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XBox One backwards compatibilty


Master Phruby

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I think it's mostly or completely been stuff like the XBLA release of Golden Axe though (i.e., games that the publisher holds full rights to, but voluntarily withdrew from sale for one reason or another such as when the Sega Vintage Collection compilation for Golden Axe superseded the older standalone XBLA download for the original).

 

Hopefully you're right since some fine games are otherwise going to probably not happen.

Edited by Atariboy
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  • 2 weeks later...

I like having access to the BC games and I do play them occasionally.

 

I don't find it concerning about the Netflix percentage. I suspect that's pretty common across most Netflix-capable devices, particularly ones meant to be the focal point of entertainment centers.

 

What I DO find unusual is that the TV app only accounts for such a small percentage of usage. That implies to me that only a small percentage of Xbox One owners use it with their cable or satellite boxes. That's the opposite of me, who always has it paired with our cable boxes, i.e., when the TV is on, the Xbox One is on.

 

In any case, as they make clear in the introduction to the piece, their methodology has some limitations.

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That's the opposite of me, who always has it paired with our cable boxes, i.e., when the TV is on, the Xbox One is on.

Why? Just because it's there? Do you control it with Kinect, too?

 

As someone who is almost tv-free nowadays (not claiming moral superiority or anything, that's just how things worked out), I thought their original "here are all the ways xbox can interact with TV!" was very off-putting. This chart suggests that they were probably just showing what they thought their audience wanted to see.

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Why? Just because it's there? Do you control it with Kinect, too?

 

As someone who is almost tv-free nowadays (not claiming moral superiority or anything, that's just how things worked out), I thought their original "here are all the ways xbox can interact with TV!" was very off-putting. This chart suggests that they were probably just showing what they thought their audience wanted to see.

 

Yes, HDMI in from the cable box, then HDMI out to the TV. When I turn on the Xbox One, it turns on the TV. I removed the Kinect from our bedroom after we replaced our old Xbox One with an S, but it's still in our family room. Even with Alexa in that room, it's still handy to ask Cortana questions Alexa sometimes fails at. When we eventually replace that TV in the family room with an uber 4K beast and install an Xbox One Scorpio, most likely I'll do without the Kinect.

 

It's also convenient having the Xbox One do all that because if I want to listen to the TV via headphones, I can just give everyone (or just me) an Xbox One controller and plug in headphones. It's also particularly convenient in our bedroom because I can get better surround sound by having the Xbox One optical audio to our sound bar than I get if I do it straight from the TV to the sound bar.

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I play a lot of BC games. Honestly I play more BC games than I do Xbox One games. My 360 backlog is still quite large. I don't dabble with BC. I spend weeks or months at a time exclusively playing BC games. I do have my 360 hooked up but a lot of the time there are benefits to playing the games on Xbox One so I take advantage of it when it is an option. Right now I'm playing through Rage but I'm using the 360 because it has some known issues on Xbox One. After running into those problems a couple of times I was done with that. Among the general Xbox One population those numbers may be accurate. Among people on my friends list Xbox 360 games get a lot of play.

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I use backwards compatibility all the time. I was reading how they got the data sample and it does seem to have its faults, as it includes family gamer tags and gamer tags that are barely used. I'm always surprised at how few people who buy games actually finish them. I just checked my achievements and only 20% of Destiny owners have completed a raid. Only 28% of Halo 5 owners have completed the game on normal.

Edited by Major Havoc 2049
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I have used backwards compatibility quite a lot since it was introduced. It's also relieving when a game I own becomes compatible as it ensures me that my past purchases have been future-proofed, at least for now.

 

This may seem petty, but my entertainment center (that I don't plan on swapping out anytime soon) is small and I'm maxed on the amount of consoles I can have hooked up. With the Switch in the collection now, something has to go. The more backwards compatibility grows on the XBOX One, the greater chances that the system that gets the axe is the XBOX 360. I've always been a fan of having a single console that is compatible with multiple platforms (PS2 is a great example), and it allows me to consolidate my setup while still having the ability to play certain games.

Edited by Austin
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As someone that has yet to make the jump to the XB1, I've read that the suspend feature doesn't work well (If at all?) with backwards compatible 360 games. So a lot of the usage being reported is actually something like a XB1 game left suspended in the background, rather than a game actively being played for the entire reported time.

 

I think something like the sales resurgence of Black Ops on the charts and number of people playing after joining the BC list speaks volumes that this does matter to a significant percentage of the install base. With any luck, Microsoft and publishers agree and the flow of BC additions will continue for years to come.

 

I'm crossing my fingers that Microsoft is so impressed here, that they'll consider some sort of initiative for original Xbox games. With HD rendering, it's amazing how up to date so much of that software looks. And even if no solution was found to reasonably reactivate online functionality in original Xbox games, the system in truth was largely an offline retail based experience anyways.

 

The XB1 Halo 2 remaster takes care of the online enabled original Xbox game most would be clamoring for. Something like Project Gotham Racing 2, a great online game back in pre-360 days, likely would never reestablish an active player-base anyways.

Edited by Atariboy
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I think something like the sales resurgence of Black Ops on the charts and number of people playing after joining the BC list speaks volumes that this does matter to a significant percentage of the install base. With any luck, Microsoft and publishers agree and the flow of BC additions will continue for years to come.

 

 

 

Ya, Black Ops (X360) is currently in the Top 10 of most played Xbox Live games on the XBox One. There are 4 X360 in the overall Top 50. The Classics and RPG sections have a ton of X360 games in the Top 50.

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/most-played/games/xbox?target=games..classics

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ARS Technica is basically retracting their story and stated the way they did the sampling was way off.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/06/correction-undercounted-usage-data-in-our-xbox-unleashed-analysis/

 

I don't know if that's retracting it, because they still left some things as is. However, they did state they changed parts of their original analysis.

 

 

In other backwards news, they are thinking of adding Original XBOX games to backwards compatibility.

 

Don't know how many games or people would need that.

 

later

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Exciting news and as someone perennially on the fence about whether to support Sony or Microsoft first this generation (I still have a Wii U backlog, so I've been in no rush), this gives Microsoft the edge.

 

 

The addition of 360 backwards compatibility forgave them in my eyes for their early pre-release anti-consumer decisions that they quickly backtracked on in the wake of backlash from consumers and Sony's success with the PS4, but I still planned to buy a PS4 first to reward Sony for not being in such a rush to kill optical media.

 

Now with this tipping the scales in Microsoft's favor, it's going to be some form of a Xbox One after today. Original Xbox compatibility with HD rendering has the potential to be something special. Still lots of questions to be asked though like the status of online features/patches/DLC, custom soundtracks in supported titles, how limited the lineup may be, if Xbox Originals downloads on the 360 grant access on the XB1 to the same game, the status of region locking (Seems to be lifted on 360 discs on the XB1), etc.

 

 

In other backwards news, they are thinking of adding Original XBOX games to backwards compatibility.

 

Don't know how many games or people would need that.

 

They're not thinking about possibly doing this. They've already announced it.

 

And nobody needs it, but it's hardly a problem. A lot of fans are still going to love it including myself, even though the XB1's success hardly is dependent on 15 year old Xbox games. I just hope they find a way to get games full of expired licenses back out again.

 

Xbox backwards compatibility without some of my favorite Xbox racing games that I spent so much time on, is almost going to just seem like I'm being teased. My three most played games on the system would be Outrun 2/Outrun 2006, Rallisport Challenge 2, and Project Gotham Racing 2. And all three are full of expired licenses.

 

Particularly with how poor the original hardware is aging reliability wise, this is something that should be welcomed by fans with a catalog of original Xbox games.

Edited by Atariboy
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Already a few details available.

 

https://twitter.com/albertpenello/status/874058137036218369

 

Original Xbox discs work (Not much of a surprise given that the XB1's 360 backwards compatibility recognizes original discs), digital licenses carry over (Unsure if we're just talking about Xbox Originals downloaded on the 360, or if Microsoft actually has data that tells them I bought original Xbox DLC like the Project Gotham Racing 2 booster packs), and you can do LAN play across all three generations of Xbox hardware.

 

Here's an original Xbox and a Xbox One, connected by system link playing Crimson Skies at the show.

 

gWNqxpm.jpg

Edited by Atariboy
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Very interesting. I do have a bunch of OG Xbox games so I will be keeping an eye on this. When they did this on the 360 it was very hit and miss so hopefully they will do a much better job this time. Another key question is will you be able to transfer your old game saves from the OG Xbox to the Xbox One? And will you be able to transfer locked saves such as the ones for most of the Tecmo games like DOA 3?

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Hard to see save transfers from original hardware being a thing, although I suppose a USB memory card adapter could potentially be produced. Cloud transfers for original Xbox saves present on your 360 though seems trivial enough.

 

With the quality of 360 backwards compatibility on the Xbox One that essentially is as good or better than native hardware, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. Microsoft isn't going to follow up on that stellar performance with lackluster Xbox emulation. They'd be better off doing nothing if that was the case.

 

This time, I'm not even sure it will involve full emulation. I don't believe that we'll see recompiling going on like seems to be the case for 360 BC on the XB1, but note that the original Xbox CPU was a fairly standard x86 Pentium III 32 bit processor. I don't think it's a leap to suggest that the XB1's x86 based 64 bit CPU could quite possibly natively execute original Xbox code, since it's my understanding that 64 bit processors usually have a compatibility mode for 32 bit instructions.

 

All that would then be left to emulate is the Nvidia GPU which is where the HD rendering magic would happen. And we're talking a GPU that was nothing exotic and was closely related to what was in millions of PC's at the time. So I fully believe what they said about games running as good or better as they do on original hardware.

Edited by Atariboy
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Recompiling of some sort might be present.

 

https://twitter.com/XboxQwik/status/874074394267537410

 

Can't think of another obvious reason for why downloading would still be necessary for a retail copy of a game. So that means that any wishful thinking of the entire library being made BC in one fell swoop is out of the question.

 

And judging by the 360 selection on the XB1, it also probably seals the fate for license heavy games like the Project Gotham Racing franchise. The thinking seems to be that recompiling means it's in essence legally now a native XB1 game, rather than your old disc that was bought years ago being played via emulation.

 

So expired licenses must be reacquired and still active license agreements must be renegotiated to cover it appearing on a new platform, where as Sony for instance had to deal with none of this to enable PS1 backwards compatibility on the PS2/PS3.

 

Still great to see this, but it's not going to be nearly what it could've been for me since so much of my library depended on outside licenses of some sort. But downloading each game does have one benefit since games on the BC list that originally had patches/DLC should hopefully be represented in their final state.

Edited by Atariboy
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Aw man.. So the OG XBOX games will still have to be downloaded? Bummer. Still, it is awesome to see them acknowledging their roots. I'll be interested to see what games become compatible and I will definitely utilize the feature depending on the title.

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