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.

Comments

reason for "selected" compatibility?

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

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.

Re:crazy idea

[pnice]

After modding the original Xbox I have:


ColecoVision/Adam Emulator
Apple ][ emulator
Atari 800/5200/130/320/XL/XE Emulator
Intellivision Emulator
Nintendo64 emulator
Laserdisc Arcade Emulator (Dragons Lair, Space Ace)
Sega master system Emulator
Game Gear Emulator
Sega CD
Sega 32X
Nintendo
Super Nintendo
Gameboy / Gameboy Advance
Killer Instinct 1 and 2 arcade
Turbo Graphics 16
Atari Lynx
Mame
NeoGeo CD
NeoGeo Pocket Color
Wonderswan
Playstation
and
Scumm (Lucas Arts Games)

...and I may be missing a few. The Playstation emulator sucks a bit but everything else works like it should. I gives the option to play almost all the games of the past...and that's more that I'll probably ever play.