360's Backwards Compatibility Weak? 174
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that the backwards compatibility that Microsoft offered up at the Monday press conference may not be anything approaching what we're used to. Due to the massive design changes in the shift from the Xbox to the 360, Xbox titles may have to be recompiled in order to work on the next-gen console. From the article: "The news has raised more questions than it answers, however, as it suggests that gamers may need to purchase titles they already own in order to play them on an Xbox 360 - and almost certainly means that only a sub-set of Xbox games will ever be playable on the new console." Update: 05/20 15:08 GMT by Z : The article has been updated with a quote from MS specifically saying that gamers will *not* need to repurchase Xbox titles to play them on the 360.
Well Linux users who... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well Linux users who... (Score:2)
No biggie at all.
Backwards compatible? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way they may avoid pissing too many people off, and making such a system viable is to offer the recompiled versions available for free download for people who have already purchased that particular game.
As TFA states, though, backwards compatibility for a small class of games is idiotic.
Re:Backwards compatible? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Backwards compatible? (Score:2)
Re:Backwards compatible? (Score:2)
I'm also willing to be that we'll see a peripheral that allows you to play GB/GBA games as well at some point, or they'll find a way to make the Game Boy Player hook up to it.
How large are the NES games? (Score:2)
If this is accurate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If this is accurate (Score:2, Funny)
Disclaimer, use of gas may require buying of new engine, drive train, transmission.
Re:If this is accurate (Score:3, Insightful)
"At launch, Xbox 360 will be backward compatible with the top Xbox games," Xbox PR manager Michael Wolf told GamesIndustry.biz today. "Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360. You will NOT need to purchase a new 'version' - your original games will work on Xbox 360."
What I read from that is that a) they're working on emulation and b) the top priority is to get the top-selling games working. This is very similar to MAME people getting something like "
Not so much precompiles as.. (Score:2)
Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think it is a mistake, but obviously Microsoft couldn't afford to pull a playstation2 and put an entire PS1 on the die. This is the downside of going with off-the-shelf parts and not designing your own chips. No way were they ever going to convince Intel and whoever did their video hardware on the xbox to provide a mega-cheap shrunken version that they could cram onto the 360 motherboard.
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll say it again: THEIR ENTIRE CATALOG OF GAMES
And yet, the Revolution is the smallest console shown at E3, and Nintendo is hoping to make it even smaller before launch.
Microsoft cares not for the gaming community, only how to make money off of them. Why let you play Halo and Halo 2 on the 360 for free, when you can pay to buy those games again?
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
On another thought, is anybody actually sure what Nintendo's process of publishing a game entails? For all we know, they own source code to the entire back catalog of games that they can recompile and allow us to download.
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
Yes, it will. This was one of the first things that was confirmed.
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
Also, Microsoft never actually said you'd have to re-buy the games. T
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2, Interesting)
I certainly wouldn't buy any game that I knew I was going to have to exchange. I would buy it if all it required was a download upgrade.
This
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
Nintendo cares for the gaming community as much as MS does. They all just want to make money. They might "get" gamers a little better (at least on this point, not so much on others), but they are still out for a profit. How your biased, factually i
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
Of course I'd still prefer an external add-on unit with cartridge slots so that I can play real cartridges through their emulators. It's not like they have to worry about people using it to dump cartridges, since they're
Re:Backwards compatibility is hard (Score:2)
Whooptie doo, one possibility (Score:5, Interesting)
Better yet, make the files downloadable for those with broadband. Problem solved, and only about 2GB of hard drive space used for twenty games.
I wouldn't be surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouln't be surprised if this really was their plan. That's maybe why they say they'll only support the "most popular" games, to avoid having to cram the hard drive full of stuff.
I can imagine this working pretty well, that is, being pretty much seamless to the the normal Joe User. For the obscure games, they may program the 360 to pop up a window when the disk is inserted asking you if you want to download a "compatibility patch" from Microsoft. The Xbox1 disks pressed more recently might include this compatibility patch on them. Yeah, not exactly optimal, but not catastrophic either.
The bonus is that the recompiled games might be set to run explicitly in 720p and with all sorts of anti-aliasing and other fancy graphics stuff that the first xbox can't do. This may encourage people to buy the 360 just to see their favorite games looking better. (I wonder if the PS3 will offer something similar for PS2 games...)
Backwards compat. for those on Live. (Score:3, Interesting)
Any X-Box 360 hooked up to the network could download the new binaries (not too large) and then run them.
Wa-la, backwards compatibility and a pushing factor for online access.
Re:Backwards compat. for those on Live. (Score:2)
Re:Backwards compat. for those on Live. (Score:5, Funny)
Wa-la[voilà|videlicet|ecce]
But even that's not fully backwards compatible; don't expect your linear-B titles to work.
Ah! Cretian Humor! (Score:2)
(go look it up on Wikipedia)
--Mike
Re:Backwards compat. for those on Live. (Score:2)
Re:Backwards compat. for those on Live. (Score:2)
Re:Backwards compat. for those on Live. (Score:2)
This is cynical. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is cynical. (Score:2)
Re:This is cynical. (Score:4, Interesting)
Free, but for a price? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Free, but for a price? (Score:2)
XBox Live! Gold is officially for game playing ability.
Of course who knows what these tiers will actually mean come release time.
Re:Free, but for a price? (Score:2)
This seems reasonable enough, it doesn't quite make sense to me (see below). More interestingly, what do they intend to do about third-party games where Microsoft doesn't have the right to recompile/redistribute the executable?
Especially for s
Re:Free, but for a price? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buy again? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buy again? (Score:2)
I'm guessing I'll pick up a Revolution in about a year. I'm REALLY hoping this NES/SNES emulation stuff carries over to the DS.
If the thing has enough storage (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What a load of trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Quibbling trolls, no less. (Score:2)
As a previous post [slashdot.org] said, Jimmy's Mom is going to ask "Will it be able to play his XBox games?". "Yes" or "No" are really about as technical as you need to get (though it is important if "Yes" is contingent upon an XBox live subscription).
My guess is that "Compatibility" could be implemented in a couple ofways:
Re:Quibbling trolls, no less. (Score:2)
The PS2 has enhancements such as faster disk loading and texturing smoothing to make some games better. These features didn't work in some games but you coul
Re:What a load of trolls (Score:2)
They clearly say they are going to EMULATE the top titles.
That article says no such thing!
Emulation isn't even mentioned in the article. The interview is vague as Hell on how they are going to get bakcwards compatiblity and ends with "the execution [of XBox compatibility] will speak for itself".
So, have you read this article [engadget.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
Possibly Great For Nintendo (Score:2, Funny)
Not Backwards Compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as MS and XBox developers allow owners of the original XBox games to download these updates to the old games for free, it should be acceptable. But otherwise, this is a scam. And in no way can this be called 'backwards compatibility'.
What they might try to do.... (Score:2)
They will probably have it limited to those who buy the more expensive version of the 360 with the hard drive and combined with XBox Live, download the recompiled executable to run off the hard drive while reading the data from the CD/DVD.
Never mind emulation... (Score:2)
By including certain hardware elements from the old Xbox, such as the Nvidia graphics chip, they could avoid legal entanglements and guarantee compatibility. On the other hand, I don't think MS considers backwards compatiblity to be high on their priority li
Re:Never mind emulation... (Score:2)
Besides from what we can tell right now Microsoft seems more to be going the "recompilation" route, not emulation.
The Bleem Strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
In any case, if the end user has to go out and buy a title again, then backwards compatibility is a lie and I sincerely hope that Sony and Nintendo pummels them mercilessly! Seriously though, I think Microsoft will pull it off somehow. They have more than enough resources and talent to do the job. Yeah, I know, this is
Little did they know... (Score:2)
*With a custom --xbox flag, of course, to prevent piracy.
Nice Try (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to tell you too that the shared memory of the Xbox 360 is going to be a downfall, as bandwidth is going to be a big issue. Developers are already grumbling about this. That 22Gb/s bandwith is going to be eaten up pretty quickly with all of the bandwidth hungry components fighting for their share. Do some simple math on the numbers involved with HD resolutions, AA, system processing, memory, and other overhead and the XBOX 360's shiny hype-filled exterior begins to dull a bit... it is most definitely NOT 15 times more powerful than the Xbox. Sony is actually pretty on target with the Xbox 1.5 comments. (I'm no longer a Sony guy either, so this is not said with any bias or loyalty.)
The Revolution has this game in the bag by playing the backfield right now. Let the two "Big Guns" slug it out and sling all the mud they want at each other while no one even targets them... then once the fervor is over release the full details and have no easy open media forum for rebuttal. They spring a few new titles, release the innovations of their controller, their low price-point, and the reality that their processing power is right in line with the competition, and bingo you've got a winner.
Re:Nice Try (Score:2)
You could have copied and pasted this from 2001 and been talking about the GameCube.
Didn't happen then - what makes you think it'll happen this time? There's a reason why Sony and MS are successful (and why even Nintendo was successful in the 80's and early 90's), and it wasn't because they hung
Re:Nice Try (Score:2)
Re:Nice Try (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are being touted with these insane numbers that have no basis to actual GAMES - who cares how many FLOPS the PS3 can do, a very small part of the processing a game has to do is floating point.
Let's wait and see - in regards to the reali
Re:Nice Try (Score:2)
Wipe away the marketing hype and look at the real numbers. The Xbox 360 has 512MB *shared* memory between CPU and GPU (if this was a pc with shared video ram people would be dissin
Re:Nice Try (Score:2)
BTW, you accuse a lot of people of being fanboys, and checking your post history, it sounds like you're already dead set on the revolution and nothing else
Re:Nice Try (Score:2)
I accuse people who blatantl
SUGGESTS. MAY. (Score:2)
It is just as possible that Microsoft may include updates to 'classic' titles as part of their basic/free Live service.
There are no links, references, sources or quotes in that article. Don't waste your time, people.
Use your brain.. (Score:2)
END COMMUNICATION
JIT compilation (Score:2)
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
I was expecting another PC turned game console when the XBOX II hit the market - just beefier hardware and maybe some whizbang features like wifi that seems to be standard now.
Microsoft going with non-pc like hardware was the answer to xbox hacks and modchips, which I think just pissed them off enough to drop pc hardware. I don't think they know how the market will react to the XBOX being the only nextgen co
Re: (Score:2)
The Different GPU shouldn't a problem (Score:4, Interesting)
1. They still do not have the hardware done so they do not know if it will be fast enough.
2. Some big seller like Halo2 breaks rules and goes right to the hardware.
3. They do not want it. They will make more money if you buy all new games.
4. It really will not matter. People with old Xbox games already own the XBox.
As to using
Re:The Different GPU shouldn't a problem (Score:2)
I just think that the ATI VS nVidia argument is not an issue. The byte ordering on the CPUs is more of an issue.
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
A recompile would almost certainly resolve issues with the CPU instruction sets, but I bet most games use special NVIDIA instructions that do not exist on ATI hardware. That could cause lots of graphical anomolies.
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:3, Insightful)
1: Total recompile. Problem with that is, if it is closed source code, you have to re-release that, which is what the article implies.
2: Emulation. Meaning, you have an application that takes the instructions and "on the fly" converts them into useable instructions.
Now, what the heck is "recompiling on the fly"? If I understand correctly, you mean it re-interprets the source code as you
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
The most famous example of this sort of thing would have to be Digital's FX!32 for the Alpha, which according to reports, would run x86 Windows code under NT for Alpha at approximately 40% the speed of natively compiled code. Not too shabby!
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
plus, there's a reason why I put the '' marks around recompile...
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
Re:Recompiled? Bullcrap. (Score:2)
Recompiles on the fly?
The term I see most oftenly used to describe this is dynamic recompilation [google.com]. Dynamic recompilation differs from basic emulation in that it attempts to perform block optimizations across instruction windows (basic blocks) and caches the results for repeated execution. Contrast to basic emulation, which is interpretive in nature.It's about the GPU (Score:3, Interesting)
INCORRECT Re:It's about the GPU (Score:2)
Sony included the PS1 CPU inside the PS2, including the GTE (Geometry Transform Engine, a type of math co-processors for doing the obvious), but *NOT* the GPU.
The GPU of the PS1 is emulated in software on the main PS2 CPU, the Emotion Engine. This is extremely well documented in fact, and not just in the patents for the PS2.
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2, Interesting)
I am. There's lots of titles that I'm looking forward to. Some originals, some sequals.
The key for me is Xbox Live. I own the GC, PS2, and Xbox - I enjoy each of them based on their respective strengths. The integrated and well-designed online experience of Live is well worth purchasing the console, for me.
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2)
That's a funny statement in this context. Because Microsoft pretty much told us the exact opposite until the time Live was actually launched. They played number games all because they could to the general public. The computer savvy know that a PPC CPU at 433 MHz was basically on par, if not better, than a Celeron at 733 MHz. But if you can throw that your processor is nearly twice as high as the competitor's to the general public, they'll eat it up. It
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2)
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2)
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2)
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, the first estimate of the PSP price was around 450 US Dollars as well.
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2)
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just How Much Worse Can It Get For Microsoft? (Score:2)
Re:Wether they have it or not (Score:5, Insightful)
But the parents won't ask "Is this backwards compatible?" just like they won't ask "Does this have the AltiVec vector instruction set for the PowerPC?" (Note that I don't know, nor care, whether it does
They'll say "Can Jimmy play the Xbox games he already has on it?" and they can't say "Yes" if this is true. They'll probably also ask "can he play these games on it?" and point to the $10 preowned Xbox section, and they'll have to say "No". They'll then ask "which ones can he play" and the people will point to the $30-$60 Xbox 360 games. And I'm assuming that rereleased Xbox games will be in the $30 range. Maybe.
That's the point with backward compatibility. It's not about playing your old games. Microsoft didn't demolish the competition in the last generation - hell, it's not even guaranteed that they'll end up in 2nd place, as Microsoft's shifting to Xbox 360, Nintendo's still got Zelda: Twilight Princess, and only 2 million consoles separate the two worldwide.
So not everyone has an Xbox. Backwards compatibility gives people cheap games to buy at launch. Cheap, as in $10 cheap. And when you're asking people to plunk down $300-400 on a console, there better be $10 cheap games. And I don't honestly think that companies could recompile an old game for the Xbox 360, bug test it thoroughly, fix any bugs (because oh, there will be bugs), rinse, repeat, then redo the box art, manufacture the game, repackage, and redistribute, and still sell the game for $10-15.
That's what backwards compatibility really means to consumers. $10-15 games at launch. If they don't have that, it just doesn't matter.
Re:Wether they have it or not (Score:2)
If you go into a store saying "I'm willing to buy an Xbox 360" then it doesn't matter.
But undecided people don't buy systems on hardware. They buy systems on games. I'm not talking about people who know intimate hardware details and hacking potential each box has. I'm talking about most consum
Re:Backwards Compatibility (Score:2)
Re:Backwards Compatibility (Score:2)
All of the competition is basically on even footing even with staggered release dates, and the impending release of Halo 3. Sony and Nintendo just have to release their hardware a couple week
Re:"Backwards Compatibility" doesn't matter to me (Score:2)