X360 backward compatibility
Microsoft announced recently that 212 of their 713 Xbox games will work on the Xbox360 at launch. I know how much work it is to get backward compatibility to work properly, so props to the guys who are working on it.
It’s too bad that saved games won’t be transferrable to the X360, though! And that you need to have a hard drive to use backward compatibility at all.
Here’s an interview with Microsoft’s Todd Holmdahl about it, in case you haven’t already heard.
OK, so this is the best post on the subject:
http://neopoleon.com/blog/posts/16512.aspx
Joking aside, it will be interesting to see how that’s positioned, and how much of an issue it causes. Personally, I’m not sure why the industry got caught in this backward compat trap. Did you guys ever do any studies of how many PS2 players actually went back and played their PS1 games? My guess would be very few. But hey, what do I know.
Backward compatibility is one of the two things that marketers point to for the initial success of PS2… the other is the DVD player. It certainly lowers some of the resistance to buying new hardware in the minds of the non-hardcore player (i.e. parents) if they know that their investment in a PS2 library will not be lost when they go out to buy the PS3…
I played a lot of the DDR games from PS1 before they transitioned the franchise over to PS2. Frankly, I couldn’t stand most of the PS1 games – the texture writhing makes me want to poke my eyes out with sharp sticks. That’s just some of my Nintendo64 bias showing though. *grin*