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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.
... 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.
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.
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.
http://nerdfortress.com/
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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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?
designed for a 8 bit OS in seventies called the CP/M
This is the worst part of backwards compatibility - even though those old headers are there, I'm sure that nothing using them would be able to run under CP/M for several generations of software now.
more of the same on Twitter.
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.
You know, I somehow think they realize that.... just take a quick glance at those PS3 pictures and specs again...
Maybe petition Sony to make it compatible with the XBox? I'm sure they'd consider it, if they COULD. They probably don't have the millions [or billions] that Microsoft would want them to pay to include that ability.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
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
To be fair though, the new Xbox isn't that big of a jump as 8->32. I think a better analogy would be comparing the XBox 360 and the Xbox1 to 64-bit and 32-bit PCs. It's a good thing if your 64-bit PC can run 32-bit binaries, as many programs aren't developed for a 64-bit environment yet.
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.
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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.
With all that power I wonder if an emulator could be written to run on the PS3 for xbox360. Then hack away.
Evolution or ID?
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
It's on. I'm sure the respective marketing departments will keep trying to one-up each other like this all the way until release.
I seem to remember a colossal amount of BS from the marketing departments of Sony and MS before the release of the PS2 and the Xbox. Claims that the Emotion engine of the PS2 would be so powerful that you could model individual hairs in a persons head, the Xbox was originally to be release at roughly the same time as the PS2, etc., etc..
The PS3 screenies look amazing. And an X-box 360 launch this christmas sounds great. But until I can buy a console and check out the games for myself, I'll remain a bit sceptical. Or not. They got me. DAMN thos PS3 screenies looked good.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
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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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!
Ding! Your answers are ready. It's me.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
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!
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
First, I've had excellent karma as long as I remember, and that's without even trying.
Second, I don't give a shit about karma. I cannot understand why Slashdot even has a moderation system. It makes no sense. I post because I have something to say, not for any points.
Third, losing karma is worth pissing off you little Xbox fanboys! Grow up, move out of your parents' house, and GET A FUCKING LIFE!!! It's a GAME console, and NOTHING more!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly 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.
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Some of the oldest tricks in the book, see the emotion engine could very easily model each hair on a human head with no problem... however to do anything meaningful with them would require logic, physics, and a host of other things which eat up huge amounts of resources and then at that point you can't model each hair individually and you get games that look exactly like current PS2 titles.
Synthetic benchmarks and tech specs mean very little when game programmers are programming for the lowest common denomiator so that they can port their game to all three systems (or to reach mass appeal on PC's), in a time crunch, and under budget. Heck the Gamecube has the best graphics capabilities of the current gen, but you'd be hard pressed to *use* an 8 layered texture on each element of a game and make it playable past PONG levels.
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And even then, Backwards compatibility will be on select games (as opposed to the combined 13000 games library of the PS and PS2).
And it's Final Fantasy XI we're talking about. I played that game for a year, it was like paying to have a violent illness inflicted on you. They better be starting up fresh servers for the Xbox version with a lot of tweaking on the game itself to stand a chance.
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.
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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I'm not the one claiming .NET is CP/M backwards compatable...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
As for bashing MS, I wasn't. It was an observation, and probably close to the truth as it happens.
Your two lines of screechy overreaction, remind me of the old days of C64 vs Spectrum, Amiga vs Atari, Mac vs PC etc. There were a lot of ignorant zealots in those 'wars' too. I guess some losers are so emotionally invested in a piece of kit that it is a religion to them, and woe betide anyone who passes comment about their beloved platform.
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.
Yes, you're right. Grandparent poster here - I can't access the Playonline main page or a lot of other gaming sites from work (or remember my slashdot login).
I guess this is a pretty unambiguous "good thing" as it basically ensures that FFXI is going to be getting at least a couple more years of active support before retirement.
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?
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).
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.
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.
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