(via Joystiq)
"If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards," said former Xbox chief Don Mattrick,
explaining why Xbox One wouldn't play Xbox 360 games mere days after it
was unveiled. If that's the case, then the Xbox world under new
division head Phil Spencer may be as backwards as the average Justin
Bieber hat. According to Xbox partner development lead Frank Savage,
Microsoft is working on a solution to get Xbox 360 games on Xbox One,
but players at home may never get to experience it themselves.
When asked by an audience member at Microsoft's Build developer
conference whether the company had plans for backwards compatibility on
Xbox One, Savage responded in the affirmative but with a serious caveat.
Getting software made for drastically different hardware to run on
another machine is a tricky proposition.
"There are [plans], but we're not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately," said Savage, as reported by Kotaku Australia.
"It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff.
So there's nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself."
A Microsoft representative reiterated Savage's statement to Engadget
in a follow up inquiry, but also stressed that there are no official
plans to bring Xbox 360 compatibility to consumer Xbox Ones any time
soon. "It is super challenging to emulate two completely different
architectures, and there aren't currently any plans to build this," said
the spokesperson.
Players clinging desperately to those copies of Perfect Dark: Zero and Bomberman: Act Zero, don't get rid of your Xbox 360s just yet.
~~~~~~~~
Apparently, Phil Spencer's got his hands full with trying to patch up Mattrick's damaged ship. You'd think that, with Mattrick leaving, the Xbox division would immediately try to unfuck itself. Well, that seems to not be the case. Perhaps in the long-term, but this is a short-term-minded company; the long-term hasn't really worked out for them thus far (MS has yet to make profits from gaming), so that mentality is rather understandable for them.
Onto the topic at hand, way to state the obvious, Savage. "It turns out, it's hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on X86 stuff." Well, try telling that to Sony; they'll just laugh and say, "Well why don't you try converting the software to your own proprietary format, you fucking nerds?!" Yes, this is what Sony does to get PS1/PS2 stuff to play on their hardware. For instance, in order to play PS1 games on a PSP, they convert the PS1 games into an EBOOT format. I, along with many PSP owners, have also done this through free programs, such as PSX2PSP. We know how Sony does it, and we agree that it would be a good idea, but Sony also makes it impossible for gamers to do this easily on the PS4 with actual disks (you can't just pop a PS2 game in a PS4 and let software that doesn't exist on the PS4 convert it into a playable format without a workaround and hacks). With that said, it's no wonder why MS is having trouble trying to do something similar, but make it at least possible for gamers to paly their disks/XBLA games on their XBOne. It's only understandable.
Oh, and I'd like to take this time to point out that Wii games are fully playable on the Wii U. But Sony and MS don't have the foresight to do something similar.
Those who have proclaimed the XBOne and PS4 to be rushed products have just had their assertions more validated. However you'd like to feel about this is completely up to you.
"If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards," said former Xbox chief Don Mattrick,
explaining why Xbox One wouldn't play Xbox 360 games mere days after it
was unveiled. If that's the case, then the Xbox world under new
division head Phil Spencer may be as backwards as the average Justin
Bieber hat. According to Xbox partner development lead Frank Savage,
Microsoft is working on a solution to get Xbox 360 games on Xbox One,
but players at home may never get to experience it themselves.
When asked by an audience member at Microsoft's Build developer
conference whether the company had plans for backwards compatibility on
Xbox One, Savage responded in the affirmative but with a serious caveat.
Getting software made for drastically different hardware to run on
another machine is a tricky proposition.
"There are [plans], but we're not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately," said Savage, as reported by Kotaku Australia.
"It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff.
So there's nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself."
A Microsoft representative reiterated Savage's statement to Engadget
in a follow up inquiry, but also stressed that there are no official
plans to bring Xbox 360 compatibility to consumer Xbox Ones any time
soon. "It is super challenging to emulate two completely different
architectures, and there aren't currently any plans to build this," said
the spokesperson.
Players clinging desperately to those copies of Perfect Dark: Zero and Bomberman: Act Zero, don't get rid of your Xbox 360s just yet.
~~~~~~~~
Apparently, Phil Spencer's got his hands full with trying to patch up Mattrick's damaged ship. You'd think that, with Mattrick leaving, the Xbox division would immediately try to unfuck itself. Well, that seems to not be the case. Perhaps in the long-term, but this is a short-term-minded company; the long-term hasn't really worked out for them thus far (MS has yet to make profits from gaming), so that mentality is rather understandable for them.
Onto the topic at hand, way to state the obvious, Savage. "It turns out, it's hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on X86 stuff." Well, try telling that to Sony; they'll just laugh and say, "Well why don't you try converting the software to your own proprietary format, you fucking nerds?!" Yes, this is what Sony does to get PS1/PS2 stuff to play on their hardware. For instance, in order to play PS1 games on a PSP, they convert the PS1 games into an EBOOT format. I, along with many PSP owners, have also done this through free programs, such as PSX2PSP. We know how Sony does it, and we agree that it would be a good idea, but Sony also makes it impossible for gamers to do this easily on the PS4 with actual disks (you can't just pop a PS2 game in a PS4 and let software that doesn't exist on the PS4 convert it into a playable format without a workaround and hacks). With that said, it's no wonder why MS is having trouble trying to do something similar, but make it at least possible for gamers to paly their disks/XBLA games on their XBOne. It's only understandable.
Oh, and I'd like to take this time to point out that Wii games are fully playable on the Wii U. But Sony and MS don't have the foresight to do something similar.
Those who have proclaimed the XBOne and PS4 to be rushed products have just had their assertions more validated. However you'd like to feel about this is completely up to you.