What do "Barbie Horse Adventure" and "Grand Theft Auto" have in common?

Url: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6153617.html

In this interesting interview of Albert Penello (of Microsoft), he is asked questions about backwards compatibility on the XBox 360, specially why some games are on the compatibilty list and others are not. In one very interesting comment, he mentions that it is not just the most popular games that are included, but games that use similar technology as popular games are included as they are low hanging fruit:

“The reason you’re seeing certain games become available that aren’t necessarily the most popular titles is because they share common features with other games we’re working on. When we solve emulation issues for a game, it can unlock similar issues for other games. To give one popular example, Barbie Horse Adventures runs on the Xbox 360 because it uses technology similar to that of the Grand Theft Auto series. When we see a game start to work “for free,” we release it. It’s not our place to withhold titles that work simply because they weren’t best-sellers.”