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Xbox 360 Gets Backwards Compatible, Final Fantasy
databeam writes "The official Xbox 360 press conference was Monday evening, and an AP article has news that the 360 is backwards compatible, and that Square Enix will be releasing Final Fantasy XI for the console." Coverage also available at Gamespot. From the article: "Along with a firm release date and price point, the other big question surrounding the 360 was backward compatibility with the library of games from the original Xbox. Robbie Bach, senior vice president and chief Xbox officer in the Home and Entertainment Division at Microsoft, made Xbox fans around the world happy when he announced that the 360 will indeed play Xbox games." Mostly. Gamasutra points out that backwards compatibility will be selective, with most but not all of the top selling games supported. Kotaku and the Guardian Gamesblog have firsthand accounts from the event, and to watch the conference for yourself Xbox.com has the footage. Update: 05/18 20:49 GMT by Z : Of course, not all the people there were people, if you catch my meaning.
Looks like competition is heating up. Time to see what Nin has under their hat. Go go go ...
... now that both of the 2 fully announced consoles have their predecessors games to back them up, I feel it's actually a fair competition on which console has the games that people want.
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
Who really cares if it's backward compatable? If you have old games play them on the old system. Besides how many old games do most people play now anyway? Once you've beat Jade Empire or moved from FIFA 2003 to FIFA 2006 going back isn't usually a lot of fun. Maybe in 10 years or so.
Even with backwards compatibility and Final Fantasy, I'd still rather have a PS3.
Since they can't change the game, I wonder if they'll do this by working over some of the code that the ships in the Xbox360. They do something like that in Windows.
more of the same on Twitter.
Backwards compatability will be selective? Does this mean that they will be emulating the xbox hardware? Thats pretty amazing if it works, but I have my doubts that it will even run as smooth as the current xbox. Hopefully this means a much faster virtualpc, so I can play pc games on my mac.
... the Xbox 360 will be backwards compatible in the same way that Windows is secure and bullet-proof: Not really.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
This is a bad move, I have enough consoles as it is, who wants to keep there old xbox around to play the b and c titles..
I don't know which is bigger news, the backwards compatability or the fact that MSFT was able to get Square to bring the FF series to the 360!
Excellent news on all counts.
It seems odd to me that they would/could make the new system backward compatible for some but not all games. I'm clearly not very well informed, but I would be pleased if someone who is fairly well informed would explain to me how this works. Do the old games run in an emulator-style environment? If so, how hard would it really be to emulate a few more instructions?
Don't get me wrong. As long as it plays Halo, I'll be happy. I'm just curious.
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A clean slate can sometimes be a good thing for progress. But it might make a lot less money in the short run. (thinks linux 2.4 -> 2.6 and kernel drivers).
Expect no less of XBox 360, Longhorn or anything. I pity Microsoft - they just can't afford to change.Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Now we know why Microsoft bought the company that made the best x86 emulator for PowerPC on the market. Actually, we might have guessed that earlier - nice to have it confirmed though.
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From TFA:
Microsoft Corp. said on Monday its new Xbox 360 will run video games developed for the earlier generation of its gaming machine
This doesn't state backwards compatibility. It could just mean that older games will be ported to the 360.
Bach said that it won't necessarily run all of the older Xbox titles but instead, run the "top-selling" games.
Uh huh. This sounds very much like ports to me. This sounds very much like Sony's PSP running old PS1 games.
I think I've read in other articles that both the Revolution and PS3 will be backwards compatible, so now all three systems will be?
We seem to be having a next gen console heavy morning. Its great that Slashdot is always telling me about the next new thing I can't afford and how super amazing great its going to be. Thank God for (my) roommates who prioritize gaming before food, good to know at least a few peopel in this world have their priorities straight.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
Microsoft waited to hear if the PS 3 was going to be backwards compatible before saying the same themselves. I wonder what this does to their release plans.
.. then backwards compatability will still help sell the console.
.. a likely condition for the first 6 months or so, of the new device.
which is to say, play old games when there are no new games around
(just as applicable to ps3 as the xbox360)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Having never played one of the ps1-onwards Final Fantasy games, I would love to have one on the '360. If nothing else, it would help improve the fanbase in the Asian market. More RPGs. More games. More for me!
Picking up the FF franchise will swing a lot of people away from Sony over to Xbox. The only new games my wife and I get anymore are FF and GTA.
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Sorry guys, but microsoft has the money to implement what they learned from past mistakes. More importantly they have the money to muscle around other companies to do what they want. This time around they'll have everyone's bases covered. From cries of backward compatibility to cries of lack of rpgs. I suggest everyone whos got something to whine about with the original xbox do so now, so that microsoft will have the time to fix it and gain some more customers.
Sony needs to realize they are going to have a tough battle this time around.
Now, where do I get the modchip?
Do not look into the laser with remaining eye.
I never had a PS1 prior to owning my PS2, so for me it was like getting two systems in one. Also, I think the price will drop on a lot of the 'older' XBox games that are stil highly playable and fun. Parents especially will have the choice of dropping 50-60 bucks on a new Xbox 360 game or getting 2 or 3 'classic' Xbox games for the same price.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
A more important question about these consoles is not if FFXI is going to be released on them, but on what console any FF's after XII be released on. That's going to be the deciding point for me at least. Has square-enix issued any news on this?
This is a crazy idea I've had in my head lately. Would it be possible to build a gaming console that runs XboX 1, PS 1, PS 2, Gamecube, and even PC games? I know it sounds crazy, but listen.
Projects like Wine, PearPC, MAME, etc. show that it is possible to re-implement someone else's software or even hardware API. If you emulate a different hardware architecture, you take a performance hit obviously. This makes it impracticle to emulate the latest gaming consoles (like the 360 or PS3 of course). However, would it not be possible to create emulators for older gaming consoles?
So the idea is that some company sells a small dedicated computer (with good graphics card, etc.) that runs some emulation software (probably based on linux, using things like wine as a starting point to at least enable running of PC games). The unit cannot run any modern games, but it can run basically *ALL* of the older games, from any console. I think there would be a market for this.
The obvious problem is legality. Reverse engineering is permitted to a certain extent, and re-creating someone else's API is allowed. Notice that I haven't talked about copying other vendor's games onto a hard-drive. You put in your officially purchased copy (on CD or DVD) of a game into this new uber-console's CD/DVD drive, and you play it. You bought the game, after all. Is that allowed? Are there any laws I'm not aware of? Does the EULA of a PS2 game say that you are only allowed to play it on approved hardware platforms?
I guess the real answer is that no company would ever attempt such a thing, since the big players in the market would all be aligned against them, and they would be crushed in a legal nightmare. This just means that we'll have to wait a bit longer for the homebrew solution I guess.
Steel Battalion and it's sequel.
No controller ports.
Fun game, though, worth the money and I still play it, so I'll still have an Xbox hooked up somewhere.
Nuff said.
I'm waiting now for some Nintendo news.
--
Proud member of ACA (Anonymous Clowns Association)
Somehow, I doubt that my old modchip is gonna work in the new xbox.
Backward compatable my ass!
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
I don't know but doing a backward compaitability on the xbox is a lot of hard work. Different architecture, different GPUs.. don't like the idea ... but. There is always the blue screen of death.
Let's see what they have to offer.
I am selling my PS2, gamecube and xbox on ebay after the summer and starting to save up for the PS3 and xbox360.
take care
-A
that this is a kneejerk announcement by Microsoft in response to the PS3.
There's probably lots of Microsoft engineers now trying to figure out how to hack backwards compatability into an almost-finished product, after a 'just make it happen but don't change the deadline' directive from the boss yesterday.
Like all projects with that mandate, quality is the first to go. To the end user, that means many old games will probably not work well, if at all.
PS3's backwards compatibility is simple: In addition to the Nvidia-driven gfx and hardware of the PS3, it has the PS2 emotion engine circuitry built-in. And since the PS2 had the PS1's circuitry built-in, you get 2 generations of backwards compatibility.
Xbox is more or less a P3+Geforce4 design. Somehow I don't see it being feasible for Microsoft to miniaturize the xbox logic and slap it onto the Xbox360 motherboard. Xbox360 will probably require a xbox-live download for emulation instructions that allow it to play whatever selected Xbox game you want to run.
Nintendo revolution's backwards compatibility is relatively simple as well: From all accounts, its architecture is an extension of the gamecube's architecture: GC had a custom IBM Power chip called "flipper", and a simple yet powerful gfx solution by ArtX (later acquired by Ati) that uses embedded 1T-SRAM. Revolution is supposed to have an IBM Power-based cpu and an Ati gfx solution that, surprise surprise, uses embedded gfx memory as well. I'm betting the new hardware's just a superset of the old.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
For the backward compatibility, does the Xbox 360 have an x86 processor in addition to the PowerPC? Or does it emulate the x86?
Most European friends say meh to XBOX 360 apparently.
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid
E3 Opinion: Xbox 360 is outgunned and outclassed by Sony's PS3
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=5
Xbox 360 fails to convince in LA
XBox 360 to get 25-40 games in 2005
Halo 2 will still be popular when 360 launches, that's only about a month after they plan to release about a half dozen new maps for it.
People will still play the popular games on Live, much the same way as people still play Quake and Counterstrike on the PC.
That makes backwards compatibility for the XBox and PS3 a bigger selling point than it was on the PS2. As far as single player games, I agree.
Plus there's the whole size thing. Do you have room for an XBox AND a 360? Har har its teh big.
Now, what I read, is that "popular XBox games" will be backwards compatable. That is, it seems to me like a Bleemcast-style software emulation, maybe you download title-specific emulators?
If the 360 has enough power to emulate the original XBox at full speed, with full (or at least PS2-PSX full) compatibility, then I'm quite impressed, since that's a good indication of it's horsepower.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Nintendo in-house games are great, but if they don't get 3rd-party support, it'll start making a lot of sense just to make games for the other 2 systems rather than try to juggle both hardware and software. Sega went that path and I don't see why that Metroid and Mario can't show up on XBox 720 or PS4 in the future.
I read both the Reuters and Gamesport articles, and didn't see a mention of price whatsoever. I know, usually consoles debut at the $2-300 range, but there have been oddbals (3d0 or Neogeo, anyone?)
Am I just blind, or was there no mention of price at all here?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I remember the backwards compatabilty/Final Fantasy argument being the mantra of just about every ps2 or nintendo fanboy. I'm sure this has something to do with the influx of game designers who have been getting snatched up by microsoft in recent months. Now if RockStar games moves, or even offers on both consoles, that would be a death blow.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
The heat is on but PS3 has more power. If it is harnessed then there is more potential....
Comparison from PS3 Post
Evolution or ID?
Actually, with the amount of power these new consoles sport, they could easily have their predecessors, as well as their Competitor's predecessors games to back them up.
Both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 have more than enough horsepower to emulate not only their own previous consoles, but also each others previous consoles. the only thing that would stop them would be licencing issues, and the PS3 would have the edge since Nvidia is their partner and they designed half of the previous Xbox, which was based on a standard X86 PC to begin with. The only thing that would stop them is the Bios and the Xbox OS.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Remember, Live is now part of the system package, available to everyone for free. My guess is that backwards compatibility will require the hard-drive add-on as well as a Live connection. This will allow Microsoft to "patch" the game, allowing it to run on a 360.
Think of it as a pseudo-port of top-selling XBox games.
I was pretty sold on the 360 anyway, and any kind of backwards compatibility would just be icing on a delicious, concave cake.
I've been watching the HD footage on Fileshack (not affiliated, I just paid GBP2.75 this morning for Mercury to get the HD stuff, knowing that the same trailers will be put online after E3 in their original form) and these games look incredible. There must have been some massive leap that occured while I was busy with Doom3 and HL2 because I was not expecting this kind of quality from the next-gen consoles and PC games. Heck, I'm even looking forward to the EA titles.
And I haven't even started looking at the PS3 yet. I might have to take a second gap year at this rate.
This comment was formatted for readability, but I forgot the line break tags
At least the XBox will only be selectively backwards compatible (meaning even from the announcement you can expect that the XBox is less compatible than the PS)
Don't expect any miracles when you buy an XBox360 unless they announce full compatibility.
GPL Deconstructed
on a practical level, how often do you play old games? ok maybe halo once in a blue moon. they probably just did it to for PR reasons...
I guess it would have been suicide considering that the Xbox isn't so well established in Japan.
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OHh..... FFXI. I thought they might be talking about a real final fantasy game.
Two things will keep me from ever playing a game by the FF programmers. 1) Dark aons? Why did I pay for a game with all the bosses missing. 2) final straw was in FF X2. When they had me "massage" the back....... I romptly went back to the store and traded the game in for something better.
They are what they are b/c of backward compatibility. And the only reason Sony and MS have a major foothold is b/c Nintendo way-back-in-the-day never got backwards compatibility.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Have you ever tried playing a PC game on the Mac using VirtualPC? Performance is downright AWFUL. The Mac side has been trying to do this for over a decade. The only thing that really worked well was OrangeMicro's OrangePC card, which was basically an x86 processor and memory on a NuBUS or PCI card. Even then, you paid a lot of money for an x86 processor that was years out of date, so again, games were out of the question.
If MS goes the hardware route (adding the extra processor), I suspect that they will, once again, be taking a loss on the console.
"an almost fanatical devotion to Bill Gates" has a such nice ring to it doesn't it! Shame he wasn't so popular back in the days of the spanish inquisition... That would be backward compatible!
I actually bought an XBox because of Halo. I love FPSers, although it felt bad to be giving money to the big evil.
I have to say the quality of the XBox hardware sucks donkey parts. They must have used the cheapest bits they could find. After just 1 year of use, (after the guarentee expired): the DVD drive keeps skipping, the power cable had to be replaced because there was a danger of it burning the house down and the joypad makes me run right every time I turn on the system for like, 5 minuites.
This, combined with the fact that it took Bunge an age to release Halo 2 makes me think twice about buying another console that'll probably fall to bits after it's guarentee runs out.
Coding Monkey.org - Spanging the heavy spade of truth into t
Ding! Your answers are ready. It's me.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Really? FFXI on the X-Box 360? That's the first I've heard about this and I'm a pretty avid long-term FFXI player. Forgive me if I don't take this statement at face value.
However, this isn't to say I'm going to dismiss it out of hand entirely either.
In many ways, FFXI - for those who aren't familiar with it, it's the Final Fantasy MMORPG for PC and PS2 and still one of the biggest examples of the genre around - felt like a game that would have been well-suited to the X-Box Live system, rather than to the PS2's rather patchy online services. If this story *is* true, then I'd hope that they'd preserve version compatibility, so that X-Box 360 players would be on the same servers of PC and PS2 players. However, the game is a few years old now and a considerable part of the way through its life-cycle. While I would personally welcome a new influx of players, I suspect many of my fellow players might be a bit less tolerant. I'd also worry that the gradual creep of inflation into the economy would make it very difficult for new players (without existing high-level friends in the game) to get started.
Emulation is never really that "easy". Unless the X-box and ps3's graphic controller is compatable, I kinda doubt it would be possible. And how on earth are you goin to split up X86 instruction code so that it can run on seperate parts of the cell processor?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
How do they maintain backward compatibility when switching from a x86 to a PPC processor? Sounds like B.S. to me. Some software based black-magic emulator will do the translation and I bet performance will suck.
I know 'some' programming, but I don't understand why it can't be perfect emulation. I mean, I understand why some games would work and some wouldn't, but I don't understand why there aren't other options. It would seem Microsoft could allow developers of the 'buggy titles' to host ported game code for free download on X360 Live. Put in a few checks that see if the player has put in a XBox 1 game, if so, check for emulation support, if that fails check for patched/ported code on the harddrive, and if not found then the patched/ported code on the net with the 'free content downloads' that X360 Live will offer to all users. The user would still need the original disc for all of the actual game content. Of course this isn't a "one-man-job" or anything, but is this not feasible for some reason I'm not considering?
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Considering that the Xbox has an x86 CPU, and the Xbox 360 has 3 PowerPC CPUs, they will have to at least emulate a x86 CPU.
"It's the smell! If there is such a thing." Agent Smith - The Matrix
No one expects the spanish inquisition!
The best thing about rumours, is of being smug and in-gracious when your assertions are proved correct.
I shall now burn karma and indulge myself (if you don't want to see this, you may look away now).
I didn't predict that the XBox 2 would have 'backwards compatibility', I merely pointed out that it was certainly eminently possible on the hardware given the specifications announced to developers and given pertinent information (such as the then recent purchase of the VPC x86 on PPC emulator from Connectix by Microsoft). In fact I *insisted* it was possible, even the face of occasionally rabid argument stating emphatically otherwise.
I recently came across a thread with a user in which I had just this discussion, it was started by the user "king-manic" under the heading:
"reasons MS can't be backwards compatible"
"1- they changed CPU architectures.
2- They changed GPU's and the previous GPU is hevaily heavily copyrighted.
3- they have only 5-10 games worth playing on Xbox
4- Emu of 3d graphics w/o glitches is a dream. Even ps2 had glitches and it included the god damn hardware."
I set about taking this apart (admittedly rather harshly, but fairly), to be met with "king-manic" replying with:
Is seems you've been well rebutted. I stand by my assessment and add the fact that there is no HD as one of your repliers mentions. Have you run emulation latley? for 20 year old games, they run flawlessly. on 15 year old games, almost perfect. on the last decade of game, their shit. it'll take another 5-10 years of emu for a pc to play an xbox game full speed via emu.
And so on (you get the idea).
At last, it seems we can now bring this matter to a close.
*commence dancing*
In closing, I look forward to all the future smug dancing I'll be doing when the PS3 is released, we discover the KillZone pre-rendered movie is very clearly just that and that not only is PS3 not able to do that by a LONG shot, but in fact the performance of the PS3 is behind that of the 360 in practice (dispite hyped specs) as it turns out (again) that Sony built something that's considerably more difficult for developers to use and as a consquence few games are able to exploit the hardware to the same degree.
I forgot to also mention, the original Xbox has a Nvidia GPU, and the 360 has an ATI, so yes, the will have to emulate everything.
I'd image this would of been one of the reason behind Microsoft aqusition of Connectix.
"It's the smell! If there is such a thing." Agent Smith - The Matrix
There are only 2 important rules that will decide the winner. What a console can do and what a console can't do.
Why would you go to the trouble of emulating a x86 game on a PowerPC (then testing to see if it is playable), the games companies won't have lost thier source, can't they just recombile for for the PowerPC. As long as M$ has put some backwards compatablity in the APIs.
THey could just download the new code via XBox Live when you inserted an old CD (still reading the media content from the CD).
This way they could market the XBox 360 as plaing version 1 games "Better then the original!", given people a reason to upgrade before they even have a decent games libary for the new system.
I'll be disappointed if the majority of games don't work. That will mean MS can't decide to build something complicated and build it like Apple.
I wouldn't exactly call FFXI a hot-ticket item. The game has been in decline for a bit now. This just sounds like S-E trying to expand their user base to the XBox fanboys who dropped the PS2 when XBox came out.
Future collaborations sounds vague at best. Although the rumor mill has been saying that the exclusive contract with Sony is almost up (I never knew one was ever in existance or with a time limit), and Square-Enix has been branching out over the past few years.
S-E will ultimately go wherever they think they can perform the best. Which is why they left Nintendo (cartridge would severely limit their options) and if MS is truly poised to dominate the market, then seeing them switch to XBox360 is a no-brainer. Also, they seem to be following Sakaguchi's coat-tails with Mist Walker announcing its two RPGS for XBox360.
Finally, this could be a good move for MS with the 360, since the original Xbox didn't have a large library of RPGs, which is something the PS2 had an abundance of.
Insert Sig Here
I don't know if any of you have experianced backwards compatibility on the PS2 but i thought it sucked. Being that i had to wait over a year for gran turismo 3 to be released i started playing the ps1 version of gran turismo 2 on my ps2. the graphics seemed to be sub par of my ps1 and the load time was no better on the beefier ps2. I maybe a minority in thinking backwards compat. is useless. if i want to play halo 2 or Lego starwars i will put the disk in my original xbox... Wow now there is a concept.
Actually yes, I think it's safe to say yes it may very well (in around about way) improve VPC on Mac OS X...
VPC 3 (when it was still owned by Connectix) supported certain graphics cards, specifically 3DFX cards, natively. Meaning you could play 'Windows' games that supported the 3DFX Glide driver in real time (because the actual CPU load from games like Quake and Tomb Raider was relaatively low).
Sadly 3DFX imploded, and the feature was dropped from Virtual PC 4 (and subsequent releases), apparently too much trouble to maintain.
Microsoft *were* going to add this type of functionality back into VPC 7 (the current release, their first since purchasing it from Connectix) but they stated on their web site this was dropped and will be in a future release.
Apparently this is because they had to rework the code for the 64 Bit G5 CPU's, as the the existing VPC code relied on reverse endian support - a feature of the G4 range, but not the G5 range, as I understand it.
Fortunately, Microsoft's Mac team seem fairly committed to re-visiting this feature, which is fantastic news. Given that these days it's essencially the same range of ATI and nVidia graphics cards in both the Wintel world and in Apple systems, it should allow a whole number of Windows games to be playable on Mac OS X at reasonable speeds (I'm particularly thinking of MMOG's and RTS games, and perhaps FPS games on the level of say Halo and CoD).
This of course leads on to the intreging possibility of them selling a quick and dirty porting SDK to game developers (can't help thinking it's unlikely, but it would be cool).
Now you know it's a Microsoft product.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Now I can inbreed chocobos EVEN FASTER and in more detail than EVER!!!
Hello Revolution
hince incompatible with lightgun and STEEL BATTALION. This may just be a "CYA" type "selective compatibility" since all the games work with the wireless controller.
just my $0.02
A Llamasoft light synth! And without having to stick a toilet on top of your console, either...
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
So, here's what I'm trying to figure out... What's the idea behind having 1 SPU "reserved for redundancy"? Wouldn't it be better to have all the SPUs available, and then them for redundancy as needed? Thoughts? Ideas?
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Microsoft purchased Virtual PC a few years ago to tackle this very problem. Remember how they had hundreds of labs set up with g5's? Everybody saw this coming, that is, everyone except ignorant fucks like you who can't take off their Microsoft bashing glasses long enough to get a fucking clue.
With "some, but not all" games being supported for backwards compatibility, there's no reason to believe that *any* games will work as originally intended. You can't call it backwards compatible if... well, it's not backwards compatible.
I can just see it already. Microsoft will heavily promote the XBox 360 as being "Backwards Compatible**"
** But not really. Actually, only Halo2 is compatible. Everything else is subject to this nice little disclaimer here.
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Unimpressive. Select backwards compatibility on select titles, meh graphics, not too interesting multimedia/entertainment hub features, and other features like allowing people to watch deathmatches? That one has existed on PCs for quite some time, was all of this really suppose to get me excited for the xbox360?
Heck, even the proposed launch line up is unimpressive. Yawn, re-hashed sequels and franchisees with litte changes or anything new, your usual sports tittles, etc. Plus given how Rare planed Kameo to be a Gamecube title, it was going to be a Xbox1 title, and their current track record, I have to say I doubt it will be released.
Heck, Rare are finally going to release their Conker remake, something they started way back when the Xbox was first planed. If they release Kameo at all, at least look forward to it at the end of the Xbox360's life cycle.
I know I do.
I noticed in the XBox specs the controllers were 2.4 GHz. Well isn't that the 802.11 frequency? I don't buy 2.4GHz phones to avoid messing up my WiFi signal...
So does that mean that the controllers are really running over WiFi? It seems like the only way it could work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I believe he was talking about the <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/finalfantas<nobr>y<wbr></wbr></nobr> vii/index.html">FF7 technical demo</a> that was included in yesterday's PS3 press conference at E3. It was basically an impressive live-rendered version of the opening for FF7 that improved on the character animation of Aeris and Cloud, and left people wondering whether Square-Enix would be re-releasing FF7 for PS3.
Can be found at gametrailers.com.
Grand Turismo... damn.
for the PS2, the entire PS1 circuitry was located away from the emotion engine, and tucked away in the peripheral IO processor.
What games should I pick up for cheap from the original Xbox, then?
Can't afford to blow $50 per game for the new ones, but I figure I should look for some of the older ones. Which ones are clever, entertaining, and can't afford to be missed? (yes yes, Halo, DOA, I know the big names, but I'm looking for the ones that didn't get as much press.
I agree that it'd be great to have increased game selection, but why not just run the Mac native port of Halo? ;-)
Nice of you to show up with an article to an actual important presentation, then water it down with the "nay saying" comments of blogs. "The Xbox Suxors! news on eleven"
I mean the second comment (blog) started: "(actual comment) Im going to give out the win to PS3 because their graphics were a lot cooler. (/actual comment)"
Point 1: Sure thing bub! I mean why dont you just skip that theres going to be xbox live for FREE in each 360? that you'll have a cool IM system, with some tivo like features mentioned? or that you could even design and sell stuff for games online? (not buy, SELL even I can see a benefit there!) I mean those are totally not worth talking about features right?
point 2: this is slashdot land of the "gameplay first, graphics second! damn it!" motto, and now it turns out we are completely signing out a console because the other flashed some pretty graphics at us? nice bias there bub!
I admit some games shown had lesser graphics (in some cases not, I mean check out gears of war!) but they were all ONLINE capable. In ghost recon 3 each window that pop out was an online partner trying to tell you something or showing you a location in a map, doesnt that add a lot to strategic gameplay?
Is a bit too early to cast out an opinion on this, at least an intelligent, unbiased opinion that is.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
I liked Fusion Frenzy. It's more of a party game, but quite entertaining.
Metal arms was great as well. Not only did it have a killer storyline, but the mechanics were fresh, and the multiplayer action brilliant.
Fable was interesting, but failed to love up to the hype. It was also painfully short. From my experience, it's a love it or leave it game.
If you are into arcade sims and noir, Crimsom skies is worth checking out.
Ninja Gaiden: hot. Hard, but hot.
I think I'll leave it at that. Out of the list, I'd say that Metal Arms was the most fun.
The XBox OS? You mean the Windows kernel and graphics subsystem?
Wine is free software. Who's to say that Sony won't partner with TransGaming to make Cedega XB? Emulation of a competitor's previous console has already been declared lawful in two lawsuits that Sony lost (Sony v. Connectix and Sony v. Bleem).
And how on earth are you goin to split up X86 instruction code so that it can run on seperate parts of the cell processor?
How does a Transmeta Crusoe processor split up i686 instruction code into multiple instructions for its VLIW core?
The old ColecoVision had an add-on that allowed you to play Atari 2600 games on it (the Coleco's rival).
So I guess there's some precedent.
In order to change the conclusion that Xbox came in third place worldwide, Xbox would have had to destroy the GameCube in Europe and/or Australia. Do you claim that this is the case?
It will play games with your games - now that's cute! Gotta love MS, they really know how to double-speak. Buy backwards-compatible, they mean you pay to play your old games again. Now that's what I call gamesmanship!
No wait a minute, we change our minds. Pleeeeze buy our box, we are sure it will run the most important games from the xbox. i.e. the game that takes your money - sucka.... he he
I love the speak - best trash can speak there is.
I played Balloon Fight yesterday, on my old 8-bit NES, finishing 30% of the single-player mode on my first life.
And Nintendo appears to own all w.r.t. compatibility with classic games. The company has announced an online ROM rental service, featuring classic NES, Super NES, and N64 titles, which looks like it will win a lot of converts to Revolution from the abandonwarez/emulation scene.
How is MS what they are because of backwards compatibility?
Nintendo attempted it, much to their detriment, with the SNES.
Though the Super NES was not binary compatible with the NES, it was source compatible to a large extent, which let a lot of publishers quickly convert late NES titles to Super NES launch titles (such as Maxis's SimCity).
Tony Vivaldi: What is this, Benedict? First you're my friend; now you turn a... 360 on me!
Benedict: 180, you stupid, spaghetti-slurping cretin - *180*! If I did a 360, I'd go completely around and end up back where I started!
You still want to run all xbox games? keep an xbox, hey they'll be going dirt cheap anyway soon.
Consoles with moving parts break, and the Xbox is the only major game console currently shipped with two spindles (DVD-ROM and HD). Should Microsoft discontinue production of Xbox consoles, will I always be able to get an Xbox console repaired at a Microsoft authorized service center?
Just like Hollywood.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'll guess that the DDR games and Xbox Music Mixer would be on the "non-compatible" list as well.
Konami wouldn't want to make DDR for the Xbox 360 console, given that Microsoft has announced a requirement that all games for Xbox 360 support custom soundtracks. Letting a player import songs into a hypothetical Ultramix 360 would destroy the market for new mixes.
Of course, the advertising won't mention that it only supports three games and they crash every ten minutes, will it?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
But not really. Actually, only Halo2 is compatible.
And the only version of Halo 2 that is compatible is Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails, which will work as a custom soundtrack.
I have said it once before and I will say it again. Microsoft will most likely not use emulation to support previous games. Instead, they will simply recompile the Xbox 1 games for the Xbox 360. Since they are being selective about which games to support and since most of these games are professionally written in a high-level language targetting a high-level API, porting to the new Xbox will be easy.
This means that Microsoft only needs to distribute small executables for each recompiled game. What makes these games big is not the executable content, but the textures, models, levels, sound effects, music, etc. Hence when somebody boots an Xbox 1 game, the Xbox 360 can contact a server via Xbox Live and see if a recompiled executable is available. If so, it is downloaded to the harddrive and executed, using the art content on the DVD but ignoring the old executables.
Selecting to just recompile the popular games is far easier than implementing an emulator.
Unlike the PS2's back-compatibility logic, a used PS1 can be used on a separate TV while someone else in the house is using the PS2 to watch 12 hours of Meg Ryan movies.
I'm an RPG fan. Now that Square's going for the Xbox 360, will other RPG makers follow suit? RPGs were one area in which the Xbox was weaker than the PS2.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
So if I want to play Tsugaru, I have to load up Ultramix 1. If I want to dance to Ordinary World, it's got to be DDR Max.
Tried StepMania lately?
I also am planning to get In The Groove, a competitor product, just for more variety.
All ITG products appear to be delayed indefinitely due to a patent infringement lawsuit from Konami.
Anyway, I am glad they will run on the PS3 & Xbox 360.
Not necessarily. With the controller ports replaced with a wireless transceiver, where will you plug in the dance pads? No, there probably won't be new dance pads for the Xbox 360 console because there probably won't be a new DDR game, in turn because Konami probably doesn't want people using the Xbox 360's custom soundtrack feature to add new songs to old mixes.
Interesting, but I wasn't worried abou the XBox controllers working (though now that you mention it that is good to clear up as it would be super annoying to have the controllers cut out).
I was more worried about how well other existing WiFi networks would react to the presence of the XBox 360 controllers/base in the house. Will it overwhelm my existing WiFi network? And if you do add a WiFi adaptor to the XBox, then how will it work in conjuction with the controllers? It just seems really odd to overlap the frequencies with two different devices.
Thanks for confirming the controllers are not WiFi though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
will this be an actual ff game or will it turn into a MMORPG.. because I honestly don't like the direction that ff is heading, and obviously sony doesn't have much of an online thing going on so it really is better for them to move to the xbox with a real network setup rather than each company having a different online setup.
Binary compatibility wasn't nearly as important at the Super NES launch as it is now, as the major objections this time around didn't apply then:
Here's my best guess:
1) take game for existing Xbox (intel + nvidia)
2) re-target compiler for Xbox2 (powerpc + ati)
3) make new binary available on Xbox2 Live
4) insert original Xbox game disc in Xbox2 and run with new Xbox2-ported binary
5) profit!
This is so much easier than emulation that it's virtually a no brainer.
From the article:
Xbox has become a major force in video-game innovation, and we couldn't be more captivated by the Xbox 360 canvas," commented Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix
Can someone enlighten me on which "innovations" the Xbox is responsible for? Its hardware was standard. Its games were largely ports, and its online service is a 'pay' version of what PC users take for granted.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
and if they're not doing that, then I'll just wait till someone tries to get rid of his old xBox instead of paying the MSFT tax.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
or maybe even the Z series X-Box
So... Without modifying anything, I can run my copy of Windows XP Pro (and, according to your post, Win98 and below), and run Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks on my hypothetical Xbox?
No, because you are not a duly authorized representative of Adobe, which controls the programs' source code. Remember that some of those lines read "source compatible", not "binary compatible". A platform's source compatibility is not worth as much to a platform vendor as binary compatibility, but it's still worth some, as it lets the platform vendor quickly build a set of launch titles.
How did that get modded off topic for goodness sake? Jeff Minter, the man who invented the lightsynth, has done a lightsynth which is part of the firmware for the new Xbox. This is an article about the new Xbox. Someone points this out and you mark it as off topic? Hello....
OK so the link does work. It should have been thisAnd the video is fab.
Doesn't the PS2 have a PS1 chip on it to play PS1 games? Couldn't the XBox 2 do the same, using a XBox 1 CPU to play the XBox 1 games?
I doubt we'll ever see FF's exclusively for the XBox. The Japanese market (which is a huge part of FF's base) would wail and gnash its collective teeth and generally put Square-Enix's stock price in the gutter. The S-E execs would be fools to alienate their most loyal fans.
John Hancock wuz here.
"Xbox has become a major force in video-game innovation, and we couldn't be more captivated by the Xbox 360 canvas," said Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix. "As the world's first cross-platform online game with more than 500,000 users, Final Fantasy XI will take advantage of the incredible power of the Xbox 360 platform, immersing gamers in spellbinding stories that come to life in high definition and through collaborative online gameplay."
Umm World of Warcraft is cross platform... so is The original Everquest... since when is Mac/PC not cross platform?
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
So instead of doing real backwards compat (which would be a bitch, especially with nVidia no longer on their side), it looks like Microsoft will simply _port_ older games to the new platform. I have to admit I think it's a pretty neat idea. I mean why not? With the included hard drive and broadband access, it could automatically download and store the appropriate executable. Non-machinecode ressources can be loaded normally.
Does anyone else see the dreamcast controler resemblance
wouldn't be surprosed if the 360 was microsoft's last system
besides, if youre going to spend half a grand on a gaming system might as well get a pc
(hey guess what.. it's backward compatable too)
It sounds like they'll be releasing a Keyboard on day one, doesn't it? After all, an MMORPG would be pointless without one.
Do people think the keyboard will be wireless like all the other controllers? It would be really cool to see something like the GameCube keyboard (a stretched controller with keys in the middle...)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Obviously a version of MS's newly-acquired VirtualPC will be used to handle the CPU emulation, and the DirectX layer will cope with redirecting most of the the gfx calls smoothly enough. The tricky part is the patented nVidia shader code used in Xbox games.
The only answer that make sense is that the emulator will intercept the nVidia shader code, match it against a database & replace it with a prewritten equivalent DXSL shader (as gfx drivers often do today, for better performance).
Nicely sidesteps the patent issues, it's efficient, relatively easy, and can be upgraded via Live updates too, for further compatibility down the road.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Never mind best hardware in class, the thing had a hard drive bulit in, plus a great online service that is generally superior, being a mostly centralized solution to the every-game-has-a-different-interface of the PC world. Those two things would count as innovation in the console market.
Held to PC standards, no. But consoles aren't, being that they are totally not PCs.
I own a Gamecube and a PS2. I'd prefer to never give Microsoft money again, because they are monopolistic and abuse that fact. I'm not interested in a subscription service that I have to pay a reasonable chunk of money for, and I don't feel that the system accomodates casual gamers very well. Additionally, I don't see as much software experimentation as I'd like, IMHO only Nintendo gets that done consistently.
But the XBox did bring things fresh and new to the console world: it brought a lot of what was good about PC gaming to the market in a console. I was impressed, even though I'm not a customer. They certainly won over several of my friends. If I had been a big "Point-The-Screen" (First person shooter) fan, they might have won me over as well.
(Stupid controllers big enough to surf on! That was another innovation!)
All these discussions about backward compatibility and emulation - my old savegames may be the show-stopper for me. Virtually all Xbox games are locked until you complete milestones in the game. My kids have spent hundreds - nay, thousands of hours unlocking games. Their progress are stored as game saves on the internal harddrive. How do I get the saves to the new system? Do I buy an Xbox memory stick? - is it compatible to the Xbox 360? I can just imagine the reaction of my kids if I tell them to enjoy the new machine but they can't play their favourite characters until they redo all the levels in the game and complete all the inane challenges.
Xbox 360's backward compatability sounds like a "knee-jerk, spur of the moment" decision to meet market outcry (and Sony's moves).
This "limited" backward compatability of a few select high selling titles is lame at best. In one statement, Microsoft has devalued everyone's current library of XBox games and also decreased demand for all the Xbox games currently on the market. People will shy away from buying new games fearing incompatabilty or only buy the most popular titles (hurting smaller or niche developers).
I will convert / trade my favorite titles (that can be) over to the PS2 (which will run on the PS3) and eBay the rest of my Xbox collection. 360 can stay on the shelves. I'm tired of getting boned by Bill.
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
The video game industry has grown enough so that there's room for three players in the console wars now, if not more. I'm too lazy to look up sales, but I imagine the gamecube has sold more than the original NES.
With brand recognition like Nintendo's, it will never be "out of the loop". As long as it continues to make money on its consoles, there is no reason for it to become a software only company.
The Cisco client has been fixed; VPC remains broken.
I quit after a few years then picked it back up like an idiot years later then quit again several months ago.
My advice is two-fold. First just plain quit, don't 'taper off' or any such non-sense, just stop cold and NO MATTER WHAT don't even come close to so much as a puff thereafter. Trust me you'll come up with all sorts of reasonable, smart, idiot to dissagree reasons to just smoke one more. THAT'S A TRICK your mind will play on you to satisfy the adiction.
Good luck, if you can steadfastly refuse to pick them back up no matter what you'll do fine.
If you've never tried before, just think of what Frodo went through trying to destroy the one ring, it's about like that (especially the constant subliminal pull to do otherwise slowly trying to erode the will) only compressed into a shorter time.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
... has done the sound to light stuff for Xbox 360...
Cool! Given history so far, that means the Xbox360 will fail.