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What Xbox Games Will Be Backwards Compatible?
alvinrod writes "IGN has whipped up a nice article about how and which Xbox games will be compatible with the Xbox 360. The article explains that Microsoft is using emulation to play old Xbox games rather than including the chipset from the original Xbox. From the article: 'Xbox 360 compatible games are going to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Microsoft's engineer's are, right now, figuring out which games are compatible, and which are less than compatible. Thus, at the 360 launch, only a few games, let's speculate that number is somewhere between five and 20, will be backward compatible.'"
Really? I can't find anywhere that people have writen emulators that run the Xbox on non x86 hardware. I found some stuff that suggests people have emulators working on x86 hardware though. This isn't the same thing though. I think that emulating hardware in software is extremely difficult (if it matters at all, I've done it for a simple FPGA design & it is not fun) - The graphics card is different, fine if you only used DX9 in your xbox game, sucky if you talked right to the metal. And I bet that most good games put a lot of work into getting the best out of that specific chunk of hardware - multiple cores don't matter one little bit when you are emulating a single core machine, so you need to emulate a 733Mhz Celeron on a 3.2 Ghz PPC I really don't think that this will be child's play, otherwise MS would be shouting backwards compatibility from the roof tops. Instead all we hear is how "some games will work"
Damnit - I wanted my nick to be "WouldIPutMYRealNameOnSlashdot"
Frankly the CPU emulation is the easiest part. There are a number of tricks that the xbox crew can use for accelerating the emulation, such as shipping PPC native versions of common xbox libraries. Unfortunately, with any form of emulation there can be problems with things like timing -- code that works fine on the real machine might lock or crash waiting for an event that happens sooner or later than it expects. Take the PS1 support on the PS2, for example. You can tell the PS2 to read PS1 discs at full speed, and it works fine for some games, but others lock up or crash when you use this feature.
Next is the graphics chip. Anyone who's ever used DirectX can probably tell you that the nvidia cards do act somewhat differently from ATI cards, even though most of that is supposed to be hidden by the DirectX API. Assuming everyone used the high-level API (and that may not be a valid assumption), it's quite likely that some games rely on bugs in the API. Emulating a bug (aka Undocumented Features!) can be extremely frustrating.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
I'm confused. Are you trying to troll, or are you just masking your valid questions with troll-like whining? I can't really tell. But since you requested intelligent discussion, I'll bite. It might be long, though.
First of all, the sequel argument. You say you have 100 original PS2 masterpieces, right? A quick glance at any top-rated PS2 games list reveals dozens of sequels. Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk, Burnout, Devil May Cry, SSX, Soul Calibur, Madden, Ratchet & Clank, Prince of Persia, Tekken, Final Fantasy... I could literally go on for pages. Does that make them bad games? Of course not. For example, Final Fantasy X is drastically different from the original Final Fantasy. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is a completely different (yet equally great) game compared to its ancestor. The same applies to Nintendo. Sure, Zelda and Mario have been around for around twenty years, but each iteration of those franchises is almost always unique. Zelda: Twilight Princess has very little relation to the original Zelda, apart from the main character and gameplay style. Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat resembles the 1981 classic only in its name. The game is a completely different experience.
Online: You're right. It's kind of a shame that the GameCube wasn't taken fully online, though one look at the Xbox division's finances will give you the primary reason. The console that's marketed as the ultimate online experience has only about 10% of its userbase playing online, all while Microsoft is losing millions of dollars supporting it. Sony also supports networked games, but from what I've seen and played, it's much less refined, and ultimately a less rewarding experience than Xbox Live. Solutions? Most GameCube owners I know use their consoles primarily for local multiplayer and single player games, opting to use computers for online games, where the concept has been far more supported than on any console.
The controller? Everyone has their own opinion, but at the time of its release, the GameCube was widely considered to have the most ergonomic controller of all three next-gen systems. This opinion may have changed once Microsoft released the Controller S, but the controller is still far from "crap". I have semi-large hands, and I've never had a problem with its size. Its button placement is unique, and superior for certain game styles. The controller was designed to make it easy to press multiple buttons with one thumb, and many games support the feature nicely. Unfortunately, a lot of developers have lazily ported games from the PS2 and Xbox without altering the control setup to support the design. As for your "10 year old son" comment, it was immature and unnecessary for an "intelligent" post, and the "fanboi" and "holy war" comments probably won't help avoid flames either.
Now, the "sexual activity standpoint", or feminine appeal department. I know several GameCube owners with girlfriends or wives, and many of them say that their significant others enjoy playing games like Animal Crossing and Mario Kart rather than traditional, violent games. Nintendo has always striven to produce games that appeal to everyone, and females are no exception to that. I hear that the recent DS title Nintendogs has had unprecedented success with Japanese women.
I also can't help but question your credibility when you claim that your wife married you for your PS2, not to mention the fact that you have both a "super hot wife", a 10 year old son, and a "super hot girlfriend". But whatever. I guarantee you that sexual activity is not the primary selling point for the majority of console owners, though.
Really, is it that hard to understand that people enjoy different types of games? Personally, I would never spend $50 on a Madden game every year, but I know that many people do. It doesn't take a whole lot of explanation. People like it, just like people like Nintendo games. Apparently the press does too, because the GameCube has been home to many of the top-ranked games of this generation. Maybe you don't see the appeal of the GC, but it doesn't take much thinking to see how someone else might.
Oh, and just for the record, this entire thread is completely off-topic.
If done perfectly, emulation is very poweful and reliable. I'm merely worried that not enough time and energy can be spent before the shipment date of the 360 in order to build such a great emulator. Perhaps I underestimate Microsoft, but we all know how many years of development it took for programs like ZSNES to win the sort of compatibility it has.
Rather than saying emulation sucks, I should qualify that poor emulation sucks, and I hope you'll agree that we stand a chance of receiving less than ideal emulation from our friends at Redmond.
This ain't gonna happen, for 2 main reasons:
Going down the recompile route is not feasible. Developers won't take the time to port games and you end up with a logistical nightmare when trying to distribute the ports. And then you still have to deal with the issue of shoddy ports - and yes these will happen.
The only choices are either extra hardware or emulation.