Xbox 2 - The Price of Compatibility?

Randy Lastimosa writes "1UP.com has an interesting article about the next Xbox, and whether it will support current Xbox games. They talked to a number of sources and got conflicting reports. For example, the CEO of Nvidia, who provided graphics chips for the current Xbox, said: 'It's virtually impossible on many levels,' he adds. 'On an intellectual-property level. On practical levels, too.'"

Comments

Not such a big deal

[lake2112]

I don't know I already have an Xbox to play Xbox games. If I didn't have one I'm sure you can pick one up when Xbox2 comes out for the about $50-$70. I'd rather my Xbox2 be alot cheaper with new functionality.

Re:Not such a big deal

[oGMo]

I don't know I already have an Xbox to play Xbox games. If I didn't have one I'm sure you can pick one up when Xbox2 comes out for the about $50-$70. I'd rather my Xbox2 be alot cheaper with new functionality.

This is a short-sighted view. You're forgetting a few things:

1. The XBOX doesn't have very large market penetration. Most people who might don't already have one.
2. Microsoft wants to increase their share of the market
3. People will look at the XBOX2 and say "yeah, so, there are a few games right now, but I can go buy a completely different console (XBOX) for even more money to tide myself over, or, I can by a PS3, which will play all the old PS2 games, and the few PS3 games there are, for one price."

The choice is pretty obvious. This was a major selling point for the PS2, especially since it enhanced a few lacking aspects of PS1 games, and the PS3 is supposed to have comparable enhancements (load time was a big one, I recall).

Basically, it's the choice between a 2-in-1 console with a very large existing game library and hot new titles, a GameSphere (or whatever) with Nintendo-exclusive titles (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon), or an XBOX2, the successor to a rather unsuccessful XBOX that didn't have a lot of exclusive content in the first place. Plus, this round, Sony and Nintendo might not even let Microsoft have the technical advantage, either.

When it all comes down to it, it's about the games, and the PS3 and Cube successor will provide many, many good reasons to buy in this category.

Re:Not such a big deal

[oGMo]

But when they buy the new console, "I can use it play all the old games" is one of those lies people tell themselves to convince themselves to buy an expensive new system with a limited games library.

For most people I know, this is anything but a lie. I still play PS1 games; I still buy PS1 games on occasion (when I can find something rare/interesting). Up until about 6 months ago I was buying PS1 games fairly regularly. Texture smoothing is nice (for instance, it makes DW7 actually look good), and reduced loads really help.

Many gamers I know still play SNES, NES, Genesis, and other older console games. They were good games and that's the number one reason to play (or replay)... not because of flashy graphics.

However, it may be less of an advantage for Microsoft. The PS1 had a huge library of quality games. The XBox just has a handful.

This is true. As you can see, I have quite a few RPGs for the PS1, and a number of them I haven't even started. They'll provide many years of good gaming. If the current console makes them look 5x better and run 5x faster, who am I to complain?

Great Courtroom Soundbyte

[jmulvey]

On an intellectual-property level. On practical levels, too.

Well, there you have it your honor. In the industry's own words: The rules of Intellectual Property are not practical!

Not the first time.

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

I'm still pissed from the time I tried to put my Mario/Duck Hunt cartridge into my friends new SuperNES and it didn't work!

I blew on that cartridge until I passed out. I got nowhere. I turned the SNES on and off a bunch of times too.

If they keep up this type of practice of backward incompatability, there will be a whole new generation of angry, confused kids out there.

Backwards-compatible only matters for large-seller

[javaxman]

Short answer : The XBox ( and it's games ) didn't sell well enough to justify keeping any next-generation XBox compatible with previous games.

For Sony, it made sense to build in PS1 emulation to the PS2 because the original Playstation was so popular and sold so many games. Heck, they're *still* selling orginal Playstations, and people are still buying shrink-wrapped Playstation 1 games, to a lesser extent.

Will Microsoft piss off the majority of the console-game users if they release a new game console which doesn't play Xbox games? No, because most of us don't _have_ Xbox games...

MS may ( correctly ) figure that the current crop of Xbox owners will buy the latest and greatest game machine no matter what, "because it plays Halo5" or whatever...

Maybe no the target audience, but

[wizarddc]

I see a lot of people here saying they'd sacrifice backwards compatibility for a better/cheaper system, and that "no on they know" plays ps1 games on ps2. Well, I know someone who does. Me, specifically. I bought my PS2 so I could play GTA when it came out, but I also never got around to playing all the FInal Fantasy's that were on PS1, so I thought it was neat that I could. But I'm not even the big target.

I remember for years mom griping about how all these games she had already bought for us were useless on our new system. And guess who was paying for the new systems? You guess right, Mom and her purse. You might say, she did keep buying them, right? Didn't your mom love you? Yeah, mom loved me, but not enough to line nintendo's pockets with cash for the SUPER! Nintendo. The nintendo was the last system she bought for me and my bro. Afterwards, we saved up dearly to get the Super Grafx, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, and Sega Dreamcast. Obviously, me and my brother were bad gamblers as systems go. We he left for the Navy, I bought him a Neo Get Pocket color to bring with him on the ship. That sealed my title as worst video game purchaser ever. If you want to know which system is going to last, don't ask me. The only caveat is that I bought a PS2, but that wasn't until 3 years after it came out.

Re:Not a big deal

[RedHat Rocky]

I bought Loderunner for the PS1 at a bargain bin. I originally played that on Ye Olde Apple ][ many moons ago, love this game!

Here's the scary part: My four year old son loves Loderunner, I'd say he plays it as much as Crash Team Racing.

The point: Good games are just that, no matter what their age.

And I expect my PSone system to die way before the game discs do, based on the number of dead CDROM drives I've seen over the years.

Re:shooting themselves in the foot

[badasscat]

not being backwards compatible will just push everyone to playstation. Hopefully, the playstation 3 will still play playstation 1 games. sure, those games won't look as cool as the newest games, but being able to play them is the point in having a game system.

Being able to play PS1 games is the reason for having a PS3? Sorry, I don't buy it - I think being able to play PS3 games is the reason for having a PS3. Backwards compatibility is extremely overrated, and the only reason people think about it at all is because of the PS2 - which would have been successful with or without it. In fact, the only reason Sony included it is because they could - not because they had to. It just so happened that they could manage to use a PS1 CPU for the I/O functions of the PS2, which made backward compatibility very easy to include. Otherwise, they wouldn't have done it.

There has only been one other home console I can think of offhand with backward compatibility built in: the Atari 7800. And we all know what a great success that system was. Mind you, this is in an industry that now has nearly a 30 year history, and has seen upwards of 100 programmable home console systems (both major and minor) released in various territories.

If MS can lower costs and include better functionality in the Xbox 2 at the expense of backward compatibility, they should do it. People with short memories and/or attention spans always look at whatever's successful in the current generation and automatically think it's suicide if every other company doesn't follow the exact same template - this industry has never worked that way. There's no such thing as a "standard feature" in the game console industry and even if there was, with only two major systems to have it, backward compatibility wouldn't even come close to being one of those standards.

Re:I don't get this mentality

[brandorf]

I just thought that I'd clear up the common misconception that there is a performance or innovation cost for including the PS2's backward compatibility. There wasn't. The PS2 contains the entirety of the PSOne hardware, PSOne games are played natively, not emulated, and the PSOne hardware controls I/O when a PS2 game is running. Because Sony already had chip fabs and such for the PSOne chips, repurposing those chips in the new system actyally saved them money. Being able to play the old games was just a benefit of this route.

Speaking as a Xbox developer

[Ryu2]

It'd say it's actually easier on the Xbox to achieve compatibility via software emu than other consoles, because Microsoft stipulates, as a condition to get a game certified by them, all Xbox games must access the hardware the DirectX APIs and XTL libs, rather than writing direct to hardware registers/ports.

The only area where I can see problems is that Xbox vertex and pixel shaders can be (and often are) compiled to nVidia's proprietary binary format (which represents a much more hardware-specific mapping than the standard DirectX hardware-agnostic binary token format). If this issue is solved, or nVidia turns a blind eye, there should be no major technical obstacles to software emulation. Legally, I think it may be OK, as the specifics of the nVidia shader format is not disclosed even in the Xbox SDK itself, so Microsoft could very well write a layer that just translates the nVidia format to whatever internal scheme ATI's silicon will use.

Other consoles, like PS2 allow much more low-level access, so compatibility via software emulation only is more of a pain.

Absolutely wrong

[bonch]

Backwards compatibility is extremely overrated, and the only reason people think about it at all is because of the PS2 - which would have been successful with or without it.

Completely, 100% wrong. People had vast game libraries after owning their Playstations for so long. Buying a Playstation 2 meant they could continue playing their entire game library while still adding onto it. You're being moronic if you think that's not a benefit. It's the same advantage the Gameboy Advance had--you didn't have to abandon your old game library. You could keep playing it on the new system, and now with a backlit display and other advantages.

Don't be silly. Backwards-compatibility is a HUGE advantage to a console's success. People don't feel like they're replacing anything--they feel like they're merely upgrading to the next best thing, and can keep on playing their old games alongside the new ones.

PS2 == inexpensive DVD player w/ games

[blackchiney]

I think a lot of people forget the biggest thing going for the PS2 when it debuted wasn't the games but the builtin DVD player. At the time DVD players were going for ~$200-300 by themselves. A $300 PS2 that could play PS2 games, PSOne games, and DVDs must have been a real bargain for a lot of people. In fact, if I remember some gamezine article from a few years back Sony was afraid the PS2 would cannibalize sales of their standalone DVD players. It was a hit in Japan not because of the games, admit it the first batch of PS2 games were crap, but due to the small living quarters the PS2 fit 3 devices in one.

Re:It better

[DenOfEarth]

As it must be said a million times, if you have an Xbox, and the Xbox Next has backwards compatibility, then perhaps you might upgrade, keep both consoles...whatever. Now, If you have a PS2, and wanted to play some of the original Xbox games, then perhaps that might entice you to buy an Xbox Next with backwards compatibility for your next generation console, then you can check out all the old games and the new ones.

Traditionally, it takes a while for games to get good on any console, so if the Xbox Next has backwards compatibility, you instantly get access to all the finely-tuned later cycle games released for the Xbox.

It amazes me how many people have commented "I already have an Xbox, what would backwards compatibility do for me? Nothing", and then say that's why backwards compatibility isn't worthwhile. They should instead look at things from the point of view of the console maker trying to entice people over to their system, and maybe consider what the console maker would base their choice on.