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

[timboo_drow]

However, in an attempt to be fair, I'm pretty sure the statement is meant to read more like this...

"If my company were to offer a product that is backwards compatible than, by definition, my COMPANY would be truly backwards in our thinking instead of thinking forward into the shiny future."

Now it is perfectly acceptable to feel an attitude of disdain from MS over even the charitable interpretation of the statement due to the fact that you can still infer the logical next step "if companies that offer BC are truly backwards, then the consumers who want their products must also be backwards". Although to be fair he didn't really implicitly call anyone backwards.

 

[timboo_drow]

This comment will probably fall on deaf ears, but...


PC IS THE WAY TO BE!


I can still play PC games from the 1990's on my "current gen" PC that runs things like GW2, BF3, and so on.


Oh, and why backwards compatibility is important? Look at something like TF2, a game well over 5 years old still being played (and updated) today. If not compatible with the new game systems, the game dies...same for Minecraft. They kill 3rd party games by these restrictions.

I was exclusively a PC gamer back in the late 90s. I fell away from it during the PS2 era because I felt that console games were finally starting to catch up with PCs in offering games that were more epic and complex. Plus I liked the simplicity of simply opening a box, inserting a disc, and playing immediately.

Consoles are becoming overly-complex, bloated with erroneous features, and full of restrictions and bullshit hassles for the consumers. Add to that the fact that every single major console release right now is either a FPS or a sequel / remake, the games on console are becoming samey and boring.

Hell ya I was looking into the price of a decent gaming PC today, I'm ready to switch back.

 

[kaizen2468]

be nice if they'd add a backwards compatible version of the console for a higher price. i'd pay it, no question about it

 

[Imat]

Well of course it doesn't have backwards compatibility, nobody is playing original XBox games anymore. Now I assume the XBox 1 is the spiritual predecessor of the 360, correct? Otherwise why would the 360 be XBox 2pi, while this is XBox 1pi. It just wouldn't make any sense. I'm just waiting for the 360 to get backwards compatibility support for XBox 180 games.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Please. For the love of god. No one buy an Xbox 1 on day 1.

Microsoft needs to learn a lesson, and the only way they'll ever figure it out is if they make big fat zero dollars on launch day.

 

[jabronipieeatin]

this guy obviously hasnt seen the success of psone n ps2 classics on the playstation store....even if the backwards compatible games were downloadable lots of people would still love to play current generation classics on their xbox one

 

[Erttheking]

Maybe there's some statistical evidence to back up his statement.

Doesn't make the guy any less of a **** though.

 

[Smeggs]

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

Microsoft's Don Mattrick reckons only five percent of customers play games from previous generations on their new consoles.

The Xbox One, or "Xbone" as it has now been dubbed by the public, won't be natively backwards compatible with 360 games, disc-based or otherwise. This is a great disappointment to some, especially given that yesterday's announcement event was light on anything even resembling an actual game, but Microsoft's Head of Interactive Entertainment Business, Don Mattrick (whose ruggedly handsome countenance can be seen to the right), isn't bothered.

"If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards," he told the Wall Street Journal.

After dropping that incendiary comment, Mattrick got into the numbers. According to him, only five percent of customers play previous-generation games on new gaming systems. Since the Xbone uses a CPU fundamentally different from the one in the 360, backwards compatibility would require either software emulation (as with the later PS3 models), or a separate set of last-gen hardware in the Xbone box (as with the earlier PS3 models). Given that price is likely to be a huge factor in the coming race, it's easy to see why Microsoft elected to drop backwards compatibility. It's worth noting that Sony has apparently done the same with the upcoming PS4.

So, is backwards compatibility such a huge deal? From a raw, money-driven perspective, it doesn't seem to be. Social media research firm, Fizziology, claims its surveys of potential Xbone customers indicates only 12% would be put off by a lack of backwards compatibility. A greater concern is whether or not we'll be able to play current-gen games a decade or two down the line. The consoles of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras have survived to date mostly because they're solid slabs of circuitry. At consoles get more and more complex, their failure rates have gone up exponentially. The original 360 model is certainly proof of that.

Source: Wall Street Journal [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/05/22/microsoft-and-sony-diverge-on-gaming-cloud/]

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Their numbers are running off of last generation's console, which if memory serves, did not constantly break down, shit themselves, or explode, like the PS3 and 360-mostly the 360-often do. Unlike my PS2, I know I cannot count on the 360 to stick around for years upon years to come, and therefore, yes, I would definitely play last generation's games on a backwards compatible console, because chances are the console I play them on currently will cease to function properly in the following few years, and then all of my current 360 gaming library will be worth nothing to me but taking up space on my shelf.

Hats off to Microsoft for trying to pretend their systems don't have a track record of dying an early death due to faulty craftsmanship.

If he's talking about original Xbox games being downloadable from the Arcade, that's just lunacy. You cannot base numbers of downloads for old games if, like me, people don't want to fork over money to re-buy an old game they already own. I wouldn't download a PS2 game on the Playstation Network just to play it on the PS3 because I have two working PS2's and already have a physical, working copy of the game. If my PS2's both suddenly died, I might buy the PS3 download of it...

...Wait a minute.

Oh, shit, that's Microsoft's plan. They're going to wait awhile, then throw up Platinum Xbox360 Hits on Xbone Live when everyone's 360's finally break down. You sly bastards.

 

[Xangba]

Ok I can understand why some gamers are having a fuss, (this is the group that think mass effect is there IP after all...)

But honesty why is this a problem, out side of the really old games and old consoles?

Its not like the Xbox 360 will be pema shut off or crumble to dust once the Xbox 1 comes out.

No it will be still there and still working, unless you got a faulty model or take poor care of it.

So in order to play your old games, wait for digital versions to come out or play it on the old console.

Note that I am not saying anything about Sony or the Wii, since I don't have those consoles.

But, why is this such a big deal, no consoles new hardware means that older games have problems running, if at all. How many games on the Xbox 360 will be able to run perfectly on the new Xbox 1? I doubt a good amount, nor many from the original Xbox.

And lastly, I think this is what he means by backwards. If you play older games and not the newer ones, then why do you need the new console if you have a working current one? And why are you continue to player the older games repeatable instead of trying out newer games? Its simply a matter of playing older games on a new console instead of using the new console for new games and the old console for old games.

And its not like consoles are that hard to use. Plug in or swap out for different generations to play different games

Can we stop all this bitching please? It getting old and ridiculous.

Alright from the top of the list:

Shut off instantly? No. But slowly servers will go down, support will go down, and games will stop being released for it.

Seeing as you are talking about a 360 it is pretty bold to claim it will be perfectly fine unless you treat it like crap

"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?

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.

And lastly why am I playing older games on a new console? Because believe it or not there's some really good games out. Not every game gets a sequel on the new console, and not every sequel is better. I own Shogun 2 and still like to launch up Rome, Medieval 2, and Empire. So am I backwards for enjoying the differences in them? Or am I backwards for playing the new ones since I enjoy the old ones? Maybe I'm backwards because I think a game console should focus on games, and not my freaking T.V. I already have a cable box.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

It'd also make the system much more interesting for people switching from the other consoles or even getting fresh into the whole console gaming thing. Take the WiiU for example and the mess it is currently in... backwards compatibility would have made the library problems much less severe. It'd allow customers to get instantly into franchises that might release a new game in 3 months, especially xbox exclusive ones.

But the WiiU DOES have backwards compatibility. The problem for them is that people don't even realize that it's a whole new console!

 

[Bullfrog1983]

I don't really care if the next one is backwards compatible because they would probably fuck it up worse than they did with the Xbox 360 which made a lot of my games incompatible. In any case that is a catastrophically stupid thing for someone to say.

 

[Olrod]

While I kind of disagree in the way the exec said it, I certainly fall into the large majority mentioned. Once I get a shiny, new toy, my old toys seem less shiny. I had a backwards compatible PS3. You know how many PS2 games I played on it? Zero.

Is backwards compatibility a neat feature? Sure, but it's far from a deal-breaker for me if the system is without it.

Do you know how many Playstation 2 games I would have played if I'd had a backwards-compatible PS3?

All of them.

 

[mysecondlife]

Oh this is just wonderful. Keep going...

 

[Reyold]

That statement was so incredibly inane, idiotic, and so hopelessly out of touch with reality, I don't know what else to say.

Except that someone's probably going to be joining Adam Orth very soon...

 

[Jodan]

this is bolshizm when the ps3 cam out i only played ps2 and 1 games on it for about a year and a half because there were very few good games on launch and i was still waiting for my bank account to catch up to the price of the new generations games.
additionally. there is nothing wrong with the old games whats wrong is this idea that we need to upgrade to somehting different every five years. a PC is still a PC ten years down the line you can make it better but you dont need a new product.
this allong with the HDTV being nessisary means i'll skip this noise

 

[Terramax]

Like, seriously, I could be a better spokes person for games companies than what people at Nintendo, MS and Sony hire. I'm in the wrong job.

Honestly, why would you think of saying that without knowing full well it's not going to go down well with the public?

 

[likalaruku]

On a console it doesn't bother me, since I can buy an old gen console on the cheap. But someone out there has very limited space for multiple consoles, & it will give him a limp Xboner. (I know...I shouldn't have...but I couldn't resist).

However, the backwards compatibility of the Nintendo 3DS was a serious boon for me. Think about it...You have backwards compatibility, you can continue to sell & make profit off of old games.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

Congratulations Mr. Mattrick, you just kicked up a hornet's nest.

This should be an interesting show.

I mean how much of dumb-a** can some one be??

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

"If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards."

Not pictured: Don Mattrick high-fiving himself.

 

[senordesol]

These guys seem to think that their customers actually work for them...like employees. That whatever bullshit they want to drizzle down our collective throats, we have to take...because...um...because! After all, what are you going to do? *Not* get it?