Pyschonauts Now Back-Compat on 360 64
The much requested addition of backwards compatability for Psychonauts has reached the Xbox 360, reports the British Gaming Blog. The list also adds support for titles like Ultimate Spider-Man, Buffy, Shenmue II and ... Aquaman. The list was dropped early, so don't put the discs in quite yet and expect them to work. Still ... yay Psychonauts.
Re:What happened to Microsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
XBox runs on x86. XBox 360 runs on PowerPC.
XBox uses an nvidia video chipset with NVidia-specific extensions.
XBox 360 uses an ATI chipset with ATI-specific extensions.
Take a guess why they've run into problems.
Because (Score:4, Informative)
Psychonauts in particular is a sentimental favorite for a whole lot of people in the so-called "hardcore" gaming community. It was one of the titles that everyone pointed to when MS released a compatibility updates, as evidence that MS doesn't care about real gamers.
Seeing shovelware titles like Cabela's Big Game Hunter and Barbie Horse Adventures making the cut while fantastic games like Psychonauts and Shenmue 2 were forgotten was a bad thing. This release is one of the biggest steps in the right direction MS has taken.
There's lots still room for improvement, with notably absent fan-favorite titles like Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Phantom Dust, Otogi, Chronicles of Riddick, Mercenaries, Panzer Dragoon and Jet Set Radio Future. But still, this is a damn good update.
We're still on AT (Score:5, Informative)
PC games write to hardware registers only through drivers, which are shipped as part of an operating system and can be replaced along with the operating system. Console games, on the other hand, ship the drivers with the game and often ship a game with drivers customized specifically for that game, often taking advantage of imperfectly understood quirks of the hardware. In addition, unlike old PCs and new PCs, the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles have different CPU architectures, and the Xbox 360 needs an emulator, in effect the opposite of Rosetta, in order to execute Xbox games' Intel instructions on a PowerPC architecture.
Wii's backward compatibility is a result of the hardware upgrade being as transparent as that from Game Boy to Game Boy Color or from PC to PC/XT to PC/AT to what we have now. Other systems with backward compatibility (Sega Genesis, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PLAYSTATION 3) just include the previous generation console's CPU and a subset of its I/O hardware in order to run its games, which hardware may (Gen, PS2, DS) or may not (GBA, PS3) be used for some tasks in titles for the new platform. Microsoft could not do either in Xbox 360 due to contractual disputes with Intel and NVIDIA.
Re:360 has poor backwards support (Score:1, Informative)
Which two? What other games do you have? Are you sure they're not supported? The BC list has something like 200-250 games on it now, and while there are still some big-name games missing (the second and third Prince of Persia games, for example), it does cover a fair amount of popular games (which, BTW, is what Microsoft said they were going to do). It also covers some silly or bad games (Barbie Horse Adventure, Aquaman), but those are by-products of making other games work. The emulation team will work on getting something popular to work, like Halo, and then find that all of that work allows Barbie Horse Adventure to work as well.
If you're trying to make the point that out of the box the 360 only supports Halo and Halo 2, then your point is moot. If you are connected to Live, you'll automatically get the updates. If you're not on Live, you can download an ISO and burn your own CD with the updates. If you can't burn a CD, you can order a CD for a nominal shipping charge (I think it's $5) to get the latest updates. Now you'll have to go through this process every time there's a new BC update, but there's no point in updating unless there's new support for a game you want to play.
Obviously you haven't been following this, or you'd already know.
The PS3 is backwards compatible with PS2 (though there are some games with problems, the PS3 essentially includes a PSTwo Slimline-on-a-chip). It's not longer backwards compatible with PS1 games (which were only backwards compatible on the PS2 thanks to a PSOne-on-a-chip). Instead you get to re-purchase your PS1 games this time around so you can play them on your PSP. Like the Xbox 360, your old PS2 peripherals won't work with your new PS3.
The Wii is 100% compatible with the Gamecube because it's essentially the same hardware running at higher clock speeds. Put in a Gamecube disk and the Wii turns into a Gamecube (to the point of telling you to close the lid if you hit the eject button, even though the Wii has a slot loader rather than a top loader). The Wii has the same 4 controller ports and 2 memory card ports as a Gamecube, and in fact you must use those for Gamecube games (no saving GC games on the internal flash, or playing GC games with the Wiimote).
The Wii's backwards compatibility support is new to Nintendo in the console world (handhelds are a different story). There was no compatibility story between the NES and SNES, the SNES and the N64, or the N64 and the GC. In fact it wasn't until the PS2 that a console had a built-in backwards compatibility mode (well, ignoring older atari consoles that were largely ignored due to the market crash, and Master System/Genesis compatibility via external hardware since the external hardware was essentially an SMS that used the Genesis' controller input and A/V output). The only reason BC was important on the PS2 was due to a lack of good games during the PS2's first year. Yes, it's convenient to be able to play older games on your new console. Yes, some hardcore gamers will buy a PS2 solely to play PS1 games. No, not having BC is not a death sentence. In fact by skipping BC, a console manufacturer is often able to make bigger advancements generation over generation.
A year into a console's life, nobody cares about BC anymore. At least Microsoft is still releasing updates for their BC emulation.
Re:360 has poor backwards support (Score:2, Informative)
That's just not true. I posted this recently, but it deserves a repost. As of the June update the 360 was backwards compatible with 27% of the top 300 games [cheapassgamer.com] (32% of top 100), and about the same percentage of the entire Xbox catalog. To be fair, 8 of the top 10 are BC and almost half of the top 50, but it drops off rapidly from there. They seem to be trying to hit the megahits and only mostly succeeding at that, with a lot of games along for the ride. It would be interesting to see the stats again with the August and December updates.
Re:Informal Poll (Score:2, Informative)
My only quibble is that it gets frustratingly, ridiculously, stupidly hard near the end of the game. When finishing the game is more chore then joy, you have f'd up somewhere along the way.
But, with that one thing aside, the 20+ hours that I have gotten to enjoy the unique level designs and quirky humor make it well worth a purchase. Especially now that it is cheap. As an example: Use telekinesis to hurl a squirrel against a tree, and your 10-year character yells "See you in hell!" in his sing-song voice. Twisted funny.