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

[TelHybrid]

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?

Then you have the first world problem of either repairing it or replacing it (just because it's no longer in production doesn't mean there wont be loads floating about).

Or just switch to PC gaming and avoid all this crap.

 

[uzo]

What stinking utter bullshit.

I have a PS3 ... sadly a non-functioning PS3 courtesy of a YLOD after I toasted the power adapter inside (it was a 20GB model I picked up in Japan - one of the 'first batch' you might say. Like Spike the Gremlin). As a side note, I'd had it running for 5 years, the last 2 of those years being in Australia with naught but a plug adapter protecting it from the mains.

These games are a bit old, but this is my list of games and their models and regions:

Biohazard 1, 2, 3 (PS1, Japan)
Final Fantasy VIII (PS1, Japan)
Parasite Eve (PS1, Japan)
King of Fighters 97 (PS1, Japan)
Biohazard Outbreak, Outbreak File 2, Biohazard 4 (PS2, Japan)
Kengo III (PS2, Japan)
Zero (aka Fatal Frame) 1, 2, 3 (PS2, Japan)
Neon Genesis EvangelionZ (PS2, Japan)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (PS2, Japan)
Love Hina: Natsu no Koi (PS2, Japan)
Ryu ga Gotoku 1, 2 (PS2, Japan)
Ryu ga Gotoku 3 (PS3, Japan)
Orange Box (PS3, Australia)
LA Noir (PS3, Australia)
Dragon Age Origins (PS3, USA)
Yakuza - the one with zombies (PS3, Australia)

Well .. maybe I'm one of those "5%" (pull a stat from your arse why doncha?) ... but just by my own count about 20 of my 30 or so console games are not only on older models of Playstation, but also different regions.

Has this moron ever heard of something called Good Ol Games? Admittedly I have some 60 or so games on my Steam account but I also have about a dozen games on my GOG account.

This man is the kind of bean counter killing not only Hollywood, but the gaming industry. Shame on him.

SHAAAAAAAME.

 

[Tomaius]

Might I also suggest that this is because the Xbox was also not an especially popular console with a large library of games?

 

[ninjaRiv]

Microsoft are terrible at this "pleasing the customer" thing, aren't they? I'd say something about them being new to their own popularity and how they're just making mistakes that they'll learn from but they've made this mistake twice recently.

It's even worse because most of us play old games on old consoles (as mentioned, Xbox 360 had shitty backward compatibility) because old Xbox was a great machine that still works even now, same with the PS2. Both have a HUGE library of games so a lot of us kept our old consoles. I'm even more convinced now that the next gen will be a waste of money for me.

The capthca is "Bon Voyage." I wonder if the Escapist does this on purpose.

 

[Xangba]

"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

the average age of a gamer is 30 [http://www.geekquality.com/average-gamer-myth/], dropped from 37 when a new generation got into gaming widely. If by 30 (or 37 by older data) you are still in college without any tangible income then the problem lies with you.
ALL consumers has a budget, does not mean i msut make it cheaper because somone cannot afford something. I am doing my masters degree in university, and i also work fulltime. over 50% of my earnings go to unviersity fees. the amount of moeny i get to spend after al lexpenses are around 100 dollars a month. and im not complaining, because i know that this console wont be worth buying at launch anyway. noone forces me to buy it so i wont. the only issue is the one you create yourself by thiknig that you must buy it. you dont.

Did I say the average? No, I said a large chunk. I have not made myself think I must buy this, as I already have decided I'm not. Microsoft should understand that a very good amount of their consumers do not want to just rebuy everything they like playing, so actually doing something to appeal to that instead of trying to make a cable box that plays games would be a much better move. But I suppose that's too backwards.

 

[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?

Then you have the first world problem of either repairing it or replacing it (just because it's no longer in production doesn't mean there wont be loads floating about).

Or just switch to PC gaming and avoid all this crap.

This entire discussion is a first-world problem, please don't be so dismissive. Telling someone "EBAY LOL" doesn't address the issue of expensive game collections being rendered obsolete in less than a decade because the manufacturers can't be arsed to provide some basic level of support. This isn't like transitioning from cassettes to compact discs.

I'm not saying BC isn't an issue for console makers, but "just keep your old console" is not a very good solution.

 

[jcfrommars9]

I'm not bothered by the comment. People will think what they think. On top of that, since I only rent and not buy games, backwards compatibility means little to me. If I have any interest in the PS4 or Xbox One, it will be when they have a decent gaming library.

 

[Charli]

I...hold on. Do Microsoft keep their Employees in an airtight underground facility for about 10 years before releasing them into the wild, and is this display of utterly unbelievable ignorance the culmination of the weird experiment?

No?

Because that's the only way I can rationalize this utter contemptuous blind eye to consumers. Not to mention missing the point of backwards compatibility to begin with.

Y'know that shiny console you're going to kick out the door? How many good new titles do you think you'll have on offer the first few months? 5... 6 maybe? And these games have to be utterly mind blowing or they won't cater to everyones tastes. Gee what WILL they do to use your black behemoth in the mean time?

OH RIGHT.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

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.

They call it the Xbone because the customer will be taking it up the ass like their living room was prison shower.

Constant internet? Many people have friggin dial up.

Kinect always on? All the better to watch you and charge you if too many people are in the room.

No backwards compatibility? Kiss your 20+ game library goodbye.

Fuck this next generation.

 

[Dragonbums]

I will never understand how a feature that is universally liked by gamers everywhere faces so much backlash from Sony and Microsoft.
Like what is the big deal? We aren't asking you to make BC consoles for games all the way in the Dreamcast era. We are simply asking that at the very least we can play the last console generation of games on the new console.

Nintendo is the only company that has done that since it's handheld inceptions. Not once did they ever exclude the feature. Their fans never have to beg for it. They do it because they know their fans love it. I have yet to see Iwata or any Nintendo employee complain about having to do BC.

 

[FalloutJack]

*Points to the ever-growing list of old gamess that people still play today*

They're not going anywhere, sonny. Looking into the past is inevitable. Ergo, the backwards one is the guy who jumps ahead by leaps and bounds without looking and thinking FIRST. That's you, Donny boy. You have no idea.

 

[Strazdas]

Did I say the average? No, I said a large chunk. I have not made myself think I must buy this, as I already have decided I'm not. Microsoft should understand that a very good amount of their consumers do not want to just rebuy everything they like playing, so actually doing something to appeal to that instead of trying to make a cable box that plays games would be a much better move. But I suppose that's too backwards.

A large chunk of gamers that you yourself said dont have much money to spend. a companys goal is to make money and that alone. pleasing costumers or not lepasing them are only a means to an end - money. comapnys exist for sole reason of making money. if MS calcualted (wrongly or not does not matter) that ignoring that chunk of audience and catering to another chunk will make them more money, then they did the right thing. from a capitalism perspective anyway.

I'm not bothered by the comment. People will think what they think. On top of that, since I only rent and not buy games, backwards compatibility means little to me. If I have any interest in the PS4 or Xbox One, it will be when they have a decent gaming library.

You only rent games, which means that game companies have earned exactly 0 from you, therefore they give zero fucks about what you think.

Constant internet? Many people have friggin dial up.

correction: a few loud complainers have dialup and even fewer of those are people who cant get better internet.

I will never understand how a feature that is universally liked by gamers everywhere faces so much backlash from Sony and Microsoft.

Do you mean the 5% gamers universally liked? because all researches show that very few gamers actually ever use BC.

Like what is the big deal? We aren't asking you to make BC consoles for games all the way in the Dreamcast era. We are simply asking that at the very least we can play the last console generation of games on the new console.

it woudl be easier to emulate dreamcast than eggsbox3.60 anyway.

Nintendo is the only company that has done that since it's handheld inceptions. Not once did they ever exclude the feature. Their fans never have to beg for it. They do it because they know their fans love it. I have yet to see Iwata or any Nintendo employee complain about having to do BC.

Yeah, since their new console is old-gen to begin with. they never really upgraded their console so they can ahve BC in there.

*Points to the ever-growing list of old gamess that people still play today*

you mean the ever growing list of old games that noone even knew existed and few (thing less than a hundred) hardcore fan still play? With few exceptions (like starcraft of CS) old games are pretty much dieing all around. yes there is GOG, which has such a small market share that we can ignore it statistically. Escapist is full of older gamers that remember these times, but ecapsit is far form representing average gamer. to pick an exampel whenever i mention the original fallout peopel thing i talk about fallout 3 beucase they dont even know 1 and 2 existed let alone the spinoffs. to them F3 is "too old to be played" already. the amount of people ACTUALLY playing old games are miniscule. we are in a minority my friend. a minority noone cares about.

I estimate that 100% of Microsoft Execs regularly pull statistics out of their asses.

Very likely. 5% is the largest number i saw on this so far. everything else was 1-3%

 

[FalloutJack]

Oh, not again.

Straddy, that wasn't an opinion. I actually researched classic gaming before. It's much stronger than you think. There are even companies that build old consoles or combo-consoles for the old school crowd. It's a market that gets tapped, period. If it wasn't, then stores dedicated for it just couldn't exist. That's simple business economics.

 

[hooglese]

Backwards compatibility doesn't sell? Tell that to intel.

 

[JackyG]

The only thing that depresses me about new consoles coming out in this day and age without it. (Especially with a statement like that) is they make it seem like everything you have up until now is obselete. Are Bioshock Infinite and Mass Effect obselete?

If I want to watch a film from any era I can (I understand that is easier to make happen) from Raging Bull to Inception.

Yeah, if we could just have the ability to play all our games! Without filling my house with fucking consoles... That'd be great.

It's why I switched to the pc. Keep things simpler with my library.

Respect your own legacy, or nobody else will!

 

[Jumpingbean3]

God no wonder WiiU sales shot up over 800% in the UK.

 

[jcfrommars9]

You only rent games, which means that game companies have earned exactly 0 from you, therefore they give zero fucks about what you think.

"Zero fucks"... imaginative. Anyway, the feeling the between game companies and myself on that front is wholly mutual I assure you. But even if I started buying games, I doubt the feeling would change all that much.

 

[Dragonbums]

I will never understand how a feature that is universally liked by gamers everywhere faces so much backlash from Sony and Microsoft.

Do you mean the 5% gamers universally liked? because all researches show that very few gamers actually ever use BC.

Like what is the big deal? We aren't asking you to make BC consoles for games all the way in the Dreamcast era. We are simply asking that at the very least we can play the last console generation of games on the new console.

it woudl be easier to emulate dreamcast than eggsbox3.60 anyway.

Nintendo is the only company that has done that since it's handheld inceptions. Not once did they ever exclude the feature. Their fans never have to beg for it. They do it because they know their fans love it. I have yet to see Iwata or any Nintendo employee complain about having to do BC.

Yeah, since their new console is old-gen to begin with. they never really upgraded their console so they can ahve BC in there.


First off, that 5% is bullshit. Every single person I know utilizes backwards compabitbiilty in some way, shape, or form. Where did they get those statistics from? From some obscure poll? The amount of people clamoring for BC compatibility, and the big deal that many major gaming news sites have about the feature tells me that 5% is a load of bullshit. Except for those that don't like BC anyway.

The WiiU isn't old generation. It is simply less powerful next generation software. Also, how does this invalidate Nintendo in any way, shape, or form?
So what?
Sony didn't want to do it with the PS3 and that was "last gen" software. They even took it out in later models. In fact, since the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, both those companies have practically whined about this feature.