Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible?

Gamespot is reporting that, on the OurColony.net 360 footage, current generation Xbox titles are viewable being played on the 360 console. From the article: "There is also a screenshot of the new Xbox Live dashboard with the words 'Xbox 1 Zone' clearly marked and an icon of the current Xbox title Fable. Finally, a screenshot of the forthcoming Xbox Live Marketplace clearly shows Halo 2 maps being offered for download. However, while such shots imply backward compatibility, such functionality is not yet official. Microsoft executives have said themselves they cannot address the issue until next Monday's media event at E3--at the earliest."

Comments

Speculation

[FidelCatsro]

I do wonder if the backwards compatability with the Xbox 360 had anything to do with their purchase of connectix in february\march 2003(which was mainly for virtual PC and to be able to sell windows to mac users).
It looks like the plans were already well underway by that time to use PowerPC based procesors in the Xbox 360 .
I know most of the VirtualPC codebase is mac specific , but alot of it could be adapted for the purposes of the xbox 360.
I still don't see how they will manage it without some form of speed hit , if they do manage atall.
well , we shall have to wait and find out .

Re:But (dare I ask) .. why?

[earthbound kid]

The DS can't play Game Boy original-system games, which is a shame, since in my opinion the Game Boy version of Tetris is the best ever. I keep an SP around just to play it.

How any game could be backward compatible

[JFMulder]

Instead of emulating everything, I bet high-profile games and games that are in the platinum selection will simply be ported over to the new architecture. I mean, unless the game used a lot of assembly, the code should pretty much compile from one platform to the other, except for the shader code. So the only thing you have to do is put the old Xbox game in, the 360 reads the DVD header, realizes it's Forza, downloads a game update for it that replaces the executable. Now, when the 360 detects that game, is boots the 360 executable version from the HD or memory card instead of the version from the DVD. After all, all the content can be reused. Only the actual executable and dynamic libraries need to be ported.

Re:How any game could be backward compatible

[mrgreen4242]

That's a very good idea. I think that it's highly possible a combination of the two would be used. They may included some emulation in the 360, enough so that alot of game work pretty much of the time. Especially older games that may not have been as demanding or used certain difficult to emulate functions. Then for other games, especially very popular ones, they could release new binaries as you suggest.

Another benefit would be for VERY popular games, the re-released binary could be a $5 (or free :) download that also includes added features, like better anti-aliasing and light effects and what not. Something more than the original, but not quite the quality of a new 360 game. Think Halo 2 on this one. It would be an easy way to make a few bucks, and add some "new" launch titles.

Come to think of it, $5 upgrades to say 10 very popular games could be counted as 10 extra release titles, which would make the marketing drones VERY happy. ("XBox360 launched with 25 titles, more than the Revolution and PS3 combined").

Re:How any game could be backward compatible

[ckelly5]

Actually, I learned at an MS infomational talk back when the Xbox came out that all Xbox games have the entire OS on the game disc, and that is used to load up when the game is inserted in the drive. It's a lot like inserting an OS install disc in your computer and having it boot into the installer (or something like knoppix where it just boots into the OS). Your proposed solution works ok, until you think about how there are hundreds (thousands?) of Xbox titles out there, and each one would need updated libraries/ exes. Telling all your third party devs that they need to go back and create new exes is a LOT to ask. I think you're right on in that the 360 will detect the disc difference, but I'd have to imagine that there's some sort of VirtualPC-type emulation magic going on under the hood, rather than having an online library of all the updated exes ready for download. The 360 should have more than enough horsepower to emulate the original xbox, and MS did buy VirtualPC, arguably the best PC/ Windows emulator for the Mac platform, which is very similar to the 360 from an architecture standpoint.

mod parent up

[Neuticle]

The Xbox360 might be able to emulate a 733Mhz PIII ok, but the first Xbox(180 degrees?) is MUCH more than just that one chip - It's a tightly integrated GPU-chipset-memory-CPU setup with LOTS of specific hooks and tweaks and Nvidia copy-righted whiz-bang that games were highly optimized to.

The Xbox360 CPU must emulate the whole machine, not just the PIII part. The Nvidia graphics stuff will not be able to be offloaded onto a very different ATI chip, for legal and technical reasons. The whole platform must be emulated.

Now a high-end Dual-G5 can emulate a PIII at ~600Mhz, WITHOUT 3D graphics. Factor in how much less efficient CPUs are a with graphics rendering (ever try playing HL2 or Doom3 with a software renderer?). An example of this are N64 emulators and MAME: All 3D is done with the CPU and it takes a really fast machine today to play stuff from last generation. Current gen stuff runs like a slide-show, if at all.

If they pull this off, MS deserves a golf clap.