Topic: XBox360 Backwards compatibility...

[Artimus]

Quote
Microsoft has cleared up the rumours that were floating about about alleged X-Box & 360 backwards compatibility.

Easlier reports that "some key titles would be backwards compatible" has been exposed as mosly-untrue.

Microsoft tech people have reconfirmed that direct compatibility would be impossible due to hardware conflicts...

Microsoft spokespeople also rules out any form of emulation, explaining that any X-Box games would have to be totally recompiled for the 360.

...

Yes, MS plan to re-release some of this generation's biggest titles in their new format.

http://games.insidepulse.com/articles/37795

[Arbok]

"RUMOR #2: The Xbox 360 won't be backward compatible after all.

Source: British industry news site Gamesindustry.biz.

The official story: See below.

What we heard: Microsoft carefully parsed its words about the Xbox 360's backward compatibility by saying it will be "backward-compatible with top-selling Xbox games." So when Gamesindustry.biz published an article revealing the console's radically different hardware couldn't support current-gen Xbox games, accusation perfidy in Redmond began to fly. "The solution Microsoft has reached is apparently to recompile current-gen Xbox games so that they can be played on the 360," says G'biz. "First on the list, it says, are the best-selling Halo titles." However, Xbox owners were the only ones freaking out. The usually recalcitrant Microsoft bypassed its external public relations company, telling GameSpot directly that, "Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360. You will NOT need to purchase a new 'version.' Your original games will work on Xbox 360." "
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/20/news_6126204.html

Ok, so where does this stand now? Is this old information, new information? Not quite clear on what's right anymore...

[IceCold]

Yes...CLICKY!

The article was published two hours ago, so it's fresh.

Scroll down to last two questions

Quote
BIZ: Okay, I wanted to ask about backwards compatibility. How did Microsoft finally decide to include it, and how exactly does it work because it apparently is only for "top-selling" Xbox games?

PM: So backwards compatibility is simple. No console has ever been fully backwards compatible. PS2 is not fully backwards compatible with PSone games. There are a lot of games... the list of titles is in the hundreds. So backwards compatibility is important early on—very important. We made the decision a year ago that we're going to find a backwards compatibility solution. We have now done that, and now it's a question of how many titles will be the top-selling titles because there's a critical mass. Halo, Halo 2 of course, those types of games. Backwards compatibility is something that's important to us, but eventually it becomes less important when you have a portfolio of games and people can forget about it. Let me tell you a fascinating statistic. At Sega, I had commissioned market research every 90 days... and in March of 2001 we asked how many were actually putting PSone games in their PS2. Five percent. 95% of PS2 owners had not put PSone games in their drives. Does that mean we dismiss that? No. Does that mean we had some of the brightest software engineers in the world building a backwards compatibility engine to make sure those games will work on 360? Yes we have.

BIZ: So essentially, you guys are emulating Xbox on Xbox 360 because you switched GPU providers, right?

PM: You don't need to know the technical details. [laughs] What you need to know is that the top-selling games will work, and as we plow through them all over the next few months, we will start telling you which games. You'll have more details then, but all you need to know is that you put it in there and it plays.

Sounds like he's trying to dodge all of these questions - I don't think they're even close to finalizing it yet

[Ian Sane]

"No console has ever been fully backwards compatible."

Technically that's true but the PS2 and GBA had like maybe 10 games each that didn't work out of hundreds of available titles.  MS is talking about a console where they pick and choose what's backwards compatible.  That's lame and inferior.  Sony and Nintendo didn't do that.  They found a method that worked for 99% of the previous system's games and went with it.  There's was no conscious thought about what games to choose.  The goal was "as close to all of them as possible".

MS is making excuses.  I don't think this will sink them or anything but I think it would just be better for then if they were honest because all this dodging of the issue is just making them look bad.  Nintendo however should totally milk this since they'll have games playable from four past consoles right out of the box.

[jasonditz]

Wasn't the GBC fully backwards compatible? I don't recall any GB titles that didn't work in it.

Or how about the Sega Genesis if you bought the optional "Power Base Convertor"? I think that worked for all of the Master System's (admittedly limited) lineup.

[Grant10k]

Gamespot Article
bit-tech.net article
There is an article on Gamespot, and on bit-tech.net, that talk abit about the x360 and it's backwards compatibility, they also mention that it will be more powerfull than the PS3. And no, they don't explane how they would know that.  

[KDR_11k]

It's more powaful because it's 360, 360 is bigga than 3, durrrr!  

[couchmonkey]

According to joystiq, they're going to be able to do basically all single-layered games, but games on dual-layered DVDs will require patches.  That's actually not too bad.  I'm sure MS will release patches for Halo 2 and any other popular or critically-acclaimed title, and I wouldn't be surprised if some hackers find a way to patch unsupported dual-layer games.

[vudu]

Actually, you're not reading that right.  They're not referring to single-layer DVDs.  From my understanding, it has something to do with texturing.

Check out the comments at this GamesAreFun.com news post for a much better explanation.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Sounds like single/muti layered disc to me, not sure where you got the multi layered-texuring thing from.
I'll go back and read all three and see if I missed something...

edit: bi-tech.net article

Quote
“Emulating the CPU isn’t really a difficult task. They have three 3GHz cores, so emulating one 733MHz chip is pretty easy. The real bottlenecks in the emulation are GPU calls – calls made specifically by games to the Nvidia hardware in a certain way. General GPU instructions are easy to convert – an instruction to draw a triangle in a certain way will be pretty generic. However, it’s the odd cases, the proprietary routines, that will cause hassle.”

After reading that I now see what your were saying about texuring[routines].

[KDR_11k]

NVidia even threatened to sue MS and Ati for patent violation if they just emulated the NVidia chip...

Yes, once you encounter shaders you're f###ed. I'd assume any multiplatform game would work fine as the PS2 has no shaders either but any XBox specific game is probably loaded to the brim with 'em.