and try out old classics you might have missed the first time around. You still have to pay for these games of course, but most of them have seen massive reductions in price over the years. Most of them.
Before we go on, take a look at the impressive (and official) Xbox minifridge below. This one can't play older games, as far as we know.
Over on the Xbox subreddit, fans have called out Activision over the pricing of some older Call Of Duty games. As pointed out by ll-Ascendant-ll, the Xbox 360 version of 2012's Call Of Duty: Black Ops II is $19.99 on the Microsoft Store. To be clear, that's with a current 60% discount.
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I had to double check this myself and sure enough, the game is currently £15.99 here in the UK on sale. It usually costs £39.99. Even for a digital edition, that's arguably a bit much for a game that's nearly ten years old and can be picked up for £15 quid or under at any second-hand store. Meanwhile, the original Call Of Duty: Black Ops is £24.99.
Needless to say, fans over on the Xbox subreddit aren't too impressed with this pricing given the age of these games. "If that was the starting price, it would be fine, but the fact that it's 20 f*cking dollars on sale, is absolutely absurd," wrote one user.
"They've only dropped it 10 dollars in the nine years since it's come out," added another. "Absolute insanity."
I did wonder if maybe people were being unfair to Activision in this instance, and that maybe for some reason most digital versions of Xbox 360 games haven't seen much of a price drop on the Microsoft Store. That doesn't appear to be the case.
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I decided to take a quick look at some of the biggest games of the era, both first and third-party. Halo 3 can be purchased for under a tenner and is also available via Xbox Game Pass. Grand Theft Auto IV's regular price is £17.99. Mass Effect is £15. You get the idea. But there are plenty of other older games that haven't dropped in price as much as you might have expected. Both The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption are still around £25 digitally, for example.
It's unclear quite how this digital pricing for older games is decided, then, but it might not be fair to put all the blame on Activision. Then again, £40 for Black Ops II is undeniably taking the piss even compared to some of the other pricing on the store.
Featured Image Credit: ActivisionTopics: Xbox, News, Call of Duty, Activision