Utility of Backwards Compatibility

iroboto said:
snip...

That being said if destiny 2 starts with this generation and continues right through next gen, I better not be asked to buy another copy just to keep playing on the newer console. And we can say this for overwatch or division, sea of thieves and any other open world chapter/expansion type of game.
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I still feel that this is a somewhat unreasonable expectation.

I mean, I'm totally with you that it would be nice from a consumer standpoint, but I would consider that to be more of a "free lunch" than anything else. Certainly not something I'd expect.

Even with games like Destiny, the mere fact that Destiny is getting a numbered sequel rather than just being updated with new content and mechanical tweaks ad infinitum, makes me be strongly of the opinion that the whole "games as a service" thing is really barely any different than "online multiplayer-based game with regular planned DLC updates"... I feel as if the difference is in semantics only, to the extent that I'll temper my expectations accordingly.

When next-gen comes, I would not only expect but prefer that Bungie do a new numbered sequel for new-gen, tailored to the increase in hw performance available. If I wanna continue playing the Division I'll leave my PS4 plugged in, if PS5 isn't BC. And if it is, great!
 
Prophecy2k said:
I still feel that this is a somewhat unreasonable expectation.

I mean, I'm totally with you that it would be nice from a consumer standpoint, but I would consider that to be more of a "free lunch" than anything else. Certainly not something I'd expect.

Even with games like Destiny, the mere fact that Destiny is getting a numbered sequel rather than just being updated with new content and mechanical tweaks ad infinitum, makes me be strongly of the opinion that the whole "games as a service" thing is really barely any different than "online multiplayer-based game with regular planned DLC updates"... I feel as if the difference is in semantics only, to the extent that I'll temper my expectations accordingly.

When next-gen comes, I would not only expect but prefer that Bungie do a new numbered sequel for new-gen, tailored to the increase in hw performance available. If I wanna continue playing the Division I'll leave my PS4 plugged in, if PS5 isn't BC. And if it is, great!
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I think your points are valid but removing the equation of being reasonable seems to lie more on whether or not This idea of keeping games alive for significantly longer is something people are used to. With hardware being closely the same, one has to question the difficulty of BC. But really one has to ask whether having BC is a worse
Solution than no BC. Or rather, how is a larger library worse than a smaller one. I cannot see a way that is possible.

I see no reason for games to end as long as they are supported. Certainly in this day of age, a generation shift should not resort to the end of a large community, or split one either. It's why we continue to see such massive communities in counter strike, dota, runescape, lol, day z, arma, wow, eve online etc.
 
I'm not arguing that BC isn't worth pursuing for platform holders for their next-gen consoles as a value add. Rather that I'm not going to care all that much if PS5 and XB2 don't include BC for whatever reason.

I would HOPE that BC is easier, with the similarities in CPU/GPU architecture. And even limited BC on a select number of games would be better than no BC. But i'm prepared for an eventuality where the next-gen consoles simply aren't powerful enough to enable full BC through emulation.
 
Been doing some math using official data from Microsoft and Sony... and the 1,5% usage on backwards compatibility from arstechnica study seems about right.

In November 2016 Major Nelson refered (official numbers) a peak usage of 210 million hours per year spent on backwards compatibility.
Now Sony has claimed PS4 users spend 50000 years per week playing on their consoles.

Placing both data on the same units, we have:

Weeks in year: 52.177457

So 210 000 000 hours per year = 4 024 726,617 090 595 hours per week. A rounded figure of about 4 million hours per week.

Now 50 000 years per week, with a year having 365 days, each with 24 hours equals 438 000 000 hours per week. Thats 438 million hours per week.

Since the average user base of Xbox One is about half the PS4, and considering they use the console as much as PS4 users, we have 219 000 000 hours per week spent on gaming on Xbox...

That means that 4 million hours is about 1.8% usage. A number very near the 1.5% stated by the study, meaning he should be just about right.
 
Prophecy2k said:
I'm not arguing that BC isn't worth pursuing for platform holders for their next-gen consoles as a value add. Rather that I'm not going to care all that much if PS5 and XB2 don't include BC for whatever reason.

I would HOPE that BC is easier, with the similarities in CPU/GPU architecture. And even limited BC on a select number of games would be better than no BC. But i'm prepared for an eventuality where the next-gen consoles simply aren't powerful enough to enable full BC through emulation.
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From the sounds of it your opinion on this topic is subject to change depending if you found a game and community you didn't want to go away then :)

For myself, I played WoW and CS, SC for a hell of a long time. With WoW, even blizzard scrapped their next MMO. They just could not possibly replicate the number of hours used to create all the content available in WoW even though for he most part few players were playing those areas anymore.

There's something to be said about having the best graphics and hardware and designing a game around that, and then there is something to be said about in this case games as a service where they built content for a game for 7+ years. It's much harder to replicate that. Games have always been driving towards more immersion, and this has always been the case for a majority of titles. But there are others games that go for quality and quantity of content which provides a completely different type of immersion, this type of thing at least imo is built over years.

I think the biggest difference between last gen and now, is that we can patch games, we're used to patched games, we're used to episodic content. It would be a major miss to continue a traditional model in a modern world. I'm not expecting PS5 to support BC, but that would be my requirement to buy in. I feel like MS is going to go that route, there's also no guarantee, but their work towards abstraction might be able to keep them on that path, I don't know.

But I do know, we need to stop looking at the console game model like it's 1982, we had DLC all last year and this year. It's time to move to the next stage (closer to PC gaming) which is games persisting through to newer hardware.
 
iroboto said:
From the sounds of it your opinion on this topic is subject to change depending if you found a game and community you didn't want to go away then :)

For myself, I played WoW and CS, SC for a hell of a long time. With WoW, even blizzard scrapped their next MMO. They just could not possibly replicate the number of hours used to create all the content available in WoW even though for he most part few players were playing those areas anymore.

There's something to be said about having the best graphics and hardware and designing a game around that, and then there is something to be said about in this case games as a service where they built content for a game for 7+ years. It's much harder to replicate that. Games have always been driving towards more immersion, and this has always been the case for a majority of titles. But there are others games that go for quality and quantity of content which provides a completely different type of immersion, this type of thing at least imo is built over years.

I think the biggest difference between last gen and now, is that we can patch games, we're used to patched games, we're used to episodic content. It would be a major miss to continue a traditional model in a modern world. I'm not expecting PS5 to support BC, but that would be my requirement to buy in. I feel like MS is going to go that route, there's also no guarantee, but their work towards abstraction might be able to keep them on that path, I don't know.

But I do know, we need to stop looking at the console game model like it's 1982, we had DLC all last year and this year. It's time to move to the next stage (closer to PC gaming) which is games persisting through to newer hardware.
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Nah, i think my opinion on the subject is pretty static. I see value in BC, but the majority of that value is in the convenience of having all of your existing library in one place. But that convenience isn't really a deal breaker for me.

For me, the way I see it, consoles are devices whose primary benefits are as follows:
- fixed hw platform
- software designed to take full advantage of that hw
- price/power ratio
- ease of use

Further abstraction of software and/or modification of the hardware in order to enable Backwards Compatibility, is not free, and will compromise the above to differing degrees depending on the implementation. Depending on the magnitude of that compromise, I feel it's most likely a sacrifice I wouldn't be willing to make for the sake of mere convenience.

With the more recent approaches to providing access to legacy games, through remasters and streaming options like PS Now, I'd be quite happy to accommodate those as alternatives to native BC, provided the above list of console benefits aren't compromised.

For me, it's not about seeing consoles through the lens of a dated business model, it's about seeing consoles as consoles and treating them as such. I don't want consoles to become more like PCs. Sure some "PC-like" benefits have been a real boon to console gaming, but other aspects also have compromised what I and I would suspect many others value about consoles.

In terms of GaaS and titles that are played across multiple generations, I honestly don't have any strong feelings either way. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED Destiny, the Division and I'm sure Wildlands is great too, but a console generation is a very long time (e.g. 5-7 years) and I honestly can't play a game for that long on a console. I eventually got bored of Destiny and the Division, because other games came out that I wanted to play and I got on those games and never went back afterwards.

The only GaaS game I've probably played for that long is likely Elite Dangerous, and that essentially consisted of and endless cycle of hope and anticipation for the next big update (that takes forever to arrive) and then rueful disappointment. And the community around that game is so toxic, elitist and just plain downright unwelcoming, that I avoid them like the plague.

I get that gaming communities often form around games and want to be able to play those games and see them supported forever, in which case I feel that the PC exists and is the default platform for it. Consoles don't really need to become PCs in order to facilitate that. But if they can do it without compromising on the core benefits that console inherently provide, then... well... that's a nice bonus. ;)
 
Prophecy2k said:
Further abstraction of software and/or modification of the hardware in order to enable Backwards Compatibility, is not free, and will compromise the above to differing degrees depending on the implementation. Depending on the magnitude of that compromise, I feel it's most likely a sacrifice I wouldn't be willing to make for the sake of mere convenience.

With the more recent approaches to providing access to legacy games, through remasters and streaming options like PS Now, I'd be quite happy to accommodate those as alternatives to native BC, provided the above list of console benefits aren't compromised.
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I think we're aligned here, other members as well. This is probably best covered by our 'what is forward compatibility discussion', which has gone all over the place, but I agree, there's going to be some loss if abstraction is the enabler for BC. Yup, I'm okay with that though lol, not enough loss to pull a game back out of leap though.

Prophecy2k said:
For me, it's not about seeing consoles through the lens of a dated business model, it's about seeing consoles as consoles and treating them as such. I don't want consoles to become more like PCs. Sure some "PC-like" benefits have been a real boon to console gaming, but other aspects also have compromised what I and I would suspect many others value about consoles.
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I'm not sure if this is entirely what you intend to write. As consoles have adopted more PC technologies Consoles themselves have gotten better, games have gotten better, everything has been improved as a result. And we're talking anywhere from cloud/server/dedicated servers infrastructure. To patches, mods, and DLC. To digital downloads, communities, texting, friends etc. MMOs, GaaS, a great deal of many type of games etc. Taking PC features and deploying them the console way is probably what you mean though I gather.

Prophecy2k said:
In terms of GaaS and titles that are played across multiple generations, I honestly don't have any strong feelings either way. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED Destiny, the Division and I'm sure Wildlands is great too, but a console generation is a very long time (e.g. 5-7 years) and I honestly can't play a game for that long on a console. I eventually got bored of Destiny and the Division, because other games came out that I wanted to play and I got on those games and never went back afterwards.
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I think one could make an argument that Destiny 2 could have been a patch to Destiny 1, provided they didn't screw up everything with the engine from the get go. They had enormous vision for a game that needed to start at this generation, and they pushed it back into the old generation. Even then though, they still did not manage to unite the 2 communities. WHich is ultimately what I'm looking for from consoles. Regardless of consoles, destiny 2 players on XB1 and XB2 should be able to play together, the real winner comes from when PSX players can play with XBO players and Nintendo players with PC players, oh one could dream.

Prophecy2k said:
The only GaaS game I've probably played for that long is likely Elite Dangerous, and that essentially consisted of and endless cycle of hope and anticipation for the next big update (that takes forever to arrive) and then rueful disappointment. And the community around that game is so toxic, elitist and just plain downright unwelcoming, that I avoid them like the plague.
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Aiyeeee ;) heh, yea it gets like that sometimes. I remember playing EvE and feeling that way too, everyone is just plain brutal and unwelcoming. But eventually you find a corp that is friendly enough and looking to exploit you and thus take you in.

Prophecy2k said:
I get that gaming communities often form around games and want to be able to play those games and see them supported forever, in which case I feel that the PC exists and is the default platform for it. Consoles don't really need to become PCs in order to facilitate that. But if they can do it without compromising on the core benefits that console inherently provide, then... well... that's a nice bonus. ;)
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eh, there are pros and cons to PC. As someone who owns both, I find myself gravitating to consoles more to get over things like cheating, weird updates/OS issues, etc. Everything else is pretty good, I can't stand cheating though, and I hate that on PC I suspect people of using hacks, where with consoles I don't think about it at all, and thus my enjoyment of the game isn't ruined and i can just respect players being better than me.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
With your above point, BC was a new feature so it was pretty likely people would give it a go. Over time with more and more modern games to play including old, discounted titles, the incentive to play uglier BC games diminishes. And you'd better hope that remains true because otherwise, if everyone's playing cheap old titles instead of buying new ones, the bottom will drop out of the game industry! Imagine millions of XB1 owners buying RDR and sinking 25 hours into that instead of buying Crackdown 3 and spending 25 hours on that... Gamers have a finite amount of time to spend on gaming and we need them to be spending it on new games, not old ones.
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that is true, just partially though. There are timeless masterpieces like Ninja Gaiden Black that do not need to be touched nor remade, those are very difficult if not impossible to make with such mastery again. You put NGB at 4K native 60 fps (like the original) in a new console and you enjoy it like a child and you'll love the game, one of the best in history...

Same game, no need to alter it at all. In fact I only had my original Xbox from 2004 to November 2005 when the X360 came out. And I got quite a few Xbox games, but not Ninja Gaiden.

I purchased the BC version of Ninja Gaiden Black which was emulated in the X360's original Xbox emulator. Run like a dream, no glitches, 60 fps.. I think I paid like 50€ for it.

Agree with the hours spent on old games vs new games. If you pay for them you are still giving money to the company. however. As I said in another thread, I got Crysis, Far Cry 2 and Ultimate Doom on a GoG sale today. Have those games, the first two in the X360 and Ultimate Doom in the ancient original disc. But now I can play Crysis and FC2 at 60 fps and extra resolution and technical features on the PC.

You need to take into account that older games are less time consuming. I mean, if you know the game already, the learning curve is not steep. If not, there are guides everywhere for those games and you can enjoy the experience the same as those who played the game at launch.
 
iroboto said:
But I do know, we need to stop looking at the console game model like it's 1982, we had DLC all last year and this year. It's time to move to the next stage (closer to PC gaming) which is games persisting through to newer hardware.
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with the 1982 console game model. Games loaded instantly, consoles made no noise and if a game didn't work you blew on it until it did. :cool:
 
Xbox ones sloppy BC does not compare to a hypothetical proper xbox4/ps5 BC.
Unless things changed and I am uninformed, games run on a weird limbo like emulation of the 360 OS inside the One OS, require a long download before doing so, and there is no system in place to allow devs to make patches to allow this games to run at faster fps or 1080p resolution, or whatever other update they could conceive, like its being done with ps4pro now. And even if there was such a thing, given the difference in architecture between 360 and the one, and the way those games are running on this virtual environment, no devs would dare thread on thos waters.
All that ofcourse, if the game you want to play is supported. I only checked out the avaliable games on the inotial BC list, didn't see anything I wanted to play, and never bothered anymore. I only remembered about BC with the new Xbox netflix-like thing, and I'll admit I'm seriously considering it.
Now, MS and SONY - and Nintendo too - have the oportunity to do a much better BC experience for their next gen machines. They must preferebly stick to AMD gpu and cpu architectures and mantain hardware compatibility with their current machines for it, but it sounds like that is already their plan.
Imagine when ps5 releases, all ps4 games can run on it with no exception, fromday one, no compatibilty list, no ps4OS inside ps5OS hacks, and support for next-gen parches in the same vein as those for ps4pro. Imagine all cross generational games then come in a single package, that just transparently looks better or has extra features or modes when played on ps5. I doubt it would be that irrelevant of a feature, if this well implemented.
 
milk said:
Unless things changed and I am uninformed, games run on a weird limbo like emulation of the 360 OS inside the One OS, require a long download before doing so,
Click to expand...

No. The downloads are really quick considering the typical games from last gen were under 7GB. If it takes a long time to DL then you need better internets.

milk said:
and there is no system in place to allow devs to make patches to allow this games to run at faster fps or 1080p resolution, or whatever other update they could conceive, like its being done with ps4pro now.
Click to expand...

Not entirely true. The Developers could release a new patch on the game to select a higher resolution, but that would negatively impact the game running on native X360 hardware if that was selected.
 
AzBat said:
Nice follow ups by Phil. I have hard time believing that MS would spend that much money & effort on a feature like that without some good sales data & other metrics to back it up. I mean they axed Kinect & Snap support because of lack of use.

Tommy McClain
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it's obvious there is something strange and shady here. It's going to be Microsoft's E3 conference, says Sony's Jim Ryan that BC is bad, and an article comes out the same day with some percentages vilifying BC. Too much of a coincidence.

At least the article could have criticized other numbers like the low use of the TV TV TV app.., to pretend. This looks underhand.
 
Yes, it's something surprising to see a BC X360 Game or two shows up in their daily Top 10 played games.

Besides as someone else said, shouldn't consumers want consumer friendly features? I really don't understand how anyone wouldn't want that (excluding the shilling for an opposing company).
 
BRiT said:
Not entirely true. The Developers could release a new patch on the game to select a higher resolution, but that would negatively impact the game running on native X360 hardware if that was selected.
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The only issue I can think of is where Xenos could only actually address 512MB of RAM (IIRC, they did something funny to allow the 1GB kit to work), and so the emulation might follow the same rules for... reasons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Would be a nice bonus if they did do away without that limitation.
 
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