Slashdot Mirror
New 360 Backwards Compatibility
Gamespot is reporting that a new update to the 360's backwards compatibility has been issued ... and just as promptly recalled. From the article: "Late last night, Microsoft updated the backwards-compatibility list with eight games from the trio of Tom Clancy-inspired series. Software emulators for Ghost Recon, Ghost Recon 2, Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike, Rainbow Six 3, Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow, Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory all became available for download. However, within hours of the new update's release, reports began to circulate that it was causing problems with Halo 2. "
.... let's not have 100 childish "what a surprise from Microsoft!" comments.
I knew they were doing soft emulation, but I thought it was modular. I'm a little surprised that they only have one peice of software which does all emulation. I presumed they would code different backends for all the popular titles. Guess it would be more work, but less headaches in the long run.
Not sure where I got these ideas from, but that is what I thought.
My inner self is ineffable, so don't eff with me.
I did see it coming. Not because it's Microsoft. Doing an emulator for something like the SNES is hard. Imagine an Xbox. It's not surprising this happened, it was bound to happen, earlier or later.
Oh, really? So how are those slimline Ps2's working? Article
Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes
I wonder how many people that complain about the 360 emulation have actually used any other emulators before, especially newly released ones?
No. It's this simple. If Microsoft puts on the box "backwards compatible", it god damn well better be backwards compatible. Not 40% backwards compatible, not 80%, defintely not 80% this week, 73% the next, and a month later 82% backwards compatible.
It usually takes the authors years to get near perfect emulation up and running.
The difference, is this is something people have paid hundreds of dollars for, not some freeware hobby emulator that Bob works on 2 hours a week in his spare time.
Consoles are supposed to be black-boxed commodities for the average consumer, not beta tests that geeks will just "understand" if there are rough/jagged edges and need a bunch of tweaks and patches.
Bottom line: If you can do it, do it. If you can't, don't claim you can as a selling point for your box and spend the next six months trying to patch it.
It sort of dropped today. In Japan.
I got to pay 1000 yen less, as it seems that most retailers (asobit, bic camera) are selling it at 38,800 something yen.
Also, dead or alive 3 is working, even tough it's not listed in the japanese site. Not really amazed, but in makes me wonder why they haven't released that info yet.
About the quality of the emu... ninja gaiden black gets slugish pretty often... even if no enemy is on sight. Bleh...
Mu
There was no easy solution for backwards compatability with an architecture as complex as the Xbox's. Good thing it's Microsoft, because then you can bitch about them no matter what avenue they take.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion