Backwards Compability (Or why gaming sucks, period)

[lacktheknack]

There is one solution...

...buy a PC

And get some pirated emulators?

Why do that when you can do it legally?

(OK, other than convenience, but it's DOABLE, dammit!)

 

[RESURRECTION21]

......360 has almost perfect backwards compatability

I have 20 Edit: (hard derp was hard) original xbox games. Only 5 are Bc..........................

no most of tht big name og xbox games are bc like gta and fable andkotor and halo and cs and soulcaliber and alot more they even do small games like the 007 games and some of the kid games iam not an xbox fanboy i am just say it is a shit ton more then 5 and my anbian just kicked in so i am going to sleep

 

[RESURRECTION21]

I had a PS3 for about six months... I really wished I had one with Backwards compatability, because I barely had any interest in most of the ps3's games but would have killed to have played MGS 2 and 3 again.

I wish I had a gamecube with tales of symphonia and ssx 3

i have a gamecube and thouse two games

 

[RESURRECTION21]

Yeah, like how film companies have to offer you free DVDs of every video you bought!

Oh wait, it's almost like that's not how the world works at all.

No amount of whining and bitching is going to get rid of this. Backwards compatibility is a pain in the arse to programme (so I'm told by other people on this site) and I personally am just happy that some poor old worthless peon low down in the company somewhere is doing it at all (for 360 at least)

Things get harder to read/play/find as they get older. Books which are out of print can be ridiculously expensive if you damage your copy, old videos that never made it to DVD can be near impossible to find working copies of, and you need a no-longer-mass-produced piece of equipment to play them. Why should games be any different? Just because gamers have the internet and a tendency to ***** more?

And as has been pointed out, there are ways to get these games if you're dedicated enough. So if you were really such a fan of these games as you claim then you'd take the 'I'm dedicated' option, instead of the 'I don't want to do any of the work myself, I want someone else to do it all for me, then if it doesn't work (another problem with BC) I'll ***** and moan about that instead' approach.

If I want to play FFVIII (for example) I hook up my PlayStation 2. It takes perhaps 30 seconds since it sits right next to my XBox with the SCART cable ready to go. I change one socket at the mains, and one socket on the television. Bam, I'm playing my old PS1 and 2 games. That's not inconvenient.

yes but if your ps2dies in ten years and you can not find a new one you will be out of luck if the ps4 can not play the games

 

[lacktheknack]

Yeah, like how film companies have to offer you free DVDs of every video you bought!

Oh wait, it's almost like that's not how the world works at all.

No amount of whining and bitching is going to get rid of this. Backwards compatibility is a pain in the arse to programme (so I'm told by other people on this site) and I personally am just happy that some poor old worthless peon low down in the company somewhere is doing it at all (for 360 at least)

Things get harder to read/play/find as they get older. Books which are out of print can be ridiculously expensive if you damage your copy, old videos that never made it to DVD can be near impossible to find working copies of, and you need a no-longer-mass-produced piece of equipment to play them. Why should games be any different? Just because gamers have the internet and a tendency to ***** more?

And as has been pointed out, there are ways to get these games if you're dedicated enough. So if you were really such a fan of these games as you claim then you'd take the 'I'm dedicated' option, instead of the 'I don't want to do any of the work myself, I want someone else to do it all for me, then if it doesn't work (another problem with BC) I'll ***** and moan about that instead' approach.

If I want to play FFVIII (for example) I hook up my PlayStation 2. It takes perhaps 30 seconds since it sits right next to my XBox with the SCART cable ready to go. I change one socket at the mains, and one socket on the television. Bam, I'm playing my old PS1 and 2 games. That's not inconvenient.

yes but if your ps2dies in ten years and you can not find a new one you will be out of luck if the ps4 can not play the games

If your VCR dies, and you can't find a new one, same issue with your video tapes.

Consoles are not obligated to have backwards compatibility any more than you're obligated to buy it. Never forget that.

 

[chadachada123]

If your VCR dies, and you can't find a new one, same issue with your video tapes.

Consoles are not obligated to have backwards compatibility any more than you're obligated to buy it. Never forget that.

That doesn't really fit as an analogy, since the early PS3s shipped with the software required to allow BC, but then they TOOK IT OUT in subsequent versions.

It'd be like selling blu-ray players that also play DVDs, then arbitrarily deciding to leave out the codecs for it on later versions. Not quite the same as not selling outdated *hardware.* (That's also assuming that Blu-Ray players normally can play DVDs and that there's no additional hardware needed to play DVDs over Blu-Ray).

Edit: No, it's not an obligation, but it's a pretty shitty and greedy thing to do.

 

[Something Amyss]

Rom it, you bought it once and as long as you still own a copy you have the right. The downloaded version is identical to the Rom and so is technically a copy of a game you purchased legally and copying a game for your own use is a legal practice.

And that technicality won't hold up in court. But at least you will have the "technically" moral high ground....

 

[NiPah]

Well shit I didn't know you could whine and ***** about something and then call the people who aren't whining spoiled brats, but you sir pulled it off. People were crying bloody murder when the PS3 came out at a price point of $600 but even at that price they were losing money on every system sold (new tech and Blurays being the main issue). I remember when the new systems started to come out, priced at $250-300 and they contained a game, but they weren't backwards compatible so you know what I did? Searched around and actually bought 60gig non-emulation PS3 for $500 (new from the store, this was about 6 years ago), didn't even have the game included.

And you know what? You can still go out and buy them, if BC is such a huge issue buy a used system for about $200-300 dollars, don't go flooding Sony's forum with a bunch of BS that will only annoy the average user and be completely ignored by the Sony staff.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I'm a programmer. Therefore I understand backwards comparability and legacy design from a different perspective. Legacy software is one of the biggest plights in modern software design, backwards compatibility is very reminiscent of it and its logic. I think its a little more complex then your argument puts forth, especially when dealing not only with software but also with hardware as consoles sometimes do. Also, your bitchy attitude makes me angry, but that's my personal problem.

 

[Joccaren]

There is one solution...

...buy a PC

My first reaction when I saw this thread.
If you want to play an old game on a PC, there are about 3 ways to do it:
1. Install and run just like any other game.
2. Install, and run as administrator using XP compatibility mode [Or older, but usually XP]
3. Use DOSBox.

I run games from 26 years ago successfully with these methods.
Add to that the fact that there is an emulator for pretty much everything except the Xbox 360 ATM, which to an extent will come with Windows 8, and on your PC you are capable of playing pretty much every game made for a virtual system. Of course, it may take some work in some places, but you do get Backwards Compatibility.

 

[Joccaren]

Yea, uh, disposable income insufficient. Got better things to do with 1000 bucks.

$1000 is too much, especially if you're going for a backwards compatibility PC. Try $400, maybe lower dependent on how good you want it. Cheaper than a release day console.
/me abandons thread before being tempted to post more PC related stuff.

 

[Judgement101]

There is one solution...

...buy a PC

Yup, because Windows 7 can natively run every game ever made ever. Sorry, I'm just bitter -_-

I still hate that I can't play Persona 4 on my PS3, and before someone says "HURR DURR YES YOU CAN!" No, I can't. I am not aware if it is a software issue, my PS3 being weird, my disc being scratched. But it won't read the disc.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

I have Nes games but unlike all the next generation of nintendo consoles the nes was a fragile PoS, prone to bugging out and instability even when directly out of the box, and the parts degraded far faster then modern tech would.

Derp? The pins on the cartridge connector have a tendency to get bent out of place over time with use, but it's easy to open it up and fix that yourself even if you have no idea how electronics work, because all the parts are so huge and there's nothing like soldering involved. It also usually takes a while before that becomes a serious problem. In the worst case, it's very cheap and easy to replace the entire connector the cartridges slide into after it eventually wears out. There's no other major problem with the NES that I can think of off the top of my head that happens on a regular basis. The thing is virtually indestructible compared to modern electronics other than that one stupid part, like most things from that point in time were, because it's much less complex, has far fewer things to go wrong, and doesn't put out anywhere remotely near as much heat (which kills stuff like that over time).

I've fixed the cartridge connector on my NES once since the mid-80s, and it's otherwise perfectly fine, just like most of them that haven't been horribly abused, or even better, the later top-loading ones that didn't have that problem at all. Compare that to the failure rate for any of the disc-based consoles (more moving parts is one of the big problems, but it's also coincided with both more complexity and higher heat levels, especially recently), even within 3-5 years, and it's pretty amazing. You certainly could make something with the power of a 360 or PS3 that has the reliability of a top-loading NES, but it would be slightly more expensive... Heh.

 

[BNguyen]

There is one solution...

...buy a PC

PCs don't have access to every game we'd like to replay

 

[Lovely Mixture]

To me backwards compatibility represents historical archival.
In my perfect world, every from of media would be recorded and play-able.

 

[Joccaren]

WIll it run Sleeping Dogs with the full HD patch at at least 50fps?

If not, not interested. I don't care to get one only to get the same garbage from the Master Race.

Beyond the fact that even running sleeping dogs without the patch would result in a better looking and smoother running game than a console could give you, I'm going to say maybe - dependent on what you have now.
After checking the system requirements, I could get it all for $400-$500 Australian - the Recommended GPU which would likely run it over 60FPS would be $200 down here, and we generally pay more than other countries for this sort of stuff. RAM would cost maybe $50 if you're unlucky, and then the CPU and Mobo should generally be alright even if from a PC 8 years old. Of course, it would depend on what that PC was, and could end up costing another $300 to get that up if you're future proofing. Beyond that, if you have Windows you're set.
Granted you'll have to go to the trouble of assembling it, but that's not too hard so long as you are careful not to touch exposed chips, or let anything magnetic or high static potential near them during assembly [And post, but they'll be encased by then].

So, as an answer to your question, it would depend on where you live, what the stores nearby have available, and what you already have. Its not impossible for $400 to cover it though, even for an old machine.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Why should they spend their money hiring coders to work on compatibility issues just to stop your whining? Making a program run on multiple hardware sets is a fucking nightmare and is basically the reason why so many bugs exist(especially on PCs where you have to compensate for many different types of hardware.) Stop acting like a child, it's a company not a charity. If it was economically viable for them to hire coders to work on making older software run on newer systems then they would be doing that. But making you happy is not a viable economic strategy because gamers have proven to be unable to actually boycott companies effectively. And even if it was viable, demanding that people do work for you for free is the 'adult' way of throwing a temper tantrum.

And PC's have compatibility issues as well. I haven't been able to play KOTOR for like 4 years because Bioware doesn't want to make it compatible with newer systems and I have yet to buy a GOG copy. The PCs ability to run games with compatibility for many systems has very little to do with PC gaming companies. It's more to do with the fact that there are talented fans who will reverse engineer products and produce emulators for fun or experience. Or who will determine ways to edit files to fix less extensive compatibility problems. This combined with the easy and open access to the internet, and the powerful mod-ability of a computer allows for amateur enthusiasts to fix such problems. Thus the answer of why its so easy on computers has more to do with their versatility than your imagined ease of programming compatibility.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

And no, it's not just something they take out because they want to screw over their consumer base. The PS3 hardware can't just run the PS2 games; it used a completely separate set of chips [http://www.semperthree.com/backwards-compatibility.html] in order to run the PS2 games. By removing these, they are able to drop the price of the system. This shit isn't free and I'm surprised that there are still people who just don't understand that.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just some "obsessed fanboy" justifying the raping of your wallet that Sony is doing, right?

Yes, because if Sony says it can't run PS2 games, it must be true. I like on how you pretend as if they wouldn't have been able to drop the prices while keeping the chips. Because as we all know, that's how they lowered the prices for PS2s. By taking away playback compatibility. Or was it that the playback capability actually got better? Gosh, I can't remember. I also like that a price is never actually mentioned for these chips. Even according to the article, they aren't that drastic.

 

[Latinidiot]

There are many walls of text on these pages, and while not having read all of them I feel i must say that when we got a dvd player back in 2000, we did not feel cheated because it couldn't play VHS.

 

[lacktheknack]

There is one solution...

...buy a PC

And get some pirated emulators?

Why do that when you can do it legally?

(OK, other than convenience, but it's DOABLE, dammit!)

How Damnit!? *pounds fist on table*

For PS2:

Step One: Get your console modded so it reads CD-ROMs. This is legal, last I checked.

Step Two: Download a PS2 emulator. ePSXe is nice.

Step Three: Burn "DumpBios-USB.iso" (found on the internet) onto a CD-ROM.

Step Four: Insert the disk and a USB stick into the PS2, and turn it on.

Step Five: Dump the BIOS, check emulation forums for details.

Step Six: Take the USB stick and get the BIOS from it. Pop it into the emulator, download and set up the rest of the emulation components, and enjoy your legal emulation software.

I'm not entirely sure how to transfer the games themselves, but it is doable. I just bought a modded PS2 a while back and made the emulator to see if it could be done.

Obviously, if this is too much, then you should stick to normal consoles. But the point is that it can be done.