NBA Jam: On Fire Edition is only backwards compatible sports game on Xbox One

Today Microsoft revealed the initial list of games receiving backwards compatibility on Xbox One when the functionality launches for the system on Thursday. As expected the sports gaming genre has little representation with only one game in the mix.

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition will be available with the first batch of games. Originally released November 2011, OFE was a $15 downloadable-only title. It was fairly well received, with 85/81 on Metacritic, but also followed only a year after the incredibly disappointing original reboot of the series which was a full-priced retail release that EA Sports failed to support. That didn’t get much better with the sequel which went months before a roster update released, and months more before a second and final one went out. Sadly OFE is still being sold for $15 so there isn’t even a discount four years later for those seeking an arcade basketball fix.

It was never realistic to expect any big sports games from 360 to be made backwards compatible – especially NCAA Football 14 which was by far the most requested, college basketball, or All-Pro Football 2K8. There are conflicts related to licensing, legal agreements that have to be held up, and even internal concerns about how games from the past being playable on the new systems could harm sales of current products on the market.