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.

Comments

PS2 and PS1 games?

[jamesjw]

Why not just build something with built in hardware emulation? like the PS2 does with PS1 games - i know its not 100% but it makes sense to do it this way doesnt it?

-- Jim.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[ScottyUK]

Didn't Sony include the essential bits of the PS1 system in the PS2 in order to allow backwards compatibility? I don't think NVIDIA would let Microsoft do this, as they own the rights to the graphics card used in the Xbox.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[Quick Sick Nick]

It's makes perfect sense, but from a technological aspect it's impossible. The Xbox 360 uses a treo of PowerPC processors to run games, in sharp contrast to an intel pentium III of the original xbox. A lot of code simply will not go over. Given these constraints, Microsoft could have either said "fuck it, no backwards compatibility" or they could try their best to port some games anyway. I'm glad they chose the latter.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[Kjella]

Given these constraints, Microsoft could have either said "fuck it, no backwards compatibility" or they could try their best to port some games anyway. I'm glad they chose the latter.

Chose and chose. Not having backwards compatibility on a console is pretty much shooting yourself in the foot. I suppose the current effort could be described as "We only grazed the foot".

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[Txiasaeia]

There sure is: the revo will be backwards compatible for gamecube (and earlier Nintendo) consoles, and the PS3 is apparently backwards compatible (if not 100%, then close to it). If the Xbox360 is only partially BC and the other two are (for the most part), then they could be shooting themselves in the foot with regard to competition in the next gen. If somebody needs to keep their Xbox to play Xbox games because it won't play *all* their Xbox games, what's to stop this theoretical person from getting a PS3 or Revo instead?

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[Kjella]

Since when did not having backwards compatability become, "shooting yourself in the foot"?

Since your two biggest competitors (Sony PS3, Nintendo revolution) have announced that feature? And that it was one of the major reasons the Dreamcast was hurled into obscurity and securing the Playstation's spot as market leader?

Outside of Nintendo's handheld devices, the extra hardware to let the Sega Genesis play Master System cartridges, and the PS2's ability to play certain PS1 games there really aren't many examples of backward compatibility in consoles.

If by "certain" you mean all except 10 out of 8000, even the controllers were largly compatible. The new slimline model is getting complaints because it is incompatible with 7 PS2 and 40 PS1 games. That's 0,5% of the PS1 games, up from 0,13%. The two market leaders, Nintendo (handheld) and Sony (console) are doing it, those that haven't have failed. Can you say "formula for success"? If that was supposed to be an argument against me, it's a pretty pathetic one.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[original_nickname]

Errm, nope.

My Powerbook G4 with one slow PPC (1.5 Ghz) can get the performance of a 400 Mhz intel Celery (with all of the instructions).

The product? Micro$oft Virtual PC :)

They bought this at about the time the XBox 360 was going to be a PPC - so I'm sure they use it. This would give them a nice virtual Pentium III, and don't both consoles use some special version of DirectX? the sys calls could be reimplemented for the (much more powerful!) new graphics card in the 360.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[KDR_11k]

[car analogy warning]

Back when Ford introduced the Model T there was no such thing as ABS or an automatic gearshift and the T lacked many basic features like seatbelts but if you built a car like that today noone sane would buy it.It may not have been standard that long ago but now it has become standard.

Now that all new consoles are offering backwards compatibility that can and probably will indeed be a deciding factor for potential early adopters. Sure, few use that feature but that doesn't mean people won't change their buying decisions because of it. It sounds better on paper and Joe Sixpack who's buying the system for EA Sports games anyway will prefer the system that sounds the best to him in the store, not what countless reviews say on the matter.

Pretty screwed up

[external400kdiskette]

It's going to look bad marketing a machine with backwards compatability when the backwards compatability consists of the emulation of *some* games assuming you have the more expensive xbox and the *hope* of more support in future.

Re:that sucks

[imsabbel]

your xbox isnt magically going to vanish, you know?

Their first big mistake

[techstar25]

Here it is. Microsofts first huge mistake. If they were only selling one version of the 360 at launch it wouldn't be a problem, but since the "CORE" package will not be backwards compatible with anything, we're are going to have a lot of unhappy people on Christmast morning when their old Xbox games don't work. This is a disaster in the making.
Now they have to market it as two different versions of the 360, the backwards compatible version and the not backwards compatible version. Considering the CORE system was to be marketed towards casual gamers, it is these same casual gamers who don't want to spend $60 a pop on brand new games on launch day.
Are they trying to make the CORE system obsolete before launch? They can't be a wise idea, especialy since price is king at Chrismas time.

Re:Their first big mistake

[sqlrob]

The core system is only there so they can say "XBox 360 is 299"

If you buy core, don't forget the memory card, which is going to drive the price close to the "enhanced" system anyway

its a plus. not a "this sucks"

[CDPatten]

Until now we weren't sure that the Xbox 360 was going to support many games at all. Certainly not what model it was going to use. Now we learn that they will be making the emulators long after its release, and most likely ANY NEW XBOX game will come with a 360 emulator. This is a big plus for gamers.We should be happy to see the MODEL being used. I've seen too many 'that sucks' and complaints and it really surprises me... well... I guess its important to know the audience on this site.

The truth is it's also a blow to Sony; because recent rumblings have been they won't be 100% backwards compatible, and they already said they won't offer an XBox-Live style service.So how do you support more games after the release? Some type of system updater? In any case it won't be as familiar to people as Live is. Being able to jump on live and just download the emulator for your game is pretty easy for the end user. If any of you have seen the latest PS3 screen shot, well its pretty confusing layout (lets hope Sony changes it).

The bottom line is this a pretty good business decision for MS. They have the potential to be virtually 100% backwards compatible over time. I'm SURE they are going to crank out emulators like crazy after launch. 212 is allot, and if you look at the time-line since the 360 was finished (most likely around the time they started making the emulators), this was probably all they could get done by launch. I will take the bet that the majority of the Xbox games will be backwards compatible by Sony's PS3 launch in the US. In either case this is good news for gamers, not a "this sucks" kinda repot.

Don't understand what the problem is here.

[sixpacker]

If you own a XBOX game, that usually means you own a XBOX. If you want XBOX360, go buy it. But if you want to play your old XBOX game, play it with your old XBOX.
Secondly, most game publishers will release XBOX360 version of their "still selling" existing titles.

I'm not even sure we ever need an emulator here although it's definitely a good thing.

Re:Don't understand what the problem is here.

[eclipser13]

Sometimes it's not a matter of the games you already own. I'll use myself as an example.

Back when I had the choice between N64 and Playstation, I chose the N64. Then three years later, I had the choice between the GC, the PS2, and the Xbox. Since I didn't have a PS1, the PS2 was an extremely attractive option for me. Not only would I have the PS2 titles available at launch, I could go out and splurge on a huge number of PS1 classic "must-haves" that were selling for 10 bucks each.

With the current launch of the 360, that list of cheap, classic xbox games that I can play right now is a lot smaller than I was hoping it would be. I might as well just wait and make sure that all of the games that I will want to play are made backwards compatible before buying. (There might even be a price drop on the console by the time that happens)

Re:My collection

[GizmoToy]

It occurrs to me that some of those titles may not be scheduled for backwards compatibility because they are to be release native for the 360. Burnout Revenge comes to mind, and I'm sure a Splinter Cell will make it. Perhaps Microsoft is trying to force everyone to buy the latest version (native to the 360, of course) of many of the popular series titles?

Why do you want backward compatability?

[applecrumble]

Could anyone explain to me why backward compatability on a console is such a big deal? We didn't have it, for example, for the NES->SNES->Nintendo 64->Gamecube transitions and nobody really minded. If you already own XBOX games, you've already got a XBOX to play them on. I can't imagine many people want to buy old XBOX games for their brand new XBOX360 either. OK, some people might want to get the better known games (e.g. HALO) but it really isn't worth the hassle of backwards compatibility in my opinion. Isn't one of the advantages of consoles is that they have hardware that is more appropriate to pure gaming because they aren't constrained by ten years worth of old architecture (i.e. like the PC is)?

Re:that sucks

[forkazoo]

In theory, that doesn't matter. You could just make an extensible fat-binary format. The Xbox would boot the binaries that were tagged as being "XBOX" and ignore any other binaries. Likewise, the 360 could load the binaries tagged as "X360" or whatever.

I just can't imagine why they would bother. The devs for the OP's games wouldn't have bothered to make the games also available in a format for a console that didn't exist when the games were released, at no extra charge. It would have been a huge amount of bother, for no real obvious gain. They will eventually release a new 360 version of their games, and as far as they are concerned, backwards compatibility is MSFT's problem. All it means to them is that people have slightly less reason to buy the new Battlefront 360, or whatever.

Yes...

[SuperKendall]

Ever heard of digital signatures?

Ever heard of buffer overflows in crypto handling software or update mechanisms?