Slashdot Mirror
Next-Gen Xbox To Lack Backwards Compatibility?
An anonymous reader writes "Biz news site Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that Microsoft's Xbox 2 won't be backward compatible with games for the current Xbox, and quoting 'sources close to Microsoft's senior Xbox executives' explaining some of the thinking behind the decision. All very cloak and dagger, although I guess whoever told them would probably be in line for a firing if they found out... So, is Microsoft right or wrong on this one? Have any Slashdot readers ever actually used the backwards compatibility on their PlayStation 2?"
I think I've played more PS1 games on my PS2 than normal PS2 games.
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
We probably have a 50/50 mix of PS1/PS2 games. The old ones were left-overs from the long since dead PS1. My son regulary pulls out some of the old RPG games (and PS1 memory card). Still running just fine and now on the 2'nd PS2!
Backward compatability was and still is a huge selling point for the Playstation 2.
-- Rick
Believe it when you see it in the stores or are holding an official MS press release. Until then, this is all speculation.
They won't run XBox 1 games of the new XBox, but the dev kits for the new XBox run off a modded windows NT kernel that runs off a G5
Let's look at the history of backwards compatible game systems...
GBA can play GBC and GB games.
PS2 can play PS games.
I believe there was one other major console with backwards compatibility.
Wow... that's a lot of systems.
Since when has backwards compatibilty been really important? If I want to play N64 games I still have to buy an N64, but you don't see people complaining about Gamecube not having backwards compatibility. Hell, Nintendo's new console isn't supposed to have backwards compatibility.
And one last thing, this is old news. People have known about the backwards compatibility issue for a while...
great, you nutfucker, what's the point of your post?
Probably that changing processor architecture would make backwards compatibility a lot harder / more expensive.
Or maybe he was just fucking nuts.
Most people I know (including myself), bought a PS2 before the GC or XBox for exactly this reason. It's a huge selling point, and rightfully so - I still play tons of PS1 games.
Yes, but Microsoft purchased Connectix and acquired Virtual PC, which has an emulation engine that should be fast enough to emulate the x86 processor in the XB1 at the XB2's processor speed.
Presumably the appeal of PowerPC is that, while emulating x86 on PowerPC is somewhat feasible (if a bit slow) because of the much greater number of PPC general-purpose registers, it is impossible to emulate the PowerPC on the x86 without severe performance impacts.
This is a very nice copy protection method for Microsoft -- all those Windows users out there can't just download an XB2 emulator and start playing.
You can emulate the CPU, but they cant emulate Nvidias propriatary GPU. They don't have legals rights to and Nvidia is now backing the competition so it's gonna cost a lot to licence it. Also Emulation is never perfect. even havign the same chip on the PS2 doesn't garentee compatibility. a handful of games don't play. Now how many good working PS1 emulators do you see around? I used a few and there is always glitches, special patches for certain games ect... For a comsumer product thats nto goign to fly (ie. twiddling 16 settings each game to make it work). Forget emulation. Xbox just won't be Backwards compatable.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
No man, it's a different CPU endian since they're going PPC instead of Intel for XB2. They'd need to emulate an x86 CPU to get the XB1 game bytecode to run on the XB2. That's fine for normal proggies but for graphics instensive, CPU optimized code like games, it would take a hell of a lot of CPU horse power to make the games enjoyable under an emulator.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Granted, there are some games that don't work, but the vast majority do.
SMS: First gen.
Genesis: Not backward compatible.
Actually, there was an adapter that you could buy to make the Genesis backwards compatible. It isn't exactly the same thing as out of the box backwards compatibility, but I don't recall the adapter being very expensive.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
You're right, it's not the endianess. The instruction code is different, I spoke without thinking the whole thing out.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
But the third one is the most popular series of "consoles" of all time and the grandaddy of all backwards-compatibility: the Game Boy. The GBA and the GB Player for the GameCube can play almost all Game Boy games going back to 1989. Pretty impressive, and a huge selling point, IMHO. I think Sony is modeling their console plans on Nintendo's handheld strategy - and it works. I play PS1 and PS2 games on my PS2 regularly. Now if Nintendo can follow that course for the GC's successor...
To get back to the Xbox, however: I believe that Xbox Next will be fundamentally flawed if it does not allow backwards-compatibility. I don't currently own an Xbox, but if there were a few games I had to have on a Xbox Next, I might buy one of those if I could pick up the three or four Xbox games I want. However, if I can't go backwards... then there is nothing that could compel me to buy either the Xbox or the Xbox Next... except for Shenmue III (if it ever happens).
It'll run PPC Linux, I'm sure, as the processor is probably the main reason for the backward-incompatability.
The xBox 2 will be sporting some PPC 976 processors, the same ones you see in Apple's G5 lineup.
They don't even share endianess
Actually, any PowerPC chip can run in big-endian or little-endian. The reason is, back in the PReP days (then CHRP), PPC was supposed to be The Chip to use for All Operating Systems, as AIX, Solaris, NT, Apple's Copland, and most importantly, Taligent, were supposed to be able to run all on one computer (one box). Ah, those were the days. Computing was expected to have a very different future.
Pre-G5, PPC chips had instructions to convert between big and little endian data or something, or maybe address different endian data. This is why Virtual PC for G5s doesn't exist yet; G5s are missing endian-related instructions that are used by current versions of VPC.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
I've got a PS1 and a PS2, and I use the backwards compatibility all the time. PS1 has some great games. Plus, I had a couple dozen games for PS1 when I bought a PS2--my daughter and I still love playing quite a few of them (not the least of which is Krash Karts).
Ummm... friend, you can get an Xbox for $150 right now.
Not anymore.
Aside from the 60x series processors (or at least 601), the CPUs were always big endian, but had special instructions to perform endian swaps, which sped up emulation tremendously.
With the PPC970 those instructions are gone. Crap, now that I think about it, those instructions might have left somewhere in the 74xx timeframe. VPC was broken on new systems for a pretty long time when that happened.
In all seriousness, given the CPUs in the new box vs. the old box, the graphics card in the new box vs. old box, and with VirtualPC's code under the hood, emulating that old hardware can't be a problem. This has to be a break for other reasons, be it Linux, modchips, whatever.
I don't think ANYONE expected backwards compatibility, and it hasn't really been an industry standard. Playstation/Playstation 2 was THE major exception in U.S. console gaming.
Hmm, not really.
Atari 7800 could play 2600 games.
Gameboy Advance can play Gameboy games dating back to 1988.
Sega Genesis had the Powerbase converter for about $50, that let you play all your old Master System games; Gamegear could play SMS games as well.
This all probably started with the Colecovision's 2600 adapter, in an attempt to get 2600 owners to easily convert.
Maybe not every console has done it, but backwards compatibility has been around in the industry for a while. I believe even the 5200 had a 2600 adapter in the works, which was supposed to be one of its selling points. More manufactures probably would have attempted it if the architecture jumps weren't so huge. Yet, since chips are becoming outdated so much faster nowadays, it isn't economically unreasonable to include two; maybe backwards compatibility will become standard.
But really, why offer backwards compatibility when you can resell an emulated version of the same game for its original selling price 15 years later? (See Nintendo's rereleasing of NES games for GBA).
You are incorrect. Part of the PPC spec is that the chip can switch from little endian mode to big endian mode.
What is said by microsoft that the G5 lacks is the ability to do it in a context (that is, live switching). However, I do not quite believe this is true.
Before you judge and insist that Microsoft is only doing this to screw everyone over just sit back and remember what Hellish kludges that Sony had to do in order to get PS2 to be backwards compatible. What Sony did was take the original PS1 CPU, which was custom and proprietary, and hodge-podge it into the I/O SPU of the PS2. Doing such increased the cost and complexity of the system.
Now granted Sony, having designed both chips was in a better position to pull this kind of crap off. However Microsoft is talking about going from Intel IA32 x86 with an nVidia chipset to IBM Power4 with an ATI chipset. Short of releasing the XBox2 as two physically separate machines in the same box I don't see how they could pull that off. The CPUs speak completely different byte encoding.
It would take a feat of magic to get the two to work together in a seamless fashion in a small box for $300 or less.
I definetly agree with the white buttons being easier on the larger controller. The position of those on the small controller is not very convenient for me
Of course it was not going to be backwards compatible, they are going to be using a IBM RISC chip with some of there own micro code in it and the fact that they have moved away for NVidia and going with ATI. I am pretty sure NVidia is not going to hand over the spec for there XBox chip so ATI can add it in. But I really do not see a problem with it not being able to run XBox games. If you look over the history of games consoles Sony is the only one that has done it(As far as I know). I have to say I am looking forward to seeing the new machine. I will say that I think the PS3 is going to kick its ass but I have always gone for Sony over other game consoles so my view is tainted.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin, American author
Other Consoles that were backwards compatible in some form or another:
...
Genesis (played Master System games, with attachment that cost as much as a master system)
Game Boy Pocket/Color/Advance
Game Gear (played Master System games, with cheap attachment)
Nomad (played Genesis games)
N64 (played SNES / NES games, with 3rd party attachment)
Turbo Duo (Played normal TurboGraphix 16 and CD games)
Turbo Express Portable (played normal TG16 games)
It doesn't look like there have been enough backwards-compatible systems to say whether or not it is a blessing or a curse to system sales. It is true that the backwards compatibility of the Genesis saddled it with using the Z80 as a sound processor, which created that trademark Genesis thuddy, explody sound. Backwards compatibility in the PS2 added greatly to the complexity of programming for it, but it looks like it was the right move for the system. The Game Boy has always been helped by backwards compatibility, though the great simplicity of the system makes this less of a chore. As few people (on these shores) had a Turbo Graphix or a Sega Master System, the benefits of backwards compatibility on the Genesis and the Duo was minimal.
The moral of the story seems to be if you have a successful system, make it backwards compatible. Is the XBox successful enough to warrant that tradeoff?
The ______ Agenda