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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."
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.