*spin-off* Importance of Backward Compatibility Discussion

[AlphaWolf]

Not only that, but by having your new console BC with the XBLA/PSN titles you have a huge library on day one. With retail at some point most of the games become to difficult to find for purchase anyway whether the console is BC or not, with the online you instantly have a huge library of games available for you at any time...

I don't expect my xbox360 to evaporate when I buy a new box and I'm not buying a new box to play the games that my 360 can already play. The ability to play those games (games designed for a lesser system) doesn't really seem very exciting when dropping $500 on a new toy. I'm sure there's someone out there that would be thrilled to play his copy of Zuma on the next xbox, but that's not why he's buying the box.

How well has BC carried the 3DS through a dearth of new titles?

 

[TheChefO]

I don't expect my xbox360 to evaporate when I buy a new box and I'm not buying a new box to play the games that my 360 can already play. The ability to play those games (games designed for a lesser system) doesn't really seem very exciting when dropping $500 on a new toy. I'm sure there's someone out there that would be thrilled to play his copy of Zuma on the next xbox, but that's not why he's buying the box.

How well has BC carried the 3DS through a dearth of new titles?

While I do agree that BC is not THE reason to buy a new console, it is a very important component going forward.

1) Unlike last gen (or any gen prior) dlc titles are tied to your account. So no matter what happens your account can always call those games,music, & media back to your console. Assuming you have a console to play them. The flip side to that is that you cannot sell the content. Prior gen you could sell your console and games so if the new box wasn't compatible, no big deal. Just sell the box and games and off you go. This gen with DLC, those purchases are tied to your account. If the new box isn't compatible, those purchases are a pure waste unless you plan to stick with your old box and also buy a brand new old box when your old box eventually fails.

2) All of the above leads to the following point. If the new box has no way of playing the (sometimes vast) library of dlc that people have paid for and downloaded this gen, what incentive do consumers have to continue to download and purchase new dlc if they know that the company selling it, will not support it in the future on new boxes?


There is no other medium in the world that closes it's consumers into such rigid boundaries and expects a substantial investment into entertainment only to rinse and repeat every 5 years.

If it were simply retail games and there was no dlc tied to the platform, I'd still say bc is a smart way to give people a reason to migrate from the old box to the new. Give people a reason to be loyal.

But with the age of dlc, I don't see it as much of a choice as the dlc is tied to the platform and user account. The new boxes have to support dlc content, or risk alienating future consumer purchases. And goodluck if one of them (ms, sony) does support dlc BC on their new box while the other doesn't ...

 

[AlphaWolf]

While I do agree that BC is not THE reason to buy a new console, it is a very important component going forward.

1) Unlike last gen (or any gen prior) dlc titles are tied to your account. So no matter what happens your account can always call those games,music, & media back to your console. Assuming you have a console to play them. The flip side to that is that you cannot sell the content. Prior gen you could sell your console and games so if the new box wasn't compatible, no big deal. Just sell the box and games and off you go. This gen with DLC, those purchases are tied to your account. If the new box isn't compatible, those purchases are a pure waste unless you plan to stick with your old box and also buy a brand new old box when your old box eventually fails.

How long do you keep playing your games? I own like 35 xbox360 games, and I've not touched more than 8 of them in the last year. The expectation that you should get something back for DLC I think is probably flawed in the eyes of the developers/manufacturers. The last thing they need is for people to buy a new loss leader to just play some old stuff they bought 5 years ago. They need you to buy new stuff to make the investment in a new box worthwhile, if most people are content to keep whacking away on the games they already have, you're probably better off just delaying your launch.

I don't consider those DLC purchases a waste anymore than I consider the $10 I paid for the last movie I saw as a waste. I enjoyed it and then it was over. MS and Sony have certainly not offered any guarantee of BC on their next boxes as of yet, so I don't see any reason you should expect it if you're buying content today.

2) All of the above leads to the following point. If the new box has no way of playing the (sometimes vast) library of dlc that people have paid for and downloaded this gen, what incentive do consumers have to continue to download and purchase new dlc if they know that the company selling it, will not support it in the future on new boxes?

You download the content because you want to play it now. Most of the DLC is relatively inexpensive, I certainly had no expectation when I purchased that I would be playing it forever. I'm thrilled with a title if I still have the desire to touch it 3 months after I bought it, and that includes $60 releases.

There is no other medium in the world that closes it's consumers into such rigid boundaries and expects a substantial investment into entertainment only to rinse and repeat every 5 years.

If it were simply retail games and there was no dlc tied to the platform, I'd still say bc is a smart way to give people a reason to migrate from the old box to the new. Give people a reason to be loyal.

But with the age of dlc, I don't see it as much of a choice as the dlc is tied to the platform and user account. The new boxes have to support dlc content, or risk alienating future consumer purchases. And goodluck if one of them (ms, sony) does support dlc BC on their new box while the other doesn't ...

Ok, so if you own an xbox and sony offers BC and MS doesn't... how does that affect you? Are you going to jump to Sony because they offer you nothing over what MS does?

I think BC is a small checkbox and nothing more. MS managed to get away with very limited BC this gen (and remember they stopped selling the xbox, I don't expect the 360 will stop for years), I'm sure they can manage the same or less next gen. I don't think DLC has changed that one iota. There are some people that will make use of it and might be swayed by its presence, but the fact is that those aren't the customers you need buying a loss leader. You want people who feel compelled to sink money into new titles to put revenue in your pocket.

Again, if it's easy to support, I'm sure they'll add it; if it's difficult, I wouldn't hold your breath. I see no reason to overreach with the effort. Early adopters will buy for whatever other reason, the people who wait until it's discounted should have a wide array of titles to keep their mind off of the lack of BC.

 

[liolio]

Well in regard to BC and MS especially I really don't think they can pass on it for 2 main reasons:
1)Live is really important to them. I won't give further explanations about why some already did.
2)Image. RroD and xbox anticipated death is really a burden on some market. They can't afford any types of negative feedback when launch.

 

[function]

How well has BC carried the 3DS through a dearth of new titles?

How much more terribly would it have done without it?

Might have been dead on arrival!

 

[rekator]

When I'm changed to new console I'm resale the older, so BC is very important for many gamers, look at the number of players of Halo 2, in the first years of 360…*
And now with the Xbolive Arcade and PSN… It's more and more important. It's where are not BC to all the digital contents I'm purchased… Why I'm going to buy the new box from M$ or Son¥? If all my purchases have no value, why I'm don't go to other fields? Switch to the Others, rego to PC, Big N, Onlive?
BC is a tool to keep gamers.

 

[dlm]

I wonder how old you are? Because this mentality is completely different from mine, and at 27 I'm not that old.

I'd hate it if my MP3 player was not compatible to songs recorded before 2000.
I'd hate it if I couldn't watch The Shining from 1980 on my Blu-ray player just because I didn't keep a VHS around.
And yes, I'd hate it if I could never play Mass Effect again just because Xbox 720 isn't compatible, and with Mass Effect 5 out, who cares about Mass Effect 1, right?

Sorry for replying to an old post, but this was linked recently and I found it interesting.


I think there are some crucial differences between music, games and movies.

The investment required to listen to a song is very low. To listen to an old song that you like and enjoy it takes a few minutes and you can do it anywhere.

A movie can be watched in a couple of hours and is again a largely stateless affair that you can easily pick up having not seen in ages.


Games run the gamet from 10 to 200 hours of investment each. You can't put it on in the background. And in general it's also not sometihng you're likely to do in a social setting. Basically the rate at which games are released is simply way, way faster than the amount of time that it reasonably takes to complete them.


I find for me, my habits reflect that. I listen to old music all the time. Watch old movies occassionally. And replay old games rarely.



EDIT: FWIW, a next-gen console *having* BC would still be a selling point for me. Although I don't replay disk-based games a lot, I dabble in old XBLA and PSN games regularly (Wipeout, GeoWars, SMB, etc).

 

[patsu]

If they are going to launch new consoles in 2012, then it would be great if The Last Guardian can run on PS3 and PS4. ^_^

Those recent F2P games should probably take the launch opportunity to grab some curious gamers.

 

[TheChefO]

Ok, so if you own an xbox and sony offers BC and MS doesn't... how does that affect you? Are you going to jump to Sony because they offer you nothing over what MS does?

For some, I could see this scenario playing out exactly this way. For me (and others) it opens the door to the possibility, as that tie to the platform is gone.

All else being equal, anger may cause some to switch.

All else being equal, some may stay with the same platform.

However, if there is a slight advantage one way or the other, and that tie isn't there to hold customers one way or the other, then they risk losing the initial customer base which then helps shape the marketshare of the console down the road.

It's a dangerous and foolish thing to do away with, especially if having BC isn't a factor which will measurably hold the system back from competing (price, performance, content).

 

[Persistantthug]

Honestly i think there is no way PS4/720 can launch without compatibility to current stuff on XBL/PSN and mostly likely retail games also. If Sony is forced to use Cell they pretty much will.

This needed to be bolded for the profound truth and insight that many seem to miss.

 

[bkilian]

This needed to be bolded for the profound truth and insight that many seem to miss.

I think you guys overestimate the respective company's view of BC. As you can tell from the now completely non-BC PS3, and the fact that there has not been a game added to the BC list on XBox 360 in 3 years, both companies see the feature as a pure cost with very little upside. If they can get away with no BC for the next gen, they will.

Don't think that BC dictate the next gen architecture either. The 360 was a complete architecture change from the xbox, and MS still provided enough BC functionality to enable pretty much all the top selling games.

 

[TheChefO]

I think you guys overestimate the respective company's view of BC. As you can tell from the now completely non-BC PS3, and the fact that there has not been a game added to the BC list on XBox 360 in 3 years, both companies see the feature as a pure cost with very little upside. If they can get away with no BC for the next gen, they will.

Don't think that BC dictate the next gen architecture either. The 360 was a complete architecture change from the xbox, and MS still provided enough BC functionality to enable pretty much all the top selling games.

The MS camp are smart though, and they do realize that if customers are burned by having all the content which was purchased DLC (that is not transferable in any way) essentially turn to garbage by the transition to xb720, then these same customers will either be weary of buying any more content through said means, or will be open to looking across the isle at competing platforms as there would be no tie to said former platform which burned them out of any DLC purchases they made for future entertainment ...

Don't forget, the "HD remake" resell can only be done once.... How many customers will be jumping into StreetFighter2 HD remake720 after already purchasing the HD remake on 360?

 

[AlphaWolf]

I think you guys overestimate the respective company's view of BC. As you can tell from the now completely non-BC PS3, and the fact that there has not been a game added to the BC list on XBox 360 in 3 years, both companies see the feature as a pure cost with very little upside. If they can get away with no BC for the next gen, they will.

Don't think that BC dictate the next gen architecture either. The 360 was a complete architecture change from the xbox, and MS still provided enough BC functionality to enable pretty much all the top selling games.

Well they keep telling me that somehow DLC and xbl/psn makes BC required, although never with any explanation of why. Apparently if you buy something digitally it has to work on every future platform forever. Maybe it's in the small print of the eula's, I never read them.

Seriously tho, I agree with you. I can see how BC would give the appearance of a library for the first year or whatever, but I don't see how that is really going to push early adoption (you don't buy a more expensive box to play games you already own that were released for a platform you already own). Major titles getting ported through emulation or whatever would get the trick done if that's all you want to achieve with BC. I see no reason to hamstring hardware for a feature that's essentially discarded after a year or so. From the 360s perspective I think BC is even less important than 6 years ago as I expect you'll be able to buy 360s well into the next gen.

 

[TheChefO]

Well they keep telling me that somehow DLC and xbl/psn makes BC required, although never with any explanation of why. Apparently if you buy something digitally it has to work on every future platform forever. Maybe it's in the small print of the eula's, I never read them.

Seriously tho, I agree with you. I can see how BC would give the appearance of a library for the first year or whatever, but I don't see how that is really going to push early adoption (you don't buy a more expensive box to play games you already own that were released for a platform you already own). Major titles getting ported through emulation or whatever would get the trick done if that's all you want to achieve with BC. I see no reason to hamstring hardware for a feature that's essentially discarded after a year or so. From the 360s perspective I think BC is even less important than 6 years ago as I expect you'll be able to buy 360s well into the next gen.

Dunno about you, but I still have DVD's from 1998.

I still have Carts and CDs from systems back to the SNES.

Why is BC important? Because items bought through xbl are tied to your account.

You can't trade them, hand them down, sell them, let others borrow them, nothing.

And for some reason, the idea of keeping an xb360 and an xb720 both hooked up and kinect1 along with kinect2 sitting directly on top of it, just doesn't appeal to me.

Call me crazy I suppose.


Also, nextgen hardware without BC will not look good next to nextgen hardware that DOES have BC. I'm not saying they both will ABSOLUTELY have it, but it would be a stupid decision to abandon it without proper cause which offsets the negatives.

In xb1 to xb360, the pros far outweighed the cons for architecture change that broke BC.

PS3, Sony got caught in trying to stuff the Cell into GPU workload and last minute found it to be lacking, so they did what they had to (pros outweighed cons).

For this transition, there is no crazy offshoot hardware which is preventing BC AND there are no alternate crazy exotic hardware options which would tempt changing the architecture while abandoning BC.

BC just makes logical sense for xb720/ps4.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Dunno about you, but I still have DVD's from 1998. I still have Carts and CDs from systems back to the SNES. Why is BC important? Because items bought through xbl are tied to your account. You can't trade them, hand them down, sell them, let others borrow them, nothing. And for some reason, the idea of keeping an xb360 and an xb720 both hooked up and kinect1 along with kinect2 sitting directly on top of it, just doesn't appeal to me. Call me crazy I suppose.

Do those SNES carts play in your xbox? Your inability to resale DLC or live/psn content is by design, it isn't a feature for your benefit.

Also, nextgen hardware without BC will not look good next to nextgen hardware that DOES have BC. I'm not saying they both will ABSOLUTELY have it, but it would be a stupid decision to abandon it without proper cause which offsets the negatives.

Nextgen hardware without x (insert any feature or checkbox here) will not look as good compared to its competitor. If hardware BC has a cost (and it does/will... the fact that Sony have ditched it this gen should be confirmation of that), which feature are you going to remove or reduce to have it?

In xb1 to xb360, the pros far outweighed the cons for architecture change that broke BC.

PS3 Sony got caught in trying to stuff the Cell into GPU workload and last minute found it to be lacking, so they did what they had to (pros outweighed cons).

For this transition, there is no crazy offshoot hardware which is preventing BC AND there are no alternate crazy exotic hardware options which would tempt changing the architecture while abandoning BC.

BC just makes logical sense for xb720/ps4.

Once again you're just transposing your wishes with logic. I don't doubt a software solution like the 360 had, but there's no reason to waste hardware and wind up with a weaker or more expensive solution because of a feature that falls into disuse quickly.

 

[TheChefO]

which feature are you going to remove or reduce to have it?

None.

That's the point.

The architecture of both ps3 and xb360 is scalable.

Cost of BC? Zero.
_______________

In the case of ps3, Sony literally had to have the ps2 chipset in addition to the ps3 chipset. This added cost did nothing for ps3 games as the architecture was so different to ps3 that the hardware (and cost) was there solely for the purpose of playing old ps2 games.

Xb360 had a purely software solution which did incur one cost element on top of the engineering cost which was licensing the nvidia gpu tech for emulation.
_______________

Contrast this with xb720/ps4 potential designs:

Take the Cell, put 4 of them together, viola, ps4 cpu. Then, grab whatever gpu they like and minimal effort will be needed for emulating RSX.

Take the xenon, put 4 of them together for a total of 12 cores and viola, xb720 cpu. The grab the latest ATI GPU which should have minimal problem emulating ATI's prior chip.

Both efforts are low cost as both companies already own the designs of the cpus.

Nextgen the GPU will be leaned on more for gpgpu calculations etc anyway so the cpu "power" is not a major concern.

The above examples are simplified, but essentially, doing just this simple scaling, would result in suitable CPU's for nextgen. Anything more as far as customizations would be icing on the cake.
__________________

As for whether or not my xb360 can play SNES carts, no ... but I can sell, trade, lend, lease, store, or play them whenever I please. One more thing, you don't see SNES carts topping the charts much these days either ... Nor would I expect it in the future...

I fully realize the DLC model, but there is an assumed responsibility with DLC by the platform holder to "take care" of the digital media which was purchased.

And as I said above, as much as they may WANT to, they will have a very difficult time in selling all the same old digital remakes (or HD versions) AGAIN to a userbase that was just screwed out of their prior purchases.

Best case scenario for them is less purchases by the same number of people. Worst case scenario is less purchases by less people.

And what would this sacrifice be for?

 

[AlphaWolf]

None. That's the point. The architecture of both ps3 and xb360 is scalable. Cost of BC? Zero.

The assumption that they can't do better than scaling up the 360/ps3 designs is in error. There is a cost.

 

[Barbarian]

Cost of BC? Zero.

You'll get BC when it's zero cost to the manufacturer not to you!
Sony had the entire PS2 chip inside the PS3 and do you remember how long that lasted?
One can even speculate if they haven't done that in the first place, they might have been in much better shape now ...

 

[TheChefO]

You'll get BC when it's zero cost to the manufacturer not to you!
Sony had the entire PS2 chip inside the PS3 and do you remember how long that lasted?
One can even speculate if they haven't done that in the first place, they might have been in much better shape now ...

There's a reason I try to space my posts a bit, so that it is easier to read and digest the information as it is presented, logically and spaced ...

In the case of ps3, Sony literally had to have the ps2 chipset in addition to the ps3 chipset. This added cost did nothing for ps3 games as the architecture was so different to ps3 that the hardware (and cost) was there solely for the purpose of playing old ps2 games.

Contrast this with xb720/ps4 potential designs:

Take the Cell, put 4 of them together, viola, ps4 cpu. Then, grab whatever gpu they like and minimal effort will be needed for emulating RSX.

Take the xenon, put 4 of them together for a total of 12 cores and viola, xb720 cpu. The grab the latest ATI GPU which should have minimal problem emulating ATI's prior chip.

Both efforts are low cost as both companies already own the designs of the cpus.

The above examples are simplified, but essentially, doing just this simple scaling, would result in suitable CPU's for nextgen. Anything more as far as customizations would be icing on the cake.

 

[Persistantthug]

You'll get BC when it's zero cost to the manufacturer not to you!
Sony had the entire PS2 chip inside the PS3 and do you remember how long that lasted?
One can even speculate if they haven't done that in the first place, they might have been in much better shape now ...

You and others, I fear, aren't quite understanding.....

The PS2 didn't have billions of dollars worth of network that Sony needed to support. Because of that, B/C was an option from PS2 to the PS3.

But now, not only do consumers need this B/C to happen, but so do the developers who support the network with their games.

In order to run many of those games on the PSN, there will need to be either a CELL PROCESSOR inside the PS3, or some sort of upgraded and/or offshoot, something like a CEVO or something.

PSN's very livelyhood and supported confidence requires and dictates that B/C will not be optional for the PS4 like it was for the PS3......it will be mandatory.