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?

[nathanh]

Didn't Sony include the essential bits of the PS1 system in the PS2 in order to allow backwards compatibility?

Correct. The IOP (IO processor) on the PS2 normally handles input from the DVD, game controllers, USB, etc. However it's basically a souped up version of the PSX CPU with all the associated bits, so send it the right instructions and it detaches from the EE (main processors) and the system becomes a nearly 100% compatible PSX.

Sony could do this because the PSX CPU was 33MHz and had 2MB SDRAM and mere kilobytes of graphics memory. When the PS2 was being made the cost of each IOP must have been measured in tens of cents. The Xbox 360 is being released too soon after the Xbox; the 733MHz Celeron plus the NV25 GPU is still fairly expensive.

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?

[sznupi]

Actually, PS1 has 1MB of Video RAM (also models starting from around 98 have 4MB main RAM...but that's moot point anyway since it was used at most as data buffer, often not at all).
But of course your argumentation is correct.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[badasscat]

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?

So in your mind, the history of game consoles starts in 1999?

The PS1 was obviously not backward compatible with anything and it did pretty well. Same deal with the original Xbox.

Hardware manufacturers made the mistake of putting too much stock in backward compatibility in 1982-1983 too (the Atari 5200, Mattel Intellivision and Coleco Vision all featured adapters that were compatible with the Atari 2600). You know what happened? Every single one of them - every single company making systems at that time - lost so much money with that strategy that they exited the industry within a year. (And probably directly because of that strategy, because it allowed developers to continue dumping poor-quality, obsolete Atari 2600 cartridges on the market, taking attention and shelf space away from the new systems and diluting the market.)

Atari came back in 1987 with the 7800, which was compatible with the 2600 out of the box. You know what happened? The NES - which was not backward compatible with anything - blew it out of the water.

Neither Sony nor MS could even exist in the video game industry if backward compatibility was a requirement for success. They came very late to the party when established makers dominated the industry, and their all-new products did pretty well, I think you'll agree.

Can you say "formula for success"?

No. The results of backward compatibility in the marketplace are mixed at best. For every success (the Game Boy, the PS2) there are probably a half dozen failures. And for every successful console that did feature backward compatibility, there are half a dozen other successful consoles that didn't.

I'd say the record pretty much proves that backward compatibility is mostly a non-issue. There's no "formula" for anything contained in this one feature. It is just a feature. Some people want it, some people don't care, just like some people want a hard drive and some people don't care or some people want custom soundtracks in their games and some people don't care. Is it probably a good thing to include if you can, as simply another feature to attract a subset of gamers? Sure, but if you focus so much on that one feature at the expense of everything else, your console will be a failure. By the same token, if you decide early on that backward compatibility will be too difficult to implement, and you instead work on nailing everything else about the system, then your console will be a success. But success or failure does not hinge on this one feature and history has proven it time and time again.

Note that I am not predicting that the Xbox 360 will be as popular as the PS3; I don't think it will be. But it's not because I think a bunch of people are going to be spending $400 on a PS3 to play their old PS2 games. There are a variety of reasons why I have this opinion, but none of them have to do with the 360's backward compatibility.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[BasilBrush]

So in your mind, the history of game consoles starts in 1999?

It's nothing to do with history. It's to do with what the current compatition are doing. And they are both going to be backwards compatible.

Neither Sony nor MS could even exist in the video game industry if backward compatibility was a requirement for success.

MS is neither here nor there because they didn't win the last console war. Sony did, in no small part because of it's backwards compatibility to the winner of the previous generation. The only console that MS beat was the GC which also wasn't BC. Sony PS1 obviously wasn't BC, but then it wasn't competing against a system that was.

But it's not because I think a bunch of people are going to be spending $400 on a PS3 to play their old PS2 games.

Few people want to lose access to the bunch of games they already have sitting on their shelf, and few except hardcore games geeks want to have more than one console plugged into their TV or to have to swap consoles over when they want to play a different game. So given the choice of a next gen console, they are more likely to pick one that is compatible with the games they already have than one that isn't.

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.

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[teh*fink]

The Xbox 360 uses a treo of PowerPC processors to run games...

WOW this is totally incorrect. first of all, the XBOX 360 doesn't use a treo at all, to run ANYTHING. where the hell did you hear that?? second, the latest treo's use either intel's PXA270 chip or an ARM processor...and get this, the fastest of of those two processors is just 312 MHz!!! i'd like to see you play doom3 with that. and THIRD, even if MS decided to use a freakin' TREO in the XBOX 360...which as i said is totally ludicrous...how the hell are you going to fit 3 3.2 GHz PowerPC chips in a goddamn TREO?? have you seen the size of those things??

Re:PS2 and PS1 games?

[Txiasaeia]

The Revolution will NOT be backwards compatible beyond the Gamecube - unless you think that they're going to include cartridge slots? Any games previous to Gamecube that are playable on the Revolution will be those that Nintendo decides to sell/rent/whatever from their online service. And they'll be played on what? Yes, software emulators.

From IGN's Revolution FAQ: "At E3 2005, Shigeru Miyamoto said: "We have not set a price or determined a list of software for the Nintendo Revolution download service. But, we're looking at this as a consumer service and not so much from the business end. What we want to do is provide the product that is going to make the Revolution the console that people want in their homes. So it actually might be driven from the consumer end rather than from us. You know, the games that they most want might be the ones that we do. From a technological point, we can do any of them. It's just, we haven't determined which ones we'll do yet.""

If they're not looking at selling these ROMs from a business end, it seems to me that they're going to either give them away or sell them for a negligible price. Now, this might not be "backwards compatibility" with the NES, SNES, and N64, but it's as close as you're going to get. I'd rather get these ROMs legally from Nintendo than play them illegally through an Xbox/Xbox360 anyway.

Software Emulation

[Station]

Looks like the entire thing will be (as expected) run off of software emulation. Really, considering the technical challenges involved (I know, software emulation isn't impossible, but the fact that it can run the system at full speed on a completly different hardware type is nice) I'm pleasently surprised at the number of games already available. I also like the fact that the system will run all your old games in HiDef and add a layer of FSAA (almost like the old Sega 32x).

What they've done is incredible!

[J. T. MacLeod]

Yes, they've manage to not include in their list a SINGLE game I care about!

Seriously. Wow.

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.

My collection

[ninjakoala]

Just to give you an idea of how bad it looks at the moment, here is my collection divided into working and not working:

Working:
Amped, Colin McRae '04, Dead or Alive 3, Fable, Forza Motorsport, Fusion Frenzy, Halo, Halo 2, Jade Empire, Phantom Crash, Sega GT 2002, Knights of the Old Republic, Knights of the Old Republic 2, The Thing

Not working:
The Bard's Tale, Blood Wake, Burnout, Dead or Alive Ultimate, Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair, Morrowind, F1 Career Challenge, Project Zero, Gunvalkyrie, Knockout Kings 2002, Links 2004, Mechassault, Outlaw Golf, OutRun 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantasy Star Online I+II, Project Gotham Racing 2, Rainbow Six 3, Rallisport Challenge 2. Jet Set Radio, Serious Sam, Shenmue 2, Splinter Cell, Taito Legends, Unreal Championship, Wreckless, Yager

And here I was thinking "oh, ok, a couple of my games won't work... worst case scenario half won't work". This is just crazy though. I hope they boost the compatibility in a big way, or I just can't see my self upgrading, since that would mean I would have to keep the current black box under the tv as well.

Re:My collection

[RogueyWon]

I've got a 360 on pre-order, which I'll be picking up the day it comes out. I've been a vocal defender of the X-Box and the 360 for some time. Even I have to admit that this list is not good enough. The impact of this on my own games is:

Working

BG: Dark Alliance 2, Battle Engine Aquilla, Crimson Skies, Forza, GTA3, GTA:VC, Halo, Halo 2, Jade Empire, KOTOR, KOTOR 2, Spyhunter 2.

Not working (*s indicate games whose inclusion here frankly defies belief, as they've been major titles)

Area 51, *Burnout 3*, *Burnout Revenge*, *Chronicles of Riddick*, Colin McRae 04, *Full Spectrum Warrior*, Mechassault, *Mechassault 2*, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Secret Weapons over Normandy, *SW: Republic Commando*, Wallace & Grommit.

The titles I've starred there are some of the biggest games on the X-Box. A good number of them are relatively recent releases. As far as I'm concerned, there's no excuse whatsoever for them not being included. All I can say is that this will need to change by the launch date.

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?

Re:My collection

[JPyun]

Wow. You have a lot of shitty games.

Re:that sucks

[imsabbel]

your xbox isnt magically going to vanish, you know?

If they were smart

[LaughingCoder]

The could offer some sort of trade-in program where you could get the new version of the game on the cheap if you turned in your old disk. Of course most of these games are non-Microsoft products, so such a program would need to be offered by lots of different companies. In the long run this would probably have been cheaper than trying to implement backwards compatibility. Many times the best solution to a technical problem isn't technical.

Wow, Microsoft IS all-seeing!

[tgd]

Its like someone looked at my rack of XBox games and picked everyone one I've finished to be compatible, and every one I haven't to not be.

*tinfoil hat*

Emulation +

[GweeDo]

Don't forget that all your emulated Xbox games can now be ran at 720p or 1080i with full Anti-Aliasing as well. This could help a number of games look really nice. Here are some shots of Halo and Halo 2 in 720p from Bungie. It does make a very nice difference.

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

Patience, grasshopper

[Namarrgon]

From the interview:

Xbox.com: What criteria do you use in choosing which Xbox games will be backward compatible on Xbox 360? How far back into the Xbox game library are you going to go?

Todd: When we say Xbox library, we mean the entire Xbox library. This ranges all the way from our launch in 2001 up to games that haven't even shipped yet.

If they can do 241 games in a few months, including writing the emulator, I don't imagine the rest will take that long. In the meantime, you'll just have to be content with running your Xbox games on your Xbox, tough as that is.

Re:Hm.

[Nogami_Saeko]

I was more curious if it would run xbox media centre :)

It's a shame that MS doesn't embrace that project - it's the only thing that would make buying a 360 worthwhile for me right now. Games are fine and all, but a media player that's constantly evolving and compatible with all major formats is an easy-sell.

Microsoft really should partner up with the XBMC folks and just offer free updates of it over xbox-live. Would generate sales from people like me. Heck, I'd probably even buy a few games for it too if I already had one.

I didn't bother buying an xbox until modchips (and more importantly, software like DVD-HD loaders, emulators and XBMC was available). Knowing console manufacturer paranoia, I'm imagining that MS will have locked-up the 360 hardware to insane levels.

Shame really, guess I'll have to wait...

N.

cracking prediction

[BushCheney08]

In the interview, he mentions that people who don't have the Live service will be able to download the new binaries to their computers, burn a cd, put that in their 360 and it'll update. I predict that this is the exact mechanism that will initially be exploited to allow arbitrary code to run on these things. Just a hunch...

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)

They can't offer Hardware emulation.

[Dixie Flatliner]

The first Xbox was an nvidia chip, the new one is ATi - some games contain hardware specific optimizations, and nVidia refused to license them to emulate their hardware, for anyone that actually read up on the issue.

Re:its a plus. not a "this sucks"

[Hope Thelps]

They have the potential to be virtually 100% backwards compatible over time.

Yep. Endless potential. Do you work in real estate marketing?

Re:that sucks

[DrunkenTerror]

Selling working hardware with games you love to get a shinnier box that doesn't play the games you love? Who's the dumbass again?

And just who is going to be buying all these xboxes? Anyone who ever wanted an xbox has one now, and once the 360 is out, everyone will want THAT instead of the old one. Looking at ebay shows an awful lot of xboxes already for sale, and most of them seem to be selling at less than $100. You can see lots of xboxs with people asking $200 plus for 'em, and most of those aren't getting bid on. The market will only get more saturated once the 360 is out. I wouldn't bet on getting much for your old one. Just keep it and work 2 extra days to cover the $75 bucks you might get for it.

Re:that sucks

[Retroneous]

Perhaps you could put your obviously mammoth penis away. That would make space.

Oh no, that's just what you WANT us to think...

Re:its a plus. not a "this sucks"

[gozar]

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.

So what incentive does the developer have to actually write a 360 game? They can just write for the XBox, following the emulator guidelines, and then have a game that will run on both the XBox and the 360.

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.

Finalized = Not really?

[eagl]

If an emulator must be specifically coded for every title, it doesn't sound backwards compatible at all. It's a bit like calling a wintel box "commodore 64 backwards compatible" since you can code an emulator, but worse since each game needs separate work and a piece of non-standard hardware (the optional hard drive) to work at all.

Yes...

[SuperKendall]

Ever heard of digital signatures?

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

Re:BLAH!

[NanoGator]

"They could've just included an XBOX subsystem inside the 360, just like the Commodore 128 had a C64 subsystem."

And add even more to the cost + having to buy chips from both NVida and ATI? Heh. There's a brilliant move.

"And didn't the SNES have (to be bought separately) a NES adapter?"

No.

"Can't the Gamecube play GBA games?"

No.

"Frankly I can't understand why the decision of software emulation. But well, this is Microsoft."

Cost and practicality.