Xbox 360 will likely be backwards compatible with Xbox

[Megadrive1988]

keyword here is likely. as it is not official, yet.

Inquirer Link

Xbox 360 to be backwards compatible

It's a-Live

By Wil Harris: Wednesday 27 April 2005, 10:17
A QUESTIONNAIRE being taken online by Xbox Live users appears to give the final confirmation that Xbox 360 will be backwards compatible - at least, if you buy it with the optional hard drive.

The questionnaire deals with Xbox Live and says subscribers through the original Xbox will be able to play against gamers on Xbox 2 -- as long as they are playing a current generation Xbox game.

So XBox games will run on "XBox 2".

The hard drive comes in because the original Xbox had one and the games are written to use one.

INQUIRER reader, Epobirs suggests that the hard drive could be used to house an optimisation library of Xbox 360 native binaries to run the first-generation games, thus increasing performance.

This sounds like a pretty good idea to us, and one that has had some use previously, with FX!32 on the DEC Alpha, utilising translations of code it produced previously to optimise the next time an application ran.

It is unlikely that Xbox games running on the Xbox 360 will look any better, although it's possible that they could be anti-aliased using spare graphics power.

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=340720

So it looks like xbox 2 will play xbox 1 games and across xbox live also.

Some very interesting information about the next xbox live service.

Xbox Live needs your help to improve our service! As a current Xbox Live subscriber, your opinions are very important to us, and we need to know what you think about some future Xbox Live offers. We invite you to complete a brief survey and become one of the few lucky individuals who get to have their voice heard. Only 200 users will be able to complete this survey, so click on the link below right away!

its asking about the xb2 and seems to give some stuff away it states that they may change but gives us a good idea of whats to come still got the email if anyone thinks its bull....


looks like it may play xb1 games......

Next we'd like to tell you more about Xbox Live.
Xbox Live is an online gaming service through your Xbox console system. Xbox Live allows you to meet and compete against others worldwide anytime of day. Use your headset to strategize with friends or talk trash to competitors, set up a buddy list so you can see who is online no matter what game they are playing, send them a game invite or put them on your friends list to set up a game for later. It is easy to get into games quickly with the Quickmatch feature and easy to find an opponent at your skill level with the Optimatch feature. You can also download new items for specific games such as new weapons, levels and maps.
As you may know, Xbox will soon come out with a next generation of video game system (dubbed Xbox 2) that will be far superior in look and feel to anything else on the market.

• If you are already an Xbox Live subscriber through the original Xbox system, you can continue to play against gamers who are on Live through Xbox 2 -- as long as they are playing a current generation Xbox game.
Xbox Live is an online gaming service that works across both the current Xbox system and the future Xbox 2. You will be able to play online and compete against others across both consoles. If you are playing an Xbox game on Live you will be able to compete against people playing that same game on Xbox 2.

• If they are playing an Xbox 2 game on the Live service, you must own Xbox 2.

Xbox 2 offer available at your retail store
12 month subscription to Xbox LIVE, including the full game of Project Gotham Racing 3 (exclusive game for Xbox 2 that is just released). Also includes a headset to allow you to communicate with gamers online. All for £59.99

Direct – The following option allows you to subscribe and renew directly through the Xbox 2 console
12 month subscription to Xbox LIVE for £39.99

Xbox 2 offer available at your retail store
12 months subscription to Xbox LIVE, including a demo disc with game demos for MechAssault 2, Xarcade, and Burnout 3. Also includes a headset to allow you to communicate with gamers online. All for £44.99

Xbox 2 offer available at your retail store
3 month subscription to Xbox LIVE, including the full game of Project Gotham Racing 3 (exclusive game for Xbox 2 that is just released). Also includes a headset to allow you to communicate with gamers online. All for £49.99

 

[bleon]

I think this has been confirmed as fake- it looks like its been written by a 10 yr old who's struggling to get his message across

 

[Phil]

Maybe, since the harddrive will be sold seperately, they can include licencing fees (the ones needed to emulate Nvidia's/x86 parts) which would have been too costly if they had fited it in the basic Xbox360 version?

 

[Qroach]

pay fees for emulation?

 

[Phil]

I was more thinking that the NV2a has some functions that are patented by Nvidia (just as there are patents on CELL, PS2 or any other hardware) and would require licencing if a company wants to make use of those functions in another seperately sold piece of hardware.

Or are you implying that Microsoft can emulate anything they want and not pay a cent for something that they are now paying Nvidia and other partners for their work?

 

[London Geezer]

Or are you implying that Microsoft can emulate anything they want and not pay a cent for something that they are now paying Nvidia and other partners for their work?

Would you be surprised? I wouldn't.

 

[Phil]

hmm, well, Bleemcast did it on the Dreamcast, but the question is, if there were any loopholes in the PlayStation's hardware that would have made it possible. The Xbox however is the result of parts from Nvidia and Intel. I don't think they could just run away from royalties simply because they're emulating (something that is most likely patented).

 

[Acert93]

Or are you implying that Microsoft can emulate anything they want and not pay a cent for something that they are now paying Nvidia and other partners for their work?

Bleem! emulated PS games on the DC.

There are a lot of emulators--which are legal to my understanding--on the PC for consoles (catch is you have to own the software... at least that is what I have been told. Never used the stuff). We also have Mac emulators for the PC and PC for the Mac. (Althought that is a bit different, granted).

I am not sure what the difference would be... MS would not be using their patent, they would be using software to allow other software to run on a new platform.

Not that I think it is right for a console to play games from a competitors console (I don't personally) and I am not a lawyer and aware of the emulator laws, but it does seem emulation is a pretty "legal" thing.

 

[Geeforcer]

Bleem was emulating Sony hardware on Sega system. Xbox360 would be emulating MS hardware on MS system. I don't see a problem with that.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I was more thinking that the NV2a has some functions that are patented by Nvidia (just as there are patents on CELL, PS2 or any other hardware) and would require licencing if a company wants to make use of those functions in another seperately sold piece of hardware.

The calls to those functions are being accessed through an MS API though - if the emulator is taking those calls, as normal, and achieving it in a different manner on the newer hardware then it will be a case of an MS emulator emulating the MS API and then achieving the functions in a different way on different hardware.

 

[ERP]

Bleem was emulating Sony hardware on Sega system. Xbox360 would be emulating MS hardware on MS system. I don't see a problem with that.

This issue would be how the emulations was achieved.

It would probably be feasible for a 3rd party to build an emulator by reverse engineering. However MS probably can't legally because they have access to documentation and have almost certainly signed contracts that would prevent that documentation from being used to disenfranchise NVidia.

Any console developer signs similar documentaion when they sign the NDA, it basically states that you will not attempt to reverse engineer the hardware.

 

[blakjedi]

by putting Nvidia software routines into the firmware of the harddrive but not making the Harddrive mandatory, MS could stop selling Xboxs at a loss and actually make a profit and provide backward compatibility ...not a bad move!

 

[Guden Oden]

The calls to those functions are being accessed through an MS API though

Hasn't it been said before that it's allowed to bang straight on the hardware in the current xbox? If so, things would become a wee bit trickier I guess, though it's probably still possible to write a wrapper... Performance could be an issue tho, looking at some of the performance demands high-end arcade emulation puts on PCs of today, and xbox is even higher-end than those machines...

 

[London Geezer]

More worryingly, emulation would work "for certain games only", unless they keep a profile of every game released on Xbox for the emulator to work properly.
Like Bleem only worked with "supported games".

 

[Qroach]

Even the PS2 only worked with certain PSone games. It wasn' 100% perfect.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Hasn't it been said before that it's allowed to bang straight on the hardware in the current xbox?

Yes, based on my questions on this topic. If XB is nothing but DirectX for driving it's graphics, backwards compatibility would't have been an issue, just as it isn't with PCs (saving the woeful compatibility problems between mobos, GPUs, drivers, OS, blah!). If backwards compatibility were easy, it'd be a sure thing. The fact that it isn't a sure thing means it's hard, which means there must be hardware hitting involved. I don't know what sort of a licensing deal would prohibit emulation though based on the very many emulators out there.

So, is the article fake or not? Any confirmations elsewhere? BC would be a big plus for XB360, but I did wonder why they were only asking for 200 people's opinions. Doesn't sound kosher.

 

[Reznor007]

The DX libraries for Xbox are statically linked to the .xbe's(so I've been told by an Xbox emulator author), so the game itself will be using machine code reguardless of if it was written in assembly or using DirectX.

 

[one]

IIRC I saw a post in this forum about a guy who reverse-engineered hidden shader opcodes in the Xbox GPU and used them in an actual game...

 

[gleemax]

More worryingly, emulation would work "for certain games only", unless they keep a profile of every game released on Xbox for the emulator to work properly.

That shouldn't be a problem. It only needs to work with Halo and Halo 2.

 

[wco81]

Didn't Sony win a suit to have the Connectix emulator pulled from the market?

Ironically, MS acquired Connectix and of course we've speculated that they would use Connectix's emulation technology for BC.