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Xbox 360 Backward Compatibility Finalized
News for nerds writes "Microsoft has finally announced the list of the 213 Xbox 1 games playable on Xbox 360 at launch. A software emulator is required for each original Xbox game, which means you need an HDD for these games to work on Xbox 360. While it is expected that the list will grow in future via Live update, as of now it lacks first-party titles such as Project Gotham Racing, and other popular titles such as DOAU/X, Doom 3, Far Cry, KUF, Panzer Dragoon Orta, the Splinter Cell series, and the SW: Battlefront series." Xbox.com is also featuring an interview with Todd Homdahl about the quest for compatibility.
Why care about backwards compatiblity et'all.
If i'm goin to buy a xbox 360 then i'll go for the new titles they are bringing. When you buy a next gen console then y go for some old games which won't put the new hardware to ne good use.
And if i already own a lot of xbox games then i'll simply plug in my old xbox and be happy playing them.
Why god why must console kiddies wrap their identities up in corporations that sell them hardware?
Does it make your little peepee hard to pounce on people that like the XBox? Do you desperately need any feeling of superiority at all?
Please, explain it. I've never understood it, most likely because I'm not pathetic.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Think about what your saying. You want Game Developers to waste money recompiling every game, just so they are compatible with the new system? That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. Not only is it a complete waste of money, it kills the whole purpose. People who already have the game would have to buy it again.
And yes, Microsoft does tell us how the emulation is working, maybe you should RTFA.
Considering the obscene price of a usable XBOX 360, why not just go and throw in the some of the old hardware? How much would a mid-range p3 and interconnects add to that $400? Or they could've talked to a company like HP about the hardware emulation they did for IA32 instructions for the Itanium.
The problem here is that Microsoft half-assed their console line, picked the wrong hardware, and then decided to toss it all out the window and make something new and incompatible. They screwed up with their design, and now they have to do software emulation of their old processors to get to a point where old games *might* work. This is exactly what is expected of MS. They don't think through their designs with the future in mind, and then they have to scrap it and start over again, usually twice.
And so much for the HAL built into Windows... the only things they should have to be worrying about is a partial port of Windows to Power, and an emulation library to do ISA conversion from IA-32 to Power's ISA. I suspect that they would get better performance doing this than the original system had. Not that it's an easy task to write a reliable emulation library, but spread across all their sales, it probably wouldn't have added more than 20$ to the price. And hey, if people are ready to buy a stripped down, less useful piece of hardware than the equivalent priced computer, why wouldn't they spend another 20$ for backwards compatibility?
The system will automatically check if you have the latest emulation software, download it to your Xbox 360 console as part of a system update if you don't, reboot, and start loading your original Xbox game.
Darn, I guess it's not using a Linux kernel...
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