*spin-off* Importance of Backward Compatibility Discussion

If MS had this BC from the start, perhaps they could have stemmed some of the 40% or so conversion rate from 360 to PS4.

Being able to keep playing on Live with your 360 buddies was always something I was in favour of. As things stand, I think the largest possible impact for this feature has been missed.

Still amazed that they've managed to pull it off though. Seriously, first people said the 360 would never be able to emulate the different-endian OoO Celeron and now this. MS have some really, really smart people ....
 
I believe the actual quote from Sony was something like 40% of ps4 owners weren't ps3 owners. Which people then take to mean they all must be ex 360 owners.

I think x1 launch issues were numerous, regardless of how much was real or perceived. How much difference this would've made, probably not much in that climate.
 
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the people who upgraded did so for the new games and everything that people say in this thread is the reason they think bc is unimportant.
the people who are resisting, are the ones who will probably be more swayed by it having bc to stay with xbox.

people are lumping all gamers/console owners together, when there's probably a few different categories they fall into.
 
function said:
If MS had this BC from the start, perhaps they could have stemmed some of the 40% or so conversion rate from 360 to PS4.
Click to expand...

I think the $499 mandatory kinect had more to do with that, nevermind word-of-mouth weaker HW.
 
Around 40% of PS4 owners didn't own a PS3.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...ers-that-didn_2700_t-own-a-playstation-3.aspx

Some will be new to consoles, some PS3 owners will have left gaming or moved on to tablets or PC or whatever. Two or three of them might even have switched to Xbox One. Whatever, it completely shoots down the idea that great PS4 sales are simply down to PS3 owners upgrading faster.

Some of that 40% are lost Xbox 360 owners. How many? A good chunk. Total dollar spending on consoles hasn't increased enough to suggest an influx of new customers remotely that large.

MS are bleeding customers to Sony. High price and lower power are no doubt factors, but the reason MS have introduced BC is to aid them in customer retention.

[Edit]Do NOT Suck my stats! They do not stand up to rigorous evaluation, and may taste slightly off![/Edit]
 
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MS really screwed the pooch, no doubt about it. I'm just amazed they could have missed the mark so badly.
 
@function
I'm not going to go into making up stats that I think it could be, as yours sounds very reasonable, but in saying that someone else could come up with their breakdown and it could be different but just as reasonable to me.
The only thing I know is what Sony said and that was 40% wasn't previous ps3 owners, whatever that make up may be, whether that's 39.9, 30%, or 35% x360 owners I have no idea.

Where that 40% comes into this bc discussion is if it was possible to make a ps3 emu for ps4 if it would be worth it or not.

What I do believe is that software sales on ps3 is pretty small now, so maybe those owners wouldn't buy games even if they did upgrade so aren't such a big deal to Sony, given how well theps4 is selling.
Where as x360 sales seem to be larger and worth MS trying to get them to upgrade to x1.

Yours, MS(from what I heard them say), and mine about them doing it to get x360 owners to upgrade to x1 align though.

Edit : Maybe MS will come out and say 50% of x1 sales are to people that never had a x360 lol
 
NRP said:
MS really screwed the pooch, no doubt about it. I'm just amazed they could have missed the mark so badly.
Click to expand...

Why? It seems like a common occurrence in the console space. Screwing the pooch, has happened to every single console manufacturer in history.
 
http://recode.net/2014/08/20/nielsen-one-third-of-playstation-4-owners-switched-from-xbox-or-wii/

Nielsen survey performed during 4/2014 showed that 31% of the PS4 owners owned a 360 or Wii but not a PS3. 17% of PS4 owners did not own a previous gen console according to the survey.

Caveat: The survey was asking about current ownership at the time of the survey not whether a PS3/360/Wii had been previously owned, which may be misleading as some PS4 owners may have traded in their PS3s/360s/Wiis for a PS4, had a PS3/360/Wii that died or for some other reason owned a PS3/360/Wii and ditched it before the survey.
 
Had backwards compatibility been announced from the start, I probably would have stayed with Xbox. But since then, I've given my Xbox and games away (to family) so at this point it doesn't matter except for the few digital purchases I made on Live. Too bad.
 
McHuj said:
Had backwards compatibility been announced from the start, I probably would have stayed with Xbox. But since then, I've given my Xbox and games away (to family) so at this point it doesn't matter except for the few digital purchases I made on Live. Too bad.
Click to expand...

Yeah, MS have missed some of the window for optimal leverage of BC. I wonder what proportional of early adopters have a bit of that collector streak in them?

According to, I think it was (((interference))), MS were looking in to BC and then gave up in 2013 or earlier. We know from dev comments here that working on software BC is very expensive and if you aren't even sure you can pull it off ...

It wasn't until Phil "I believe in" Spencer took the helm that there was any indication that they were "looking in to" BC (again?). Perhaps if Spencer had been in charge from early on things would have looked different on the BC front.
 
Wow, it's fun in here today. Shouldn't all of this talk be in the sales thread?

I think it's absolutely certain that quite a number of 360 owners have migrated to PS4, everything backs this up. If we take the home territory of Xbox, the swing from Xbox to Playstation this generation in sales is significant, then we can consider that Sony have themselves stated that a number of people have come from Xbox (I'm one of them), then there's the survey that suggests as much. Whether or not it's a 10% proportion of PS4 owners or more, is something none of us can know. I doubt even Microsoft or Sony know either, unless they're able to share (no chance) their own stats with each other. I'd go as far as to say that the number is substantial and relevant.

One thing's for sure; Microsoft are concerned about the conversion from 360 to PS4 hence why they're giving 360 owners reasons to stick. Backwards compatibility being one of them. They know that a proportion of last-gen owners are waiting to upgrade and they want to give as many reasons as possible to stick with the Xbox brand. The longer it's left without action, the more people will continue to migrate (greater number of friends on the opposing system, etc.)
 
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ThePissartist said:
One thing's for sure; Microsoft are concerned about the conversion from 360 to PS4 hence why they're giving 360 owners reasons to stick. Backwards compatibility being one of them. They know that a proportion of last-gen owners are waiting to upgrade and they want to give as many reasons as possible to stick with the Xbox brand. The longer it's left without action, the more people will continue to migrate (greater number of friends on the opposing system, etc.)
Click to expand...

I see things the same way. And even if they don't share with the public, MS will be able to get high quality data on how BC is used.

This Christmas will be a goldmine of information for them. Is it going to be 360 owners migrating to the Xbox one and playing games offline and only there (looking for migration of primary device for account); is it 360 users migrating to Xbox One and continuing to play with 360 owning friends; are we going to see hand-me-down 360 continuing to be used at the same (IP) address with co-op gaming and a shared pool of games; or are we going to see BC simply never getting used in practice (I hope not).

I don't expect it to be significant (at least at first), but I really, really hope to see over time at least some Xbox One owners (especially people new to Xbox entirely) beginning to dip into the 360 back-catalogue in a way that PC game stores like Steam and GoG have made super easy and super successful on the PC. It might be a slow burn, but going forwards I think this could add a lot of value to a console platform in the same way it has for the PC.
 
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