No Black on 360....yet

[bapenguin]

According to Criterion Studios, XBox 360 gamers won't be seeing an official version of Black on the console. In fact, it's all in Microsoft's hands (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148277).

"The only time you'll see [the BLACK franchise] on the Xbox 360 is when we make BLACK 2 on it in a few years," said Ward. Black isn't the only game that's not backward compatible on Microsoft's Xbox 360. Criterion's Burnout series is currently not, either. And it's not like Ward hasn't asked, saying that he's talked to Microsoft four times to make it happen, but ultimately the decision isn't up to him."
No Blackwards Compatibility....*bu-dum-ching*

[King Chaos]

This is strange news. Why would MS say "no"? I could understand EA saying "no" if the game was coming out for 360 in, say 6 months. But wouldn't it be in Microsofts interest that as many games as possible could be played on their new machine?

[bapenguin]

This is strange news. Why would MS say "no"? I could understand EA saying "no" if the game was coming out for 360 in, say 6 months. But wouldn't it be in Microsofts interest that as many games as possible could be played on their new machine?

I'm guessing they're not saying no, but they're not saying yes. MS is good at beating around the bush instead of giving straight answers.

[MrMeatshake]

why did they even bother with this 'backwards compatability'? - it must be a right headache for them... considering how few titles have compatability, and how new ones are being ignored, i wonder if they'd have just been better off not doing it and focussing on making better games (and actually testing them properly, rather than relying on patches over live).

oh yeah. halo 2.

[MSUStud911]

I expect the decision not to make Burnout backwards compatible has something to do with the fact that Burnout: Revenge is coming to 360 in a couple of weeks. Why let people play $19.99 or $29.99 games when you can force them to buy the $59.99 redux.

As for BLACK, I can't even imagine the justification for not making it backward compatible, unless there is some technical problem.

[Nite_Moogle]

No Blackwards Compatibility....*bu-dum-ching*
You just can't help yourself, can you?

[bapenguin]

You just can't help yourself, can you?

No...I really can't. :D

[BabyJesus]

I sure the process for backward compat isn't easy and involves a decent bit of testing, these things just take time.

[bivith]

Maybe they just simply haven't been able to get them running with decent performance yet.

[ReaverX]

What happened to "new titles being coded to work on 360"? Didn't they say something to that effect before the system launched?

[Royal Fool]

What happened to "new titles being coded to work on 360"? Didn't they say something to that effect before the system launched?

Yeah, I thought so too. Although I believe the systems aren't so similar... maybe it'ts more in the way of "Xbox -> PC, PC -> Xbox 360"... or something to that effect.

[Bumbuliuz]

Half-life 2 was out of the box working with the 360. So why not Black??? Everyone knew Black would be a BIG game.

[The Continental]

Half-life 2 was out of the box working with the 360. So why not Black??? Everyone knew Black would be a BIG game.

Something with that iteration of the Renderware engine perhaps? Aren't Black and the Burnout games both built on Renderware?

[bapenguin]

Something with that iteration of the Renderware engine perhaps? Aren't Black and the Burnout games both built on Renderware?

Does anyone know of any Renderware games working? That might be the holy grail for MS. If they can get that, that's a pretty huge bunch right there.

[Evil Avatar]

I sure the process for backward compat isn't easy and involves a decent bit of testing, these things just take time.

Well, since they have had since before the Xbox 360 launch to get titles like Counter-Strike and DOOM 3 working, don't you think it is about time that they came out with an update? They haven't updated the compatability list since they added the Tom Clancy titles - and I think Penny Arcade has mentioned a couple of times that not all of those titles even work and I know of a couple of other titles that I wouldn't even call "working", though they are on the list.

*cough* Half-Life 2 *cough*

[Magnanimous Gnome]

What happened to "new titles being coded to work on 360"? Didn't they say something to that effect before the system launched?


No, that quote went like this:

"New 360 titles are being coded to work on the 360...well most of them anyway" ;)

[Sensei-X]

You know, I'm 99% sure the publisher has a say as to what and if a game they published is made backwards compatible. I'm pretty sure if anyone it's EA who has said "no" and sent a "polite" letter to MS telling them none of their games are to be made backwards compatible until further notice. Seeing how much of a pain in the ass it was to get EA to implement Live into their games, MS folded like a house of cards just to keep them happy.

[Cyrano]

Sensei-X, what makes you 99% sure? Criterion Studios claims that's not the case. Do you have some other source that makes Criterion out to be a liar?

[Sensei-X]

Sensei-X, what makes you 99% sure? Criterion Studios claims that's not the case. Do you have some other source that makes Criterion out to be a liar?

Criterion is the developer, EA is their publisher and pretty much calls the shots now that Criterion has signed over their souls. Criterion can ask, beg and plead all they want to MS, but EA gets the last say now on their games and if they don't want MS to make their games backwards compatible so they can sell more Xbox 360 versions instead I'm pretty sure MS has to respect their wishes. MS couldn't go around saying, "Well you know we would make Burnout 3 backwards compatible but those evil bastards at EA won't let us" without souring their relationship with EA so they simply turn Criterion down, case closed. Of course there's a very slight chance I might be wrong, but EA is evil and I wouldn't doubt for a second they'd pull that kind of crap on their customers.

[bobbler]

The backwards compatibility is all in MS' hands.

It's all software based (since there isn't any common hardware or instruction sets between the two consoles, really), so every title that doesn't work with their normal standard emulator needs to have it's tricks converted to ones that work on the X360. It's a horrible method, but short of adding an Xbox 1 to the X360 there isn't much they could do, given the situation (since Xbox is actually pretty powerful, and the 360 isn't a colossul jump, relative to what you'd likely normally need for easy raw emulation at least). It's probably a hassle to make sure the titles run perfectly, and I doubt the team has all that many resources or is all that big.

It isn't a matter of MS or EA saying "no, don't make it BC," it's a matter of "we got a few hundred games that still don't work, and we'll get to them when we have time -- hell, half the games that are 'BC' don't work all that well!"

[ChaosDent]

Unless Microsoft has at least partial acess to the code for EA's games their job in optomizing the emulator will be much more difficult. Without written declarations of which system calls are being used they are stuck with a guess and check method through the debugger. In Halo's case, they could use the headers and create an intermediary library or they could just recompile the whole executable.

My guess is that EA is not assisting Microsoft in the effort with any technical details of their games, making the job more difficult. Black may not have a 360 version planned (yet) but I'm guessing that if they handed over the specs for Black, Microsoft would be 80% of the way to getting Burnout 3 and Revenge working too.

I still blame EA.

[bobbler]

You can blame them all you want, but you're likely misdirecting your hate.

[Pumped'Up]

Problem is due to MS not designing from the very beginning, a proper emulator in the 360 for running any XBOX game. It has nothing to do with EA or any other company. MS needed to show some guts at the last minute because the 360 would have been less competitive knowing that the PS3 fully supports bc.

[overdrivechao]

Penny Arcade has mentioned a couple of times that not all of those titles even work and I know of a couple of other titles that I wouldn't even call "working", though they are on the list.

*cough* Half-Life 2 *cough*

I talked to Valve at the behest of an VG audio engineer who kept falling off the map on HL2 while playing on his 360. This is their official quote: "We checked the disc for compatibility by loading it successfully, but did not play test the entire game."

Well, cause that would take effort, right? We had to refund the guy for his purchase. Thx, backwards compatibility list.