Xbox Series X adds HDR to backwards compatible games

Xbox Series X will be adding HDR to backwards compatible games with no additional work from video game developers.

Microsoft shows off the feature to Digital Foundry, confirming it will use machine learning and algorithms based on Gears 5‘s HDR technology to map original SDR images to HDR. The technology was used to put HDR graphics on Xbox One’s Halo 5: Guardians along with the original Xbox’s Fusion Frenzy.

It can be applied to all games theoretically, technically, I guess we’re still working through user experiences and things like that but this is a technical demo.

~Claude Marais, Microsoft's ATG principal software engineer

Let’s look at accessibility. If you have people that cannot read well or see well, you probably want to enhance contrast when there’s a lot of text on-screen. We can easily do that. We talked to someone that’s colourblind this morning and that’s a great example. We just switch on the LUT and we can change colours for them to more easily experience the announcement there.

The next-gen Xbox Series X console will head to stores this coming holiday season.

 

[Abizaga]

I genuinely wish they added The Warriors. That was my favorite game on xbox.

 

[Demon_skeith]

I hope Sony does something like this for their older games, some of them need that little extra polish to stand up to modern standards.