Utility of Backwards Compatibility

[Deleted member 11852]

why are remastered games so popular tehn, when they charge you for the same game once again?

If the game is worth replaying via BC why is it any less worth playing a freshly remastered version? The advantage to a remaster is that many of the things that had to be compromised last gen can be better realised in a remaster. Just look at decent remasters like Metro Redux, The Uncharted Trilogy, Tomb Raider and The Last of Us.

I've nothing against BC but given the option, I'd rather pay for a better version of a great game.

 

[Cyan]

Are they? Do you have stats on exactly what proportion of time gamers spend on remasters? Also, remasters may (or may not) be more popular than BC because they are the old, beloved gameplay spruced up with decent modern graphics, whereas the originals can look pretty horrible to the modern HD eye. As a final point linking to Rodéric above, it's probably the older games people are most interested in (nostalgia) rather than the last gen which they've recently moved on from and where there are more likely contemporary sequels or analogues.

they seem to be. How you seen this video? This is the public's reaction from the considered (from some) best E3 ever because games like FF7, Shenmue and an iCO game were shown in Sony's conference.

They might sound like a flock of sheep, but people buy these classic masterpieces. Maybe BC is not a console thing because of how the marketing work -like "buy the last thing"-, but can't it help to keep a faithful userbase?

 

[iroboto]

If the game is worth replaying via BC why is it any less worth playing a freshly remastered version? The advantage to a remaster is that many of the things that had to be compromised last gen can be better realised in a remaster. Just look at decent remasters like Metro Redux, The Uncharted Trilogy, Tomb Raider and The Last of Us.

I've nothing against BC but given the option, I'd rather pay for a better version of a great game.

if we move price/value out of the equation, it then comes down to whether the title is remastered or not, availability is a larger driver than price. If we look at price/value it often turns out that BC games are significantly cheaper, resulting in barrier for purchase significantly less.
if the consumer is not price sensitive and the remaster is available, it will be what they purchase.

 

[Cyan]

If the game is worth replaying via BC why is it any less worth playing a freshly remastered version? The advantage to a remaster is that many of the things that had to be compromised last gen can be better realised in a remaster. Just look at decent remasters like Metro Redux, The Uncharted Trilogy, Tomb Raider and The Last of Us.

I've nothing against BC but given the option, I'd rather pay for a better version of a great game.

you are not the average user, with the computer you have you buy a game you owned back in the day, crank it up to the max and enjoy it like you never did. Remasters are less worth when you have Jim Ryan criticising BC and you are selling old games at a golden price with a touch of paint. Console owners like us get as always, abused.

I haven't played any of those games you mention. The only remastered game I condidered worth buying on XB1 was Skyrim -60€-, which they gave me for free on PC because I also had the original game on the PC. Remastering relatively new games that already have good graphics, is not that special. Remake, don't remaster, would work great for ancient classics imho.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I've nothing against BC but given the option, I'd rather pay for a better version of a great game.

I'd rather pay for the game once, and have its quality scale upwards as my hardware improves rather than pay new hardware and a remastered version of the same game.

If only Sony and MS would work on some way to do that! Then I wouldn't have had to buy GTA twice!

 

[Rangers]

Oh NOW people decided BC isn't used much? I've been saying that for years here!

When it's done in software though, it's not nearly as damaging though.

Still, expense is expense and I imagine quite a few dollars were spent by MS thrown at engineers on the feature. Dollars that could have been used on exclusive games or even price reductions. OTOH, it can be a hardware selling point. And I have to say as an Xbox ecosystem participant, it is kind of nice. I can consider selling my old 360 without (much) fear, or popping old titles like Gears 1 in my Xbox One and playing for a bit, just to recall what it looks like (pretty bad!). I actually have maybe 20 360 titles on disk in a closet, the Halo's and Gears and such, and it's nice that they can be played on my One, even if I dont do it. And I know once I get a Scorpio, it all transfers too, I can easily sell my One to help pay for my Scorpio. Although I suppose the Scorpio-One situation is a bit different.

I guess the ideal thing is if they can get this emulation done nicely, spend minimal manpower on getting BC titles over. Of course we'll never know that number.

Neogaf has a surprisingly huge consistent mega thread on 360 BC. Of course we know that means bubkiss on real world popularity, but it was still surprising to me especially on a pretty Sony-centric forum.

I guess in the future it' going to auto-BC like PC with X86, right? I guess one would wonder if probably Sony is gonna actually do a PS5 that isn't compatible with past gen titles, MS seems less likely to do a real next gen, but we really dont know.

Also dont forget Sony is trying to sell PS Now, right?

BC, PS Now, Remasters, all different ways of doing things and all just business. If you can make more money doing remasters, do it...who cares.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

they seem to be. How you seen this video?

1) That's not a stat. Reaction to a video doesn't indicate what people will actually do.
2) It's a super-duper remake, not BC. Do you not think this will sell LOTS better (to a new audience who never played the first one, on account of being a modern creation) than FFVII as a BC PS1 title? FFVII was released on mobile. On Android it sold less than 100,000.
3) That's the crowd at E3. Do they represent the typical console gamer? They're likely the 1% elite gamer. Quite possibly every person at E3 would buy the FFVII remake, but that doesn't mean the rest of the 99% of gamers would be interested.

They might sound like a flock of sheep, but people buy these classic masterpieces.

I asked for stats. Yes, people do. Is that 50% of the gaming population? 5%? 0.5%? that's where statistics shed light on one's gut feelings based on empirical evidence, which can be (and often is) misleading.

 

[Cyan]

I think there is some long-term utility from a historical or archival sense, although that's a vanishingly small consideration save for future historians of tech.
Truly compatible platforms can leverage tools and software bases longer or reduce the shock of generational transitions, so there is utility from a non-user standpoint.

As to consumers, I think the utility is along the lines of avoiding a death by a thousand cuts, or helping reach a critical mass of goodwill.
The direct utility may be limited to a subset of people who may not have room for another console, or are reluctant to pay for a new console if they cannot get some resale value from the current box.

A person might not ever play a 4k bluray in the end, but right now they might be considering it or hope to someday have the setup for it.
There is a product that might match the aspiration or grant the possibility, versus one that denies the chance. Also, those willing to spend for 4K may be few, but they would probably be the ones more willing to evangelize or be enthusiastic with what they've purchased.

From a numbers standpoint, it may not be that many. However, consoles are a luxury good that are often bought for emotional reasons rather than dispassionate evaluation of their likely utility--so live by the sword, die by the sword. The dream scenario is that enough hype or good network effects are focused on a console to encourage sales on a product that would be for the vast majority of the user base be interchangeable with the other.

Hype or positive reception can be a bit like nuclear fusion. You want energy unified and focused at a single point, and you don't want to give too many little opportunities for it to dissipate.
You might have enough slack, which Sony apparently thinks it's banked in terms of 4K bluray.
I've been pondering if the mid-gen consoles have an uphill battle with regard to not being able to gather their own share of hype, without continuously losing a bit of hope or enthusiasm here or there on the "well it would have been nice" or "it's not that big a deal" or "it's sort of better here" and so on.

Pretending is just the word, just pose. Maybe the article could have a point then.

E3 2015 is an example of that. The reaction of people is of awesomeness, they were dazzled, loved what they saw. Many considered it the best E3 ever, and Shenmue isn't out, FF7 isn't anywhere near to be seen, and The Last Guardian was another incredible announcement in the conference. Best conference ever. Reality is, The Last Guardian didn't sell a dime.

But striking a pose looks nice. This is like a friend I have who played sport games, music games like Rock Bands or Guitar Heroes with me and was mostly a casual.

He used to say that Final Fantasy 7 was the best game ever. He said that because he heard that not because he thoroughly played it, afaik.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You've already posted that video. Why post it again, especially when you aren't factoring in counter-arguments? Just repeating a point doesn't make it true.

We have hard evidence at 1.5% of XB1 gaming time is spent on BC games. A video of the hardcore gaming elite getting excited over a high-end remake of a beloved classic doesn't discount that evidence. You need numbers or some other evidence beyond limited empirical observations to challenge that data point and its interpretation.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'd rather pay for the game once, and have its quality scale upwards as my hardware improves rather than pay new hardware and a remastered version of the same game.

Windows is really the platform you need to invest in then.

If only Sony and MS would work on some way to do that! Then I wouldn't have had to buy GTA twice!

I bought it on PS3, PS4 and PC! Microsoft are promising this on Xbox but I would want to see them deliver on it next generation before I believe it. Plans change. Like cloud-powered gameplay. Like Kinect. Messaging reflects current thinking and thinking changes to accommodate profitable and sustainable business.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

My Azure-powered Kinect allows me to play Crackdown 3 at 4k 60fps and has since launch!

 

[Cyan]

1) That's not a stat. Reaction to a video doesn't indicate what people will actually do.
2) It's a super-duper remake, not BC. Do you not think this will sell LOTS better (to a new audience who never played the first one, on account of being a modern creation) than FFVII as a BC PS1 title? FFVII was released on mobile. On Android it sold less than 100,000.
3) That's the crowd at E3. Do they represent the typical console gamer? They're likely the 1% elite gamer. Quite possibly every person at E3 would buy the FFVII remake, but that doesn't mean the rest of the 99% of gamers would be interested.

I asked for stats. Yes, people do. Is that 50% of the gaming population? 5%? 0.5%? that's where statistics shed light on one's gut feelings based on empirical evidence, which can be (and often is) misleading.

there are some empiric numbers in the article:

Those backward-compatibility numbers might seem shockingly low, but they do line up broadly with what Microsoft itself has reported. The company said in late 2015 that Xbox One users had spent 9 million hours playing Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One in the feature's first month or so of availability. That may sound like a big number, but it averages out to just a few minutes of playtime for each of the estimated 19 million or so Xbox One owners around at the time. And that was when the feature was brand new and attracting a surge of initial interest.

They use those numbers to put some negativity on BC. 9 million hours is like 1 million users playing a BC game for 9 hours. That's a lot of users and a lot of hours, for the initial stats of the service, when there weren't as many titles available.

BC is a long term investment, and when Scorpio and its successor comes out the numbers are only going to increase.

Rockstar could sell RDR2 and in the game's main menu place a small screen featuring the original RDR saying it is on sale and telling you that it is playable at 4k 60 fps on the XB1. Sell it for 4€ or less and that's only increasing your sales. Easy money no effort. It'd look impressive to any gamer.

Back into the stats, they take into account every single Xbox user, but many aren't active -been XBL gold user for 10 years now and sometimes I spent months without going to XBL-, many are new to the Xbox ecosystem -so no BC titles-, other just are super hardcore, and super hardcore ONLY play a bunch of games where they excel, etc etc.

In the end, I agree with @egoless

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Honestly, I think in order to answer the question, we would need to know how many 360 active users there are and how many of the most popularly played games have been remastered.

That would give us a better understanding of the population that BC would really be an important selling point.

Non-game apps are not captured in this sample, nor is it possible to tell whether applicable Xbox 360 games in this sample are being played on original hardware or through Xbox One backward compatibility.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017...eep-dive-study-of-how-millions-use-xbox-live/

I only browsed quickly, but that statement would seem to indicate to me that the 1.5% number being used includes 360 users, so actual XB1 BC is lower than that. However, the article also states that all of this data was generated by sampling active Live Users so those playing offline wouldn't be included.

 

[BRiT]

Fuck the emperical data. The same emperical data drove Microsoft to TV TV TV!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They use those numbers to put some negativity on BC. 9 million hours is like 1 million users playing a BC game for 9 hours. That's a lot of users and a lot of hours, for the initial stats of the service, when there weren't as many titles available.

That's a good alternative take on the data!

BC is a long term investment, and when Scorpio and its successor comes out the numbers are only going to increase.

Definitely gonna argue that one. 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.

 

[iroboto]

Fuck the emperical data. The same emperical data drove Microsoft to TV TV TV!

I feel like people like (occupation) me are to blame for this.
But I will sleep tight blaming execution

 

[iroboto]

Definitely gonna argue that one. 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.

My counter point is to look at the most played games today. They have all spanned generations, some more than others and will continue to.

It's a double edge sword, people will either keep playing the latest game, but games that aren't given sequels have larger and stronger communities. It's the basis for any eSport to survive, for any long term game to survive, you can expand it, but starting from 0 kills it.

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.

 

[AlNom]

mmhm... With the industry moving to games as a service, that would be a good thing to have indeed...

Publishers did experiment with cross-gen HD 'tax' for Destiny & COD IIRC (buy on PS360, pay $10 more for current gen)

 

[Prophecy2k]

I'm passing on PS5 cause I don't own PS4 (heck or PS3) and i'd like to play those games! if ti's got BC, I've no reason to pass on it

You said that you don't want to buy remastered PS4 games on PS5, hence the value you place in BC. But if you don't have a PS4 then you'll still have to buy those PS4 games you want to play anyway with a BC PS5.

A non-BC PS5 will most likely see Sony remaster all their biggest exclusives. So whether PS5 is BC or not, you're having to still purchase those games. BC doesn't really save you from having to buy new PS4 games.

 

[iroboto]

You said that you don't want to buy remastered PS4 games on PS5, hence the value you place in BC. But if you don't have a PS4 then you'll still have to buy those PS4 games you want to play anyway with a BC PS5.

A non-BC PS5 will most likely see Sony remaster all their biggest exclusives. So whether PS5 is BC or not, you're having to still purchase those games. BC doesn't really save you from having to buy new PS4 games.

Cheaper, used, borrowed, Likely to be on sale when looking at costs of BC games. But also I can pick and choose from a massive library of tried and true games, that have also matured with their DLC and patches to fix any flaws and make an overall better game then when it launched for a signifcantly cheaper price then a remaster.

Hindsight is always an issue with remastered, you won't know it's coming until it's out. You don't really have that issue with BC, if everything is BC from launch. You can just buy the game digitally and go.