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More Xbox Titles Added to 360 List

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the backwards-compatability-in-a-chocolate-egg dept.

Eurogamer reports that Microsoft will be adding more titles to its list of backwards compatible games. From the article: "Microsoft has made a minor update to the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list, adding patches to allow three new titles to run on the new console - namely Black, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Winning Eleven 9. The update, which is the first change to the list of backwards compatible titles in several months, also fixes issues with a number of games which previously worked with the Xbox 360 but had bugs in the compatibility code, including Ninja Gaiden, Fable, Half-Life 2 and GTA San Andreas."

15 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. KOTOR, KOTOR II are lumpy on 360... by otis+wildflower · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... At least when I tried them, there were pretty constant hiccups in camera movement and pauses when trying to do real-time style combat.. Halo 2 is pretty tight though, even in splitscreen.

    I was thinking of getting a 360 to play XBL Call of Duty with the nephews, but they'll have to live with Halo 2 until I get a HD 1080p set..

    1. Re:KOTOR, KOTOR II are lumpy on 360... by Osty · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I was thinking of getting a 360 to play XBL Call of Duty with the nephews, but they'll have to live with Halo 2 until I get a HD 1080p set..

      Why would you waste your money on a 1080p set when the Xbox 360 only does 720p/1080i? Not only that, (practically) nothing else does 1080p either, and most 1080p TVs don't accept 1080p signals even if you had a source to drive them. Worse, for those few sets that do handle 1080p input, the framerate of 1080p is around 25fps-30fps. Sufficient for TV and movies, not so great for video gaming. Finally, add in the fact that scaling can take some time (milliseconds, but enough to lag audio or gameplay) depending on the set, and that there's nothing available in the TV's native 1080p source, you're basically never going to use the TV in it's most optimal native mode.

      And that's not even getting into any of the other issues, like 1080p sets that aren't even 1080p (or, they are 1080p in that they have a full 1080 pixel vertical resolution, but use a technique called "wobulation" to fake 1920 horizontal pixels using a DMD (Digital Micro Device, the display source for DLP sets) with only 960 horizontal pixels).

      I'm all for being an early adopter. I bought an HDTV way back in 2001 (and replaced it with a 720p DLP set this past November), which may not have been right on the bleeding edge but it was close. However, I just can't see spending $1000-2000 more to be an earlier adopter of 1080p when I'm virtually guaranteed to have to replace the set in 2-3 years since what I buy today isn't really 1080p at all.

  2. I miss real backwards compatibility by dalmiroy2k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I miss the days when "Backwards compatibility" were a hardware feature and not some kind of emulation that requires constant Internet updates...

    1. Re:I miss real backwards compatibility by wampus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Given the radically different architecture between the two consoles, I think it is damn impressive that they were able to achieve the number of titles that do play on the 360.

      Would you rather see an Xbox 360 that is nothing more than a faster Intel CPU with a faster Nvidia GPU and more RAM? It may hurt a bit at first to break full backwards compatibility, but you can't drag your legacy stuff along indefinitely, eventually the cruft builds up. I'd like to think that MS learned this lesson with Windows.

    2. Re:I miss real backwards compatibility by rholliday · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Personally I'd rather the hardware continue to advance as needed and have backwards compatibility be a secondary objective. I don't want my (supposedly) cutting-edge machine hampered by being forced to handle 5-year old technology. If they can have it both ways by some handy-dandy emulation, then good for them.

      --
      Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
    3. Re:I miss real backwards compatibility by drewmca · · Score: 4, Informative

      Like on the old Nintendo and Sega systems? Oh right, they weren't BC.

      Backwards compatibility is a relatively new idea with gaming consoles. The only major system to have done it before now was PS2 with PS1. So there really weren't ever any good ol' days for this feature.

  3. You know you're in trouble when... by radical_dementia · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...you have to release bug fix patches for a console.

    Not having to worry about bugs, installations, and updates are major factors in what makes consoles more appealing than PCs for gaming. It seems to me Microsoft is failing to realize this.

    1. Re:You know you're in trouble when... by SilentChris · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm going to put this nicely. You're an idiot.

      MS decided to go with emulation because the hardware alternative (sticking an Intel chipset and nVidia graphics core) was unpalatable. It's the exact same technique Revolution is going to use to emulate 20-year old consoles, and Sony will likely do the same thing.

      There's no way to get an emulator completely right the first try. Period. End of story. There's always going to be an instruction here or a game there that doesn't work the way it should. Emulators need updates. Why do you think the NES emulation scene, for example, still releases updates for palattes?

      Software emulation is the best solution to get older games to play without spending the extra money to include older hardware. Software updates are the best way to keep those emulators up to snuff.

      In the case of the Xbox 360, the updates are completely seamless. You start the machine up, it says it needs an update, it installs it, you get back to gaming. Nintendo will likely do the same thing.

      If the choice is between that and having a buggy emulator (remember, no such thing as a perfect emulator when it's released) or driving up the price of the console, I'll take the seamless updates, thanks.

  4. yeah, but you knew this was coming by aendeuryu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You knew this was coming once they started adding hard drives into the console. What do you need for a save game? A whole bunch of state variables? That's not really data intensive. The moment I heard that the first XBox was coming out with a hard drive, my first reaction was "Oh boy, here comes the patches." Yes, I do think it's better to get save games from a hard drive than some plug-in storage device, but the size of the hard drives made it obvious that they were looking to use it for more than just save games.

    1. Re:yeah, but you knew this was coming by nb+caffeine · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Caching on the original Xbox sped up quite a few games. I recall the load screens in Vice City being alot shorter than in the ps2 version. I thought it was a good use of the technology. As far as the hard drive size, I want full games. A few patches don't really require a 20 gb HDD.

      --

      "Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
  5. SSX3 by nb+caffeine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just saw this in the morning so I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but hopefully they fixed the issues with ssx3. It technically would load and you'd be able to play, but saving didn't work and there was some serious slowdowns in play. I also see they updated Forza, which had some minor slowdowns, and when racing at 150 mph, that did not help my already questioable racing skills :)

    Gonna be shredding it up on the mountain tonight :)

    --

    "Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
    1. Re:SSX3 by Osty · · Score: 2, Informative

      I also see they updated Forza, which had some minor slowdowns, and when racing at 150 mph, that did not help my already questioable racing skills.

      The only slowdown I saw on Forza prior to this update was when I raced in an in-car view with the rearview mirror turned on (which is how I race, so it happened all the time). Turning off the rearview mirror removed all of the slowdown issues I had. This update fixed the issue so now I can race with my rearview mirror turned back on, but the game was definitely playable before. You just to be OCD about looking behind you since you had no rearview mirror.

  6. Well, That's Not Entirely True by MikeyTheK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...The update, which is the first change to the list of backwards compatible titles in several months...

    It might be the first change to THE LIST in several months, but the 360 patch that was released last month added support for Tom Clancey's Ghost Recon II, among others, for the first time, enabling me to stop using my original XBox except for DDR (the dance mats aren't compatible with the 360, so I haven't even bothered to see if the game is). So while the list might have not been updated in a while, the periodic patches have added more backwards compatibility.

    --
    Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
    Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
  7. Still missing the bets by fahrvergnugen · · Score: 2, Informative

    Still missing, the two best titles on the console:
    Psychonauts
    Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath

    Damn.

    --
    Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
  8. I hate to say it but... by Hamster+Lover · · Score: 3, Informative

    I was extremely confident that Microsoft could pull a rabbit out of the hat and that the 360 would offer, at the very least, workable compatibility for their "A" list of games. As anyone can tell you, most of the "compatible" games are barely so and some listed as compatible just aren't. There are a handful of games that are playable, notably Halo 2, but the level of compatibility for some games, such as Ninja Gaiden, is so bad that they're basically unplayable. In time Microsoft will probably get the compatibility up, but there are going to be some games that will never be compatible regardless of Microsoft's commitment to do so.

    I hate to say it, but if you're going to buy a 360 based in part on the ability to play existing Xbox games as I was, hold off, because it just ain't there yet. Those without an Xbox and waiting for the 360 to come down in price should really check out the existing Xbox, which currently sells for as little as $177 Canadian with two games.