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.
That is what made the 2nd edition Gameboy such a hit... and the 3rd.. and 4th... and #th version of Gameboy because you could still play your old classic games on them.
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
I am a avid xbox gamer and would consider an upgrade if I could play my old games on the xbox2. I also would have loved to see a way to transfer the saved settings from my xbox->xbox2 perhaps over the ethernet cable but I guess that will never happen either. This is a very sad article to read given how superior the xbox is to the PS2 for graphic and sound quality. The xbox was truely an inovative game console.
"Have any Slashdot readers ever actually used the backwards compatibility on their PlayStation 2?"
Um yeah who the hell doesn't?! I play all my PS1 games on my PS2 and look forward to playing my PS2-PS1 games on my PS3 when it comes out. As much as i'd hate to see the Xbox go the Nintendo route and fuck over their consumer base I think MS should....
The reason is the Xbox is great, but it's so freeking easy to pirate the games on it, and I understand if they want to make it more secure/proprietary. As it is now, you put your mod chip in and a larger drive, flash the bios and install the new dashboard and from then on any game you rent you simply hit "copy to hard drive" and its yours. You NEVER buy games...EVER...
With the PS2 yeah you can mod it to play burned copies, but then you got to fuck with your burner software and be picky about your cd media. Also the mod chip for the PS2 is a solder only and not a "stick and screw" chip like some of the the xbox ones.
Ave Molech Setting
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
This is THE lesson they learned from the PC. While backward compatability severely limited the potential of the PC, it was absolutely required to maintain continuity (check OS/2 sales for reference). The game market is different. If you really need a box for your old XBox games, get an XBox (for prolly >$100 by then).
;)
This will cause some consumer backlash, however. Maybe it will affect sales, maybe it won't.... Since when has the game (or PC, for that matter) market been directed by technical truth rather than marketing FUD?
Hey! Now there is poetic justice! Good luck, BillyBoy!
bummer.
I imagine they backed themselves into a hole by going with an Nvidia chipset. They don't own licences to emulate all of Nvidia's shader stuff on ATI hardware, so they do a "study" showing how it doesn't matter. Sony on the other had has licenced (or cross-licenced) pretty much everything in the PS2.
BUT I have PS1 games for my PS2. So suck on that.
For gamers who need to be up to the minute; backwards compatibility is not important.
But for the value gamer; the ones who wait until PS2 games are re-released as "Classics" with the red boarder and sell for $20 (instead of $50)- these are the people who will pick up older games and play them on their modern system.
Cheap skates of the world, Unite!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
"So, is Microsoft right or wrong on this one?"
They're wrong, of course! Uh.. later I'll come up with a reason, I was just a little short on karma.
"Derp de derp."
And yet, you have a GameCube, even though it wasn't backwards compatible with N64, which wasn't compatible with SNES, which wasn't compatible with NES..
Backwards compatibility is nice, but not if it compromises the new features of the machine.
I'd rather have a cutting edge console than something that'd been watered down so it can still run old stuff.
There were a lot of disgruntled PS2 early adopters who found its low-res graphics (an artifact from PSX days) to be less-than-impressive. In fact, the first run of games didn't exactly blow away the PSX versions. There was also much ado about the handful of PSX games that were incompatible. It gave them an early black eye.
I'll buy an Xbox 2 for the same reason I've bought any other console: It has some kick-ass games that i want to play. If all it had going for it was compatibility (ie; PS2 for the first year), it'll sit on the shelves.
Compatibility is nice, but not a selling point by itself.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
When I bought my Playstation 2, I didn't particularly care about backwards compatibility. Why not? Because I already had a PS 1. This is relevant because the current installed base of Xboxes is a lot less than what the installed base of Playstations was when PS2 came out -- which means there's more people that could benefit from Xbox 2 backwards compatibility than were able to benefit from Playstation 2 backwards compatibility. I would be more inclined to by an Xbox 2 if I knew that by buying one, I could also play all the Xbox games that I can't play now because I don't have an Xbox.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
History seems to be on their side. As far as I know, the PS2 is the ONLY popular console ever to be backward compatible. I mean let's run down the big successes console wise:
Atari 2600: First gen.
NES: First gen.
SNES: Planned to be backward compatible, not implemented in release.
N64: Not backward compatible.
Gamecube: Not backward compatible.
SMS: First gen.
Genesis: Not backward compatible.
PS1: First gen.
PS2: Backward compatible.
That's all of the most successful consoles I can think of. Of those, only ONE was backward compatible. Even most of the lesser consoles were not compatible with anything else.
Saturn: Not backward compatible.
Dreamcast: Not backward compatible.
Neo Geo: First (and only) gen.
Jaguar: Not backward compatible.
Now maybe backward compatibility is now huge, amybe now that Sony has started it, it is the one thing that no one will live without. That, however, remains unproven. History indicates that non-backward compatible consoles can be successful. Current evidence seems to support this too. Despite competition from the PS2 and X-box, and lots of raging on graphics quality, the GameCube has done quite well for itself.
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
Second, I definitely agree with you, that they've backed themselves into a hole in more than one way. They've decided to change the entire architecture of the system, removing HDDs, going for a different chipset etc. It will be next to impossible for them to get the licenses and then make the thing emulate in time for release.
Third, backwards compatibility was a huge advantage for the PS2 when it came to the market. It meant that people could buy their console and go home and play some excellent games from the PS1 instead of being forced to suffer through some of those horrendous launch titles. Having the backwards compatibility simply adds more value to the purchase.
Looks like Microsoft made some bad decisions here. Surprise, surprise!
If leveraging a previous library works, then maybe they should make the XBox 2 backwards compatible with the Playstation 2
YES! In fact, I have used it for several games, for the following reasons:
- It just flat out took me a long time to finish the game (Final Fantasy series, MGS VR Missions), because I got distracted with other games/work/bright lights
- The game has a fun head-to-head mode (Soul Blade, Syphon Filter II)
- The game is fun to play more than once (MGS, Syphon Filter)
- I keep the game around for nostalgic purposes (Doom, Warhawk, Original demo disks)
- The game is only available for the PSOne (Final Fantasy IV-VIII)
It's good to be able to sell the old hardware, but keep the games you like to play for use with the new hardware.BTW, the PS2 can speed up disk access and perform smoothing on some PS1 games, which is kind of neat.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Having never owned a PS1, i was over joyed to find FF7 for $20 down at the local EB
Backward compatability is awesome beacuse, quite frankly, with my NES, SNES, n64, and PS2, i am running out of space and outlets around my tv
And some people might say 'ditch the old systems' but I can tell you that, on more then one occasion, my buddies and i have consumed a case of beer and a friday evening reveling in the glory of blades of steel and no newfangledshinyassxbox2 is going to convince me that it isn't an awesome game
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist