X360 backwards Compatibility Update *UPDATE*

[Norse]

Through the Gamescore Blog (http://gamerscoreblog.com) Microsoft informs us that there is a new update for the X360's backwards compatibility on its way:

Lots of talk about backwards compatibility online today. We wanted to get to the bottom of it all, so we went right to the team working on the next back compat update. We hear directly from them that they're in the testing phase of another update, and it should be out in the next few weeks. We saw the list they're testing, and it looks like they're hoping to add at least a dozen titles.

Update: Just got a response from the PR folks. They wanted to make sure I passed this message along: We recognize that backward compatibility is important to gamers, and you can rest assured we're not done yet.

Head on over here (http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2006/06/01/535135.aspx) for the rest.

[bapenguin]

Oh boy...a dozen.

[Savok]

This "dozen", how much of it will be shovelware?

[Norse]

This "dozen", how much of it will be shovelware?

Approx. a dozen I would guess....

[Morratut]

I reckon MS will keep chipping away at this for a while adding titles here and there. Until we finally have enough 360 games to finally forget the oldies :D

I know there is some classics out there in the Xbox library but as time goes on BC becomes less important I think. To me the only games i play from Xbox are Halo 2 and NG.

I think Pyschonauts is a big must from what i've heard around here.

[Gel214th]

I want Mercenaries .
0_0
*puts Mercenaries placard in air*

[Johan]

I've got too many games that I want to see on the BC list eventually ...I wish they had been a bit more honest and pessimistic in their BC pronouncements from the start of the 360, so that I (and others) hadn't built up such expectations.

And I wish MS and the other console makers actually gave a hoot about consumers and developers, rather than rushing this generation and killing off the Xbox so quickly.

[Heretic Machine]

I love how the backwards compatability guys are appearently oblivious to the fact that they are being fired. I mean, isn't that essentially what Peter Moore said? He said that no one is interested in what they do, and that they had produced enough.

Someone should tell these guys to start looking for a job. Preferably somewhere where they won't be under the command of a man who helped kill Sega.

[bapenguin]

I'm beginning to wonder if they are just having such a hard time technically that they've basically hit a wall. At first they were probably banging out like 5-10 titles a day. And so they though, this isn't so bad, we should be able to get through the library of 700+ games in a few months. Then they probably hit a wall and now it's just been painstakingly slow.

They should have just licensed the tech from NVidia and then sold that separately. Or better yet included it with the overpriced hard drive to recoup the costs.

[agentgray]

12?

Thank you, Microsoft, for under-promising and over-delivering!

12!

My guess is that in the money they saved in switching over to a different chipset they've already lost in trying to get Xbox 180 games to work.

[Sparky]

On the subject of B/C, I would say that it is obvious from Peter Moore's comments that it wasn't and never will be a priority for them, so probably that 'division' is understaffed, underfunded, and inconsequential. That and add to to the fact they have *ALREADY* quietly stopped production of the original XB HW (it's true), and it is pretty clear to see where they were planning on going with all of this...

[bapenguin]

12?

Thank you, Microsoft, for under-promising and over-delivering!

12!

My guess is that in the money they saved in switching over to a different chipset they've already lost in trying to get Xbox 180 games to work.

Well, according to Moore BC was all but done. So we should have expected 0 updates. And now we'll have 12. That's how you PR spin a 12 title BC list as Overdelivering! ;)

[Entropy Effect]

I think Pyschonauts is a big must from what i've heard around here.

It definitely is for me. I started playing Psychonauts on my original Xbox in March, then kind of put it on hold when I got a 360, figuring I would play it when they added backwards compatibility for it. THEN I got impatient and went back to continue on my original Xbox only to find that it is now dead.

Wasn't Microsoft originally supposed to publish Psychonauts? Maybe there is some bad blood there or something.

[MrMeatshake]

12?

Thank you, Microsoft, for under-promising and over-delivering!
so, i wasn't the only person slightly miffed at this marketing, well, lie? good.

[Savok]

Dude, there's a massive thead on it

[Food Nipple]

I have yet to play a "backwards compatible" game that didn't have game ruining problems. Halo 2 turns into a slideshow on the map Backwash, plus in a completely unrelated glitch the skyscape of Backwash sometimes gets superimposed over the entire screen on other MP maps, making it a pain in the ass to see.

In Half-Life 2, I got stuck on the cart level because the car's collision detection fails at one checkpoint and the damn thing just falls through the level, making it impossible to finish.

If you thought Splinter Cell: CT's multiplayer was buggy before, just try it on a 360. The active camoflauge suit has a bright green outline around it, making you more visible than if you weren't wearing it. Plus, it seems like I can't play more than 3 games before some bizarre glitch boots me from the game. I get stuck hacking a control panel and the timer on the screen reaches zero and then starts going into the negatives.

I just gave up trying to play Black on my 360, every time it loads this one certain level, the screen dims and it's impossible to see what's going on. Interestingly enough, bringing up the guide actually brightens the screen back to where it should be. In a stroke of genius, I brought up the guide during the load screen, which dimmed the game in the background, and when the level loaded I exited the guide and the screen was the proper brightness. Too bad I ran into a glitch when changing weapons and I was stuck with no weapon drawn and forced to die and start the level over again.

If they're adding 12 more names to the list, I could care less because in my experience 0 xbox games function on the 360.

[Trashie]

I just gave up trying to play Black on my 360, every time it loads this one certain level, the screen dims and it's impossible to see what's going on. Interestingly enough, bringing up the guide actually brightens the screen back to where it should be. In a stroke of genius, I brought up the guide during the load screen, which dimmed the game in the background, and when the level loaded I exited the guide and the screen was the proper brightness. Too bad I ran into a glitch when changing weapons and I was stuck with no weapon drawn and forced to die and start the level over again.
Ran into that problem with Black once. Never came up again. Played the rest of the game just fine.

The game I really want to see out on the BC list is Dreamfall. But in all honesty, there aren't a bunch of old titles I'm looking to play again.

[Finster]

Panzer Dragoon Orta
JSRF
NFL 2k5

Where's the BC love for Sega, man?

[jadkins555]

They should have just licensed the tech from NVidia and then sold that separately. Or better yet included it with the overpriced hard drive to recoup the costs.

Could it have been that simple? If so, then I am extremely pissed at Microsoft.

[motor]

They should have just licensed the tech from NVidia and then sold that separately. Or better yet included it with the overpriced hard drive to recoup the costs.

Bap, you always seem to have good inside info. You should know just how pissed NVidia was at Microsoft when they switched. They probably wouldn't have licensed it to them for anything less then a $100 a pop.

[absolut taco]

If they're adding 12 more names to the list, I could care less because in my experience 0 xbox games function on the 360.
I played through Splinter Cell Pandora and Halo 2, but only in single player. Aside from some small frame rate issues with Halo, they ran great. Never crashed my 360, which is more than I can say for PGR3, GRAW and Cod2...

[balamoor]

So I guess there is no hope for MA or MA II, considering MS has killed the franchise. Theres always Chromehounds and Exsteel I guess.

[ruprect]

It definitely is for me. I started playing Psychonauts on my original Xbox in March, then kind of put it on hold when I got a 360, figuring I would play it when they added backwards compatibility for it. THEN I got impatient and went back to continue on my original Xbox only to find that it is now dead.

Wasn't Microsoft originally supposed to publish Psychonauts? Maybe there is some bad blood there or something.

They were going to and I think they dropped it because they did some research and realized it just wouldn't sell much. As much as I love the game, it turns out they were right. Even though it was singled out by many critics and praised for originality, it didn't sell well.

"According to the most recent NPD figures, Psychonauts has moved nearly 51,000 copies on the Xbox, not quite 23,000 on the PlayStation 2, and a little more than 12,000 on the PC. "
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/news/story.php?sid=6141519&page=4

Hate to say it, but if I were the manager of BC for 360 and I saw those numbers, it wouldn't be that high on my list. Then again, Barbie wouldn't either. . .

[Roc Ingersol]

Until they've got Psychonauts and Mercenaries, their compat list sucks balls.

You can't just look at units sold and say 'lets make this compatible'. People who bought those big number piles of shit like Brute Force aren't gonna be that eager to play em again. You've gotta weight it based on what people actually care about.

And it's pretty dodgy to justify MS bailing on Psychonauts with the sales numbers. I mean, that's what they sold with 'whisper and a prayer' marketing. MS Games has routinely sold 100s of thousands of copies of shiny turds by sheer force of marketing will. If they'd have so much as tried, I'm certain Psychonauts would've broken 200k units on the xbox alone. Wouldn't have been a big money-maker itself, but that property had franchise written all over it.

Psychonauts 2 would've cleaned up. Hell, probably still would.

[Atorak]

NCAA Football 2006 plz k thnx bye.

[zsears]

I love how the backwards compatability guys are appearently oblivious to the fact that they are being fired. I mean, isn't that essentially what Peter Moore said? He said that no one is interested in what they do, and that they had produced enough.

Someone should tell these guys to start looking for a job. Preferably somewhere where they won't be under the command of a man who helped kill Sega.
I doubt they will be fired; they will probably just move on to some other task. I don't think that Peter Moore had as much to do with Sega's death as the Sony hype machine did.

[gojira]

I'm beginning to wonder if they are just having such a hard time technically that they've basically hit a wall. At first they were probably banging out like 5-10 titles a day.

Yes.

The technical problem they are having is not paying enough people to work on this. People need to complain more. We were promised near 100% compatibility and the 360 is still a long way from that.

I'm not anti-Microsoft or anti-Sony, I'm pro-consumer. The only way to counter this kinda of bait-and-switch is through constant preassure from consumers. All companies need to be held accountable for the promised quality and features of everything they make, all the way from computer games (for both PC and console) right up to cars and houses.

If they aren't we will all be living in, driving and playing the equivalent of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor.

[51|RandoM]

I don't think it is a matter of programming effort at this point. I think it is more of a case of, "we just can't do some things in emulation that we thought we could." Typically those sorts of things that don't emulate well are the same sort of tricks that made the original game cool in the first place.

I think that is why the games that end up on the BC list don't seem to make any sense from the PoV of most people on this site. They're not picking games that they want to be BC, they're picking the games that actually are.

[BabyJesus]

I don't think it is a matter of programming effort at this point. I think it is more of a case of, "we just can't do some things in emulation that we thought we could." Typically those sorts of things that don't emulate well are the same sort of tricks that made the original game cool in the first place.

I think that is why the games that end up on the BC list don't seem to make any sense from the PoV of most people on this site. They're not picking games that they want to be BC, they're picking the games that actually are.


Sorry, from my standpoint, if they can emu Splinter Cell and some of the others(like Halo 2) that certainly used some pretty heavy tricks to run, they should be able to emu just about everything.

On a side note, I stuck an old disk ffrom OXM in there once when I got my 360, or maybe one of the emu'd games that had some demos on(can't remember) it and I ran some of the demos even when it wasn't on the list.

I think there are some more behind the scenes things happening that is causing some games not to be included Madden 06 is one instance where I think EA is telling MS no backwards compat because they want people to buy the 360 version.

[Heretic Machine]

I know they are holding many games back because those games are getting sequels. X-men Legends I/II, why aren't they on the list? Because Marvel Ultimate Alliance is coming to the 360. Why isn't Destroy All Humans on the list? Because Destroy All Humans 2 is coming to the 360. Why isn't Spider-man 2 or Ultimate Spider-man on the list? Because next year there will be a Spider-man 3 tie-in. Why isn't DoA: U or DoA: XVB on the list? Because of DoA4 and DoA: XVB2.

I mean really, how hard would it be to emulate either of the two DoA games I listed if you already have DoA3 running on the 360? Wouldn't you WANT to try to emulate the Spider-man games, since they are two games running on the same engine? Same thing goes for X-men Legends.

I really don't get the situation with Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds. It was based on the same engine as several other games (including the first Buffy game, which was far superior), why aren't those games on the list since they have Chaos Bleeds running?

[Thenetcase]

Wow you guys are full of shit. You can't get over the fact that no other company in the world goes to as much trouble to appease their public as Microsoft.
I'm not what you'd call a MS fan boy, but you guys seriously need to cut the bastards some slack. They're doing a remarkable job. I find it surprising they can even get the XBox games to run on the 360 at all (but then again, most of you numbnuts have never seen a dev kit and don't know all the differences between the two).

Oh well... I just had to let loose with that. It's just pure BS that you people can't get over your prejudice.

Don't bother responding to me either... I'm not following this post and will not follow it. Don't have time.

-TNC-

[Savok]

You're from Bizzaro Earth aren't you TNC.

[mister_slim]

No, he's required to disagree with everyone else or he has to change his title.