Gaming Call of Duty: Black Ops now on Xbox One thanks to backwards compatibility

[BurningDesire]

Call of duty: Black Ops has finally came to Xbox One compatibility. Call of Duty Black Ops was one of the most requested games for Xbox One's backwards compatibility feature. It’s on sale for $10 if you’ve got Xbox Live Gold.

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Source

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

Say, does anyone know Microsoft's policy on what games they enable backwards compatibility on and why they choose some and not others? Because if it's simply a matter of "flipping a switch," I don't see why they couldn't just flip the switch on as many games as possible. Is it because they have to work out licensing deals or something?

 

[smf]

Say, does anyone know Microsoft's policy on what games they enable backwards compatibility on and why they choose some and not others? Because if it's simply a matter of "flipping a switch," I don't see why they couldn't just flip the switch on as many games as possible. Is it because they have to work out licensing deals or something?

Although you put a disc in the console, it downloads the xbox one version from xbox live. What they do on their side is a bit more than flicking a switch. They could probably put out all of the games untested quite easily, but I'm not sure how popular that would be as they likely wouldn't work.

 

[DinohScene]

They need to recode portions of the game to make them work on the Xbone.
They want to have every game that was in the Free with Gold line compatible.

It's not emulation unfortunately.

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

Although you put a disc in the console, it downloads the xbox one version from xbox live. What they do on their side is a bit more than flicking a switch. They could probably put out all of the games untested quite easily, but I'm not sure how popular that would be as they likely wouldn't work.

They need to recode portions of the game to make them work on the Xbone.
They want to have every game that was in the Free with Gold line compatible.

It's not emulation unfortunately.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the swift replies!
Yeah, don't have an Xbox One myself. Didn't know the games were actually downloaded online after inserting the disc. That would explain it!
Although, any reason why they couldn't do what Nintendo did with the Wii U and emulate the old interface/BIOS? I'm guessing it's because of the newer architecture, right? But to that extent, didn't the Wii U have a different architecture than the original Wii?

 

[Kioku]

Not a fan of the emulated 360.. I'd rather just use my 360 and not touch it. It's rather nitpicky, but I see frame drops, input lag and just all of this other fun strain on the one.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

They need to recode portions of the game to make them work on the Xbone.
They want to have every game that was in the Free with Gold line compatible.

It's not emulation unfortunately.

Its a sandboxed, emulated 360..

 

[DinohScene]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the swift replies!
Yeah, don't have an Xbox One myself. Didn't know the games were actually downloaded online after inserting the disc. That would explain it!
Although, any reason why they couldn't do what Nintendo did with the Wii U and emulate the old interface/BIOS? I'm guessing it's because of the newer architecture, right? But to that extent, didn't the Wii U have a different architecture than the original Wii?

Different architecture of the One and 360.
360 is PPC and One is x86
Wii and Wii U are both PPC, the Wii U just downclocks and uses 1 CPU core + some RAM and some VRAM.
Much like the Wii does when it enters GCN mode.
The 360 actually emulated the Xbox.

Not a fan of the emulated 360.. I'd rather just use my 360 and not touch it. It's rather nitpicky, but I see frame drops, input lag and just all of this other fun strain on the one.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Its a sandboxed, emulated 360..

I just keep me 360s.
As long as it still is Live enabled.

You're right, it's a sandboxed emulator.
It has access to some One features.

 

[YayMii]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the swift replies!
Yeah, don't have an Xbox One myself. Didn't know the games were actually downloaded online after inserting the disc. That would explain it!
Although, any reason why they couldn't do what Nintendo did with the Wii U and emulate the old interface/BIOS? I'm guessing it's because of the newer architecture, right? But to that extent, didn't the Wii U have a different architecture than the original Wii?

As far as I'm aware, the so-called "backwards compatibility" is emulation... The games have to be compiled as Xbox One applications to run (hence the download), but they are in fact running in an emulated Xbox 360 environment. The 360 hardware is vastly different compared to the Xbox One, so emulation is the only way to get these games running. This also means that Microsoft must spend time on development in order to get games running, but I think they had some sort of voting system in place, so as to prioritize more popular games first.

As for the Wii/WiiU backwards compatibility, that is not emulation. The WiiU hardware is similar enough to the Wii that it can simply run all of the Wii's games natively.

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

As far as I'm aware, the so-called "backwards compatibility" is emulation... The games have to be compiled as Xbox One applications to run (hence the download), but they are in fact running in an emulated Xbox 360 environment. The 360 hardware is vastly different compared to the Xbox One, so emulation is the only way to get these games running. This also means that Microsoft must spend time on development in order to get games running, but I think they had some sort of voting system in place, so as to prioritize more popular games first.

As for the Wii/WiiU backwards compatibility, that is not emulation. The WiiU hardware is similar enough to the Wii that it can simply run all of the Wii's games natively.

Ah, okay, I see. But the Wii was able to play GameCube games natively, and the Wii U can do that, too. Was the GameCube running something like PowerPC as well?

 

[smf]

As far as I'm aware, the so-called "backwards compatibility" is emulation... The games have to be compiled as Xbox One applications to run (hence the download), but they are in fact running in an emulated Xbox 360 environment. The 360 hardware is vastly different compared to the Xbox One, so emulation is the only way to get these games running. This also means that Microsoft must spend time on development in order to get games running, but I think they had some sort of voting system in place, so as to prioritize more popular games first.

The 360 games don't talk directly to the hardware though, they go through DirectX. So there should be a minimum of emulation, however console games make a lot of assumptions about the hardware they run on and this can cause issues that would need to be identified and fixed.

 

[YayMii]

The 360 games don't talk directly to the hardware though, they go through DirectX. So there should be a minimum of emulation, however console games make a lot of assumptions about the hardware they run on and this can cause issues that would need to be identified and fixed.

DirectX only serves as a graphics API though. The Xbox One still needs to use emulation in order to interpret the 360's PowerPC CPU instructions on its x86 hardware.

Ah, okay, I see. But the Wii was able to play GameCube games natively, and the Wii U can do that, too. Was the GameCube running something like PowerPC as well?

Yep, the GameCube was also PowerPC.