The thing is, I'm not going to buy a new console if there's no BC with some additional gfx upgrades (MS actually promised that some time ago but who knows). I'm not an early adopter where it comes to hardware - issues with realiability, high price, small game library etc. I also like replaying my favourite games - I still regulary do that with psx/ps2 titles. Being able to play every console game I own at 1080p - right from the start of next generation - would actually be a huge selling point for me. Not every console title comes out on PC and I don't think the successor to PlayStation 3 will be in a better position to maintain full b.c.(?) That's why I asked.
It would be a shame if all of those great games we play these days were forever 'condemned' to current-gen image quality. I'm not one of those crazy people who can't enjoy themselves because a few lines of pixels are missing... but when you play a game or two on a PC at full HD, you can clearly see the difference.
So now you don't want just BC, but you want the game to actually be better on the new console. Unfortunately, since we allow the developers to set the render target resolution, and the game's textures won't magically upgrade themselves, the games would probably look just about the same. PC games look better because they ship with higher resolution textures and more effects turned on.
I'm not saying it has zero advantages, the fact I can play all the Halo's to date on my 360 is pretty neat, and I've often though it would be cool if they released some sort of anthology of all the Halo titles (1, 2, 3, Reach, soon 4 and Remake, ODST and Wars)in a big boxed set, and it would be neat they'd all be playable on 360.
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BTW I haven't thought about it, but how is BC expected to work on Wii U? If software BC is as bad as bkilian says, I'm guessing they just drop the Wii chipset in there?
MS had to think about BC on the 360 because they were planning on killing the xbox as soon as the 360 released. That won't be true with the next gen. Both MS and Sony are planning on keeping their current gen systems around for years after launching the new ones. Heck, I think you can still buy a PS2. Sony believes it's better for a consumer to reduce the PS3 by $100 and let the users who want PS2 compat buy a PS2 for $100. That way you don't punish all your users for something a minority will use. I also make the assumption that we'll support a heterogeneous Live infrastructure. We're moving to that already with cloud saves and profiles, and multi box logon.
As to Wii U BC, I know very little about it, if it's even supported. If their new CPU is just a quad core extension of the old one, and the GPU can support the same commands, it wouldn't take a lot of work to enable BC.
yes I can use my 360 but I don't think this is what MS wants when they are releasing new hardware,I don't think they want to split their community.
MS has specifically said the 360 will be a 10 year or more product. They're not going to drop support for it as soon as the new one launches. In fact, I'd bet the 360 will sell more consoles after the new one launches than it sold in it's first few years.
Does maintaining b.c automatically equal worse hardware/price issues? From what I understand, the problem with PS2-> PS3 transition was completely unique architecture of both which forced Sony to "put a PS2 in every PS3" and this inflated the price. If the next hardware is more of a natural progression/upgrade of current gen, then 100% software emulation should be more easily achieved, right?
No, what it does is limit choice. If you want full BC (not the "mostly good" version we were forced to go with) you probably want to maintain continuity with your CPU and GPU. If you're forced to only consider, say IBM as a supplier, you're a) at a financial disadvantage the supplier can leverage, and b) forced to not consider other suppliers (AMD, Intel, NVidia, say) that have made huge strides in the last 5 years.
The XBox to Xbox 360 was a big change. x86 to PPC, (Different endian CPU, nightmare for emulation), nVidia to ATI GPU with a significant architecture change (combined shaders, etc). It would have been easier to stick with x86, but they didn't, because at the time it had not proved to be efficient and have the cost-cutting ability of the PPC. current gen x86 though is a different beast, so there might be a shift back. Or perhaps to ARM, which is the rising star in the performance/watt race. A good roadmap for performance/watt is like gold for a console manufacturer, because it means money in the pocket over time.
In the end, it's about business, and the business disadvantages of BC outweigh the advantages over time. BC has an advantage in a short period, but over long periods it does not, especially when the previous console is still selling. When people buy a new console, we _want_ them to buy new games for it, bacause that's where we make our money. We don't get a cent for used game sale, and people playing their old games on the new console (except indirectly through Live subscriptions)
That's not to say any of this will happen. I'm just pointing out that from a rational economics sense, BC can be a hindrance.
There's potential for some serious negative buzz before launch, considering how buch emphasis has been put on digital distribution this gen. Hopefully we won't have to worry about that.
