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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.
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.
After you shell out $350 for the console, you may only get one or two games. And if your shiny new console can play games from your cruddy old console, then you can trade in the cruddy old one, or put it into storage.
I don't know about you, but I have something plugged into just about every input hole on my TV, and I hate switching cords around.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
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.
Because most people would rather have one console next to their TV versus two or three.
Can you imagine how asinine it'd be if every couple years DVD players were incompatible with prior DVDs?! Sure you COULD buy five DVD players, but that'd be asinine.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Mostly backward compatible? Is that like being "mostly dead"?
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Fixing all of this is non-trivial. I guess MS could ship with the emulator in firmware or sell it as an add on DVD - it could install onto the hard drive so they're not constrained by firmware.
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..."
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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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.
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After modding the original Xbox I have:
...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.
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)
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
Gamecube was a distant 3rd in the console scene
*yawn* Baseless assertions bore me. The Gamecube did about as well at the XBox in the US, and completely destroyed it in Japan. If you add that up, it makes the Gamecube much more potent than the XBox, in terms of sales. If you mean hype/PR, then maybe the Gamecube lags, but Nintendo's press conference isn't till today, anyway.
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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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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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