Microsoft Exec: "If You're Backwards Compatible, You're Really Backwards"

[Orekoya]

It is a silly move for the consumer. It's also a vital move to the company.

Well, are you a consumer or a company? If you're a consumer, an advice for you - care about consumer stuff and not the company stuff.

You realize we're talking about why this is a bad idea for a company to not include backwards compatibility, right? Because I can't help but feel that right there is the base of our talking past one another.

And yet despite "vastly different hardware architecture" I can still use dosbox to play games from the eighties. It's not a very good excuse.

*facepalm*
Do you know the most important requirement for emulation?
It's processing power.
Emulating PS2 games doesn't work flawlessly yet and brings even the strongest gaming PCs down to their knees. How on earth are they supposed to emulate the 360 on a console that has even less power?

First of all, I brought that up because he keeps talking about various pc games, secondly I'm aware of how emulations, thirdly even the strongest gaming pcs are still pcs: IE, they're still doing everything in the background. A console is a specialized pc that doesn't have to run other processes in the background lending all of its processing power to the task it's doing. Granted though with all the crappy bells and whistles they're including this generation that may no longer be true.

 

[Altorin]

God damn it, "Xbone", really? Not only is that phonetically a disasterpiece, it's just nasty to say and really just makes me uncomfortable, no matter how appropriately brosome it is.

I'm sticking to "X1", sounds a lot more classy, which - sure, it's quite possibly the least classy console ever made, at least since the Milton-Bradley Vectrex, but even the most cripple-minded deserve respect enough to not be nicknamed the fucking Xbone.

that's the point. It's supposed to sound stupid.

 

[loa]

I suppose not having a large game library at launch is not backwards then.
Are they trying to out-stupid sony or something? Microsoft is flipping their shit recently.

 

[viking97]

For fucks sake, microsoft is just fucking joking at this point.

You just wait, at a press conference or something we'll all get a big jk and they'll announce the xbox 720 and it will not be always online, be backwards compatable, and not have stupid tv things we don't need.

There's no way a project with this much money poured into it could be this retarded.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Keep digging Microsoft, keep digging. That hole must be getting pretty deep by now.

Even though Sony is doing the same with the PS4 they can still look good if they just don't act like dicks to the consumer, have a good game start, and not having the dumb restrictions Xbone is going to have. Still sucks that there is not even a option to add backwards compatability for it could increase revenue if sold seperate, but then they would have to moddable which both companies seem completely against in any form.

Yes, it's bad enough when your product is a piece of shit that's designed for securing profits first and costumer satisfaction second, but when you go and make dickhead statements like that it only makes the situation worse.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

Are Microsoft TRYING to be the next EA?! Gah! I'd go more in-depth, but the mods frown on excessive language.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Ok, people, let's do some math.

How many consoles have allowed for 100% backwards compatibility?

Think about this.

The PS2
The Wii (and by extention the Wii U)
The 3DS (the DS does not, for later models dropped the GBA slot. The GBA doesn't count as it could only play GBC games, which counts as an expansion to a console, rather than an outright new one.) (EDIT: My mistake, upon reflection (in other words, thinking about this when I was more awake) it DOES play original Gameboy games).

So there you have it. Four five console jumps (three four if you decide not to count the Wii U, I know I don't) where we have 100% backwards compatibility for the entire consoles life span. Five if the PS Vita has it, I don't know, but who gives a fuck about the Vita?

So this should come as a surprise to absolutely no one at all anywhere. A lack of backwards compatibility is the norm.

I think it would be really cool if it was a thing, but the fact the everyone is so up and arms about it rather than just slightly disappointed baffles me.

Focus on the actually bad stuff. Like the used game bullshit.

EDIT: Also, to everyone saying "he insulted us", he didn't. He's saying that the creator of the consoles that are backwards. Not the people that used them for the backwards compatibility.

Does everyone just WANT to be pissed off about everything that every major company does nowadays? Fuck, guys, give it a rest sometimes, will ya?

 

[TelHybrid]

I don't get why so many people are annoyed about the lack of backward compatibility. From a technical standpoint, trying to incorporate it into a new system is pretty difficult and time consuming, and costly.

It limits what hardware can and can't be used in a new system, potentially inhibiting it.

If you have a back catalogue of old games, keep your old system. Simple.

Also to those who complain about your digital games not working on the new system, it's exactly the same reason your disc games wont work. They're made and programmed for the same hardware. They're both incompatible for the same reason! Why would you think otherwise?

It's this sort of thing that gives the gaming community a stigma of being a bunch of peaty whiners.

 

[rob_simple]

I'm still with Yahtzee's stance on backwards compatibility: if you can't make it happen because of the technology you have, wait until the technology you have can make it happen. I have seen absolutely nothing from the upcoming Sony and Microsoft consoles that shows why we currently need a new generation, and I've definitely seen nothing that's encouraging me to buy.

The Playstation 4 seems to have marginally improved graphics and that's about it: the few games they've trailed are all sequel fodder, many of which are for series that ceased to be interesting a long time ago. And the Xbone...Well as others have said, I don't know why Microsoft think I need a console to do what my Tivo box has already done for years

It feels like Sony and Microsoft are using these new consoles as an extremely expensive trial by fire to test every single bad idea they could come up with. If they make money off of these consoles, I dread to think where this is going to take the industry.

 

[Orekoya]

Even if you had an OS for the worlds strongest gaming PC that also uses 100% of its potential, it would be too weak to emulate a 360 or PS3. Emulation is just so extremely demanding that the OS you run doesn't matter so much, as we're stil far away from emulating the 360/PS3 at all.

*facepalm*
Really [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBY2rpWu24Q], then [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucDdidcKzn0]? I guess these pcs are from the future!
I'm glad you accused me of not knowing what I'm talking about.

 

[Flatfrog]

I don't own an XBox of any kind. If this one had been backwards compatible, I might have been tempted to buy it, knowing that there were a lot of titles on it. I don't have the gaming time or the money to have multiple consoles and so far I've always had PlayStations. So they've lost whatever small chance they had to make me switch.

 

[F'Angus]

First has anyone called it Xbone?

Second. Microsoft really need to work on their marketing...and their research.

 

[Ruley]

Well, if Xbox had an eye in my house, they would see i play a wealth of original Xbox games on an Xbox i bought off a friend for £10 because the 360 had no backwards compatibility for Time Splitters: Future Perfect, amongst many other of my beloved games.

Seems like i'll be keeping my 360 if i get an Xbone, and that also means i still need my original Xbox! Time to invest in some shelves i think...

Seriously though, what the hell? Stating the obvious, with Halo 4 still relatively new and with the announcement of the Halo TV Series and ultimately Halo 5, did it occur to them that people might want to play some old halo games on the Xbone? or other good 360 Games? Moreover, early adopters might not have a huge library to play with in the first few months of the Xbone so backwards compatibility would have helped pad that out a bit?

But yeah, he's stirred up the hornets nest on this one. how did he get to be an exec with thought patterns like that?

 

[DoctorImpossible]

If you have a back catalogue of old games, keep your old system. Simple.

How simple is it when your old system burns out and they aren't in production anymore?

 

[Xangba]

Edit: Double post

 

[Xangba]

From a hardware perspective it is NOT that difficult. Well not as much as they are claiming anyway. The whole "the technology is too different" is just an excuse, as they can emulate it. Computers have been doing it for quite a few years. The PS2 had full compatibility. The Wii U does it. The 3DS does it. Computers even emulate pretty much every last gen system and earlier.

While I agree with the rest of what you said, this part is outright wrong.
It seems you have no idea what you're talking about.
Otherwise you knew that it wasn't that long ago that our hardware finally became strong enough to emulate the PS2. What sperates us and emulating the PS3 or 360 is probably a decade, if not more. And that's just the raw hardware power.

Yeah I apologize I was in rant mode there and made it sound like I thought it was easy, which I don't believe it's as easy as just changing a couple things. I know putting in the required technology would increase cost, but we certainly have the technology for it. My biggest thing with that is if they actually developed it as a game console and not as a...whatever it is...the total cost with adding in backwards compatibility wouldn't be as big as with all the other worthless junk in it.

"Wait to buy it again" is what you really said there. And what happens if your old consoles stops working? What happens if you need to trade it in because you are on a budget and just can't quite afford the new one without it?

really? thats your argument? i cant afford it so they must make it work cheaper? how about you cant afford then dont buy it? are they forcing you to buy it with a gun to your head or something? if you cant afford it, your not the person they care about to begin with. why is that so hard to grasp for 90% of people here?

Considering a large chunk of gamers are in their 20s and either starting their lives or in college, yes. As a company their goal is trying to please their consumers (well apparently not, but it's supposed to be) and that includes knowing that a big chunk of your consumers has a budget. Good for you that you're well enough off that it isn't an issue, but hey we aren't all so lucky.

P.S. to both you sorry if you get multiple notifications I had a double post and things got funky

 

[kamay]

The only way I can really see there being a problem with architecture is if the 360 is x86 and xbone is x86-64. If that is the case there will be conflict (like trying to install a 32bit program on a 64bit operating system). But if 360 is already x86-64 then it comes down to laziness and not want people to play 360 games on xbone - but rather try to get them to re-purchase them if they get re-released on xbla.

So unless Microsoft developed a completely different set of instructions (which i highly doubt) they are just blowing smoke up people's asses imo.