# Is backward compatibility such a big deal??



## Sakitoshi (May 13, 2013)

Like the title says, backard compatibility on game consoles has been something every whine about when absent, but is such a feature really necessary??
if you have a console and want to buy the successor, why want said console to have compatibility with a console you already have?? is not that you previous console dissapear once you buy the new one.
in handhelds is comprensible because your pockets cant hold all the gameboy and ds family, and psp/psvita??? holy shit you'll need a fucking truck to take a walk with the two of them.

people buying the new console without have the previous one dont have a reason for bc because dont have games of the old console, and buy a new console to play the old games is silly, just buy the old console instead.

backward compatibility is also the real reason why the wii and wii u are underpowered, old hardware cant scale up that much, thats why ps3 and xbox 360 are limited in that aspect, sony attempted to do bc with ps2 but failed because ps3 hardware is very different and was to expencive to maintain the old hardware inside the ps3, microsoft played safe and built a emulator with limited compatibility, and no one cared about the original xbox anyway.

well, the topic is set, now is time to discuss.


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## Rydian (May 13, 2013)

1 - To be able to sell the old console and get some money back.

2 - So you don't have to connect and disconnect your consoles to change the games you play.

3 - So you can take advantage of new controls and maybe console features (web browser, etc.) by playing the old game in a new system with overlays.

But yeah backwards-compatibility can be a limiting factor too.  Look at the Wii U still using old tech, the PS3's launch price being $600, etc.


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## Gahars (May 13, 2013)

It can definitely be a selling point, but there comes a point where it does more harm than good for the system (as Rydian pointed out). Sometimes, it's best for your new console if you just cut your losses and move on with the new hardware.


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## hey_suburbia (May 13, 2013)

Personally, I could care less about having backwards capability in any of my handhelds or consoles.  I do see their value to others, but to me I'd rather the system and company behind the hardware focus on the future not the past.  I can always play my old games on my old consoles or re-download them in the future for a few bucks...


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## Arras (May 13, 2013)

If no consoles had BC you'd end up with a ridiculous amount of game consoles that you'd need to connect and disconnect every time you wanted to play something though. Also, it's nice to be able to actually use your new system when it doesn't have any games yet.


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## Sakitoshi (May 13, 2013)

i put this topic on the table because is something im not seeing happening with the ps4 and nextbox, ps4 was said to have some kind of bc via streaming but that is a stupid workaround that i cant consider true bc, and the nextbox probably dont feature bc at all, both gaming machines are glorified pc's, the arquitecture is to different to do bc natively and a emulator is fucking imposible.
for the point about selling the old console, i have never sold my old machines, i still have my gc, even when all the cube gaming i do is on my wii, and my dsi will never be sold even when i can transfer all my downloads to 3ds. but part of that is because im a collector, have all the gba family bar the gba sp backlit.
and when the time to but a ps3 had come, i was thinking about buying a cecha, but then i remembered that i have no ps2 games and just went with a 320gb slim(one of the last slims, now all the stores have super slims and i dont like it)


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## Coto (May 13, 2013)

I do value my old gaming consoles way more than most recent ones, that's why I prefer not using the old ones that much often, as, like the old n64 cartridges could suffer from wear and tear upon pin contacts. (i'd like my pokemon stadium 2 & zelda majora's mask to last a good ammount of time lol.), but I'd say most VG companies go for cheap components as logic isn't as expensive today unlike years ago.

Moreover backward compatibility includes logic that may be removed on later components, hence the need to pay for it so it's bundled, and sometimes it costs more money, ie: like sony and the PS2 BC (real chips on fatty os3, then emulation), of course Nintendo is aware of this, so they could develop for a relatively cheap platform, then they just "upgrade" the logic so it's kept.

But yes, that isolates the arquitecture against any other(s), and makes you basically do everything from scratch to support today's shared frameworks. I do think Nintendo should at least have had kept x86 and SSE, as there are others constantly developing to that arquitecture, but that would mean drop support completely for most RISC coding they've done basically, their entire life as a VG company, and it'd cost more (that, and most components they buy are cheaper to deal with)


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## Foxi4 (May 13, 2013)

It's not as big of a deal as it used to be - in the olden days a video game console was a massive expense_ (ahh, inflation - you are a cruel mistress)_ so some companies released adapters for backwards compatibility or put the hardware of the previous console on the motherboard of the new one to allow future buyers to swap an old system for a Next Generation one without having to sacrifice their entire games collection.

Nowadays not only is hardware much cheaper _(despite costing more dollars the value of the dollar greatly decreased in comparison to the Yen as well as the Yuan and naturally Japan and China are the primary manufacturers of consoles these days)_ but so are the games _(just have a look at Steam, XBL, PSN or eShop sales)_ and the user isn't really forced to swap systems as much.

Another factor decreasing the value Backwards Compatibility is the second-hand market which is now well-developed thanks to sites like eBay - getting an older system on the cheap is easier than ever.

Backwards Compatibility is a fun feature to have, but not a deal breaker - if the end design suffers due to including Backwards Compatibility _(Wii U)_ or inflates the price _(PS3)_ then it should be dropped.

Think about it, what would you rather do - trade in a PS3 for a $100 _(since it's used)_ now and get a PS4 for $600 _($200 for a brand-new miniaturized version of the PS3 hardware plus $400 for the actual PS4, the end product being undoubtedly a huge beast due to having both consoles in one box) *or*_ keep your old system and buy a PS4 for $400 _(and have it in a nice, slim case since it wouldn't contain any of the PS3-specific hardware)?_


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## Ergo (May 13, 2013)

I prefer my consoles to be bw compat for a host of reasons so, yeah, I consider it important and I'm generally annoyed--especially in a world where content is now being marooned on a given machine (thanks Sony! No more PSN purchases for me!)--when it's not included.


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## Rydian (May 13, 2013)

Also TVs tend to have a lot more plug holes nowadays.


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## Kouen Hasuki (May 13, 2013)

Backwards compatibility is a selling point to me, I found myself a bit disappointed when the DSi dropped the GBA slot cutting off some accessories as well as the whole GBA line up for instance

However this subject is a case of each to there own


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## Taleweaver (May 13, 2013)

To me, it certainly isn't important. As mentioned, those older consoles are very cheap to come by, so I really cannot understand why anyone even cares about it. I mean...how much money are you making when selling your wii/gamecube/PSone/... in the first place? In my opinion, the answer is "not enough to freaking make the effort". On the contrary: I just bought another wii because I wanted a black one (in other words: I have now three consoles that can play wii games in my house...yet I don't play a single one).

And what good does it do? Not much. The wiiu can play all the wii games, but still I hear "It has no gaems!!!!" as a major complaint. That regular wii games come free with a box of cereals isn't even helping in that regard. Let alone the fact that you can already hack the thing to play the entire wii library.


I'm not sure if I agree on that statement that having backward compatibility hurts the specs of the main console, though. Does anyone have a decent source on that one?


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## Foxi4 (May 13, 2013)

Arras said:


> If no consoles had BC you'd end up with a ridiculous amount of game consoles that you'd need to connect and disconnect every time you wanted to play something though. Also, it's nice to be able to actually use your new system when it doesn't have any games yet.


That's not true - you'd only ever end with two due to Moore's law. Systems two generations ahead are generally strong enough to emulate older ones, hence Virtual Console, PSOne Classics, PS2 Classics and so on. You can implement software-based backwards compatibility relatively easily if the specs are up to scratch, hardware-based backwards compatibility costs money - both the End User and the company involved.

If you were to keep Backwards Compatibility forever, you'd have a hefty amount of slots on Nintendo systems, don't you think? _(Sony and Microsoft not so much as they've always been Disc-Based)_


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## Sakitoshi (May 13, 2013)

another point is the fact that nes/snes master system/genesis didnt featured bc and the same happened with the n64 and saturn, but no one complained about that, the first home console with bc was the ps2, and the only reason the gameboy had bc was because gameboy color is just a gameboy with color screen and slightly better cpu. then bc was made a standard feature in that generation, after that the ps3 fiasco happened and now ps4 is going to do the same, just now sony said since the beginning that bc will not happen.

EDIT:


Foxi4 said:


> If you were to keep Backwards Compatibility forever, you'd have a hefty amount of slots on Nintendo systems, don't you think? _(Sony and Microsoft not so much as they've always been Disc-Based)_


just ducktape a retroduo with a gamecube with a wii u and youre set, NINTENDO MASTER RACE!!!


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## TackyPie (May 13, 2013)

Rydian said:


> 1 - To be able to sell the old console and get some money back.
> 
> 2 - So you don't have to connect and disconnect your consoles to change the games you play.
> 
> ...


You took the words right out of my mouth.


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## J-Machine (May 13, 2013)

I like it mainly as a means to free up clutter since I'm an apartment dweller but also because with my wii, I also had a gamecube which I never owned before. before I only had 1 tv so having the ps3 do ps1 via hdmi was nice but I know have a component crt using a scart converter setup as well so it's now moot.  overall I'd say it's nice to have but was never a deal breaker when not included.


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## Foxi4 (May 13, 2013)

Sakitoshi said:


> another point is the fact that nes/snes *master system/genesis* didnt featured bc _(...)_


The Genesis was fully backwards-compatible with the Master System - it had Master System hardware on-board and all you needed was a cartridge adapter. Additionally, the Atari 7800 was backwards compatible with _almost_ all 2600 games.


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## Ethevion (May 13, 2013)

I don't care much for backward compatibility. Never used a DS game on my 3DS or an original XBOX game for my 360.


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## RodrigoDavy (May 13, 2013)

Backwards compatibility is a big deal. For example, I wouldn't have bought a 3DS if it didn't play DS games. My line of thinking was: "I want to play DS games but why not invest a little more in a more powerful system that can run DS games as well?"

Now, people got to realize that backward compatibility has a cost, it increases the console price you're not getting it for free. Even in the case of the Wii which has a very similar architecture to the gamecube, you still pay for the controller and memory card slots. That's one of the reasons Nintendo releases non-BC versions of their console later in their life, it decrease production costs, which allows them to increase their profit and/or decreasing the retail price.

Now, if the person is interested in buying a PS4 for playing PS4 games, the lack of BC shouldn't be a problem and it's not a big deal at all


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## Sakitoshi (May 13, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> The Genesis was fully backwards-compatible with the Master System - it had Master System hardware on-board and all you needed was a cartridge adapter. Additionally, the Atari 7800 was backwards compatible with _almost_ all 2600 games.


i didnt know about the genesis, but the atari i know thanks to the avgn, even the colecovision released a adapter to play atari 2600 carts


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## RodrigoDavy (May 13, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> The Genesis was fully backwards-compatible with the Master System - it had Master System hardware on-board and all you needed was a cartridge adapter. Additionally, the Atari 7800 was backwards compatible with _almost_ all 2600 games.


Not actually full backward compatibility. It didn't support all the video modes that the Master System was capable of, so some games didn't work in the Mega Drive.


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## BORTZ (May 13, 2013)

I think its nice to have when you are one or two generations ahead... Like the DS having Advance capabilities was nice.
And The 3DS having DS capabilities. It makes the gap easier to bridge.


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## Sakitoshi (May 13, 2013)

other thing that i come up now is the fact that with bc they can potentially lose sales in newer games and they dont make a profit with the sales of the old games, at first they can make a little profit with old games sales, because they still are found new on stores, but latter on games stop production and second hand sales reign, and so is a bad strategy, thats why they started with the virtual console thing, nintendo started and sony ran with the idea releasing psone and ps2 classics when they could have made patches in the firmware of the ps3 to play said games in disc format.


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## urbanman2004 (May 13, 2013)

IMO backwards compatibility shouldn't be expected on the successor of a game console. Just use the older system if youre still attached to its games


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## ShadowSoldier (May 13, 2013)

It's definitely not a big deal for me. I keep all of my old consoles. The only one I sold was to a friend was my 360, and that's because I hated the thing.

Otherwise, I'll gladly just hook up my older consoles.


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## Pleng (May 14, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> The Genesis was fully backwards-compatible with the Master System - it had Master System hardware on-board and all you needed was a cartridge adapter. Additionally, the Atari 7800 was backwards compatible with _almost_ all 2600 games.


 
Man that sucks.. I remember my brother paying about the full retail price of a MegaDrive game just for the adapter (so he could play _my_ Master System games... but that's another issue all together!), which seems hefty if it was just a pass through. Also... why did Sega not just make the carts pin compatible? Was it a money making scheme? Was there ever even an official Sega adapter (my bro's one was 3rd party)?


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## Chary (May 14, 2013)

Well, having backwards compatibility is a nice feature. It means I can retire my previous console to it's box, so that I can display it in a glass case. Though, not having backwards compatibility isn't a deal breaker for me when buying a new console.


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## Hells Malice (May 14, 2013)

It's nice not to have 37 consoles hooked up at once. It's not a dealbreaker, or even a big deal honestly. I didn't seek out a PS3 with BC or anything. But my 360 not having total BC really drove me nuts, cuz my xbox was old and on its last legs, and I had no working xbox controllers I could find. So total BC would've been fantastic.

Great feature, but not necessary.


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## trumpet-205 (May 14, 2013)

BC used to be a big deal back in PS1 and PS2 era, but now days it is considered an optional feature.


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## BORTZ (May 14, 2013)

Its nice to have a console/handheld that can handle retro stuff even if its emulators or market stuff. Having a PSP or DS that can do NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1 and some N64 is cool.


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## Rydian (May 14, 2013)

BortzANATOR said:


> Its nice to have a console/handheld that can handle retro stuff even if its emulators or market stuff. Having a PSP or DS that can do NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1 and some N64 is cool.


They have those.  Dingoo, GPX, GCW Zero, etc.  GBATemp even does news and reviews on the.


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## BORTZ (May 14, 2013)

Rydian said:


> They have those. Dingoo, GPX, GCW Zero, etc. GBATemp even does news and reviews on the.


I know. Im just saying that its nice even when a device doesnt have backwards compatibly built in, you can "make" it backwards compatible.


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## Coto (May 14, 2013)

Having a PS3 that can play PS2 games is priceless. Games on 720p looks gorgeous to me, and if you do things like fan mods and such you can enjoy the system without any fears of YLOD


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## spinal_cord (May 14, 2013)

Sakitoshi said:


> i didnt know about the genesis, but the atari i know thanks to the avgn, even the colecovision released a adapter to play atari 2600 carts


It wasn't technically an adapter, it was a full Atari 2600 which used the colecovision for input and output, similar to the GBA Time Machine.


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## Coto (May 14, 2013)

spinal_cord said:


> It wasn't technically an adapter, it was a full Atari 2600 which used the colecovision for input and output, similar to the GBA Time Machine.


 So all the game processing was happening on an actual atari 2600 chip?


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## tbgtbg (May 14, 2013)

Sakitoshi said:


> backward compatibility is also the real reason why the wii and wii u are underpowered



No, the real reason they are underpowered is to cut costs, get the system out there for less than the competition so little jimmy's soccer mom gets him a Wii instead of a PS3.


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## Foxi4 (May 14, 2013)

tbgtbg said:


> No, the real reason they are underpowered is to cut costs, get the system out there for less than the competition so little jimmy's soccer mom gets him a Wii instead of a PS3.


The two often go hand-in-hand - Nintendo invested a lot in the Broadway architecture but the Gamecube fell well below expectations, so the architecture was revamped and re-used in the Wii, both to cut costs and to ensure 100% backwards compatibility. They figured they might as well try a similar trick with the Wii U, but the competition has moved on to new CPU's, leaving the poor Broadway descendant far behind.


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## spinal_cord (May 14, 2013)

Coto said:


> So all the game processing was happening on an actual atari 2600 chip?


From what I can remember, yes. the A2600 hardware was all off-the-shelf parts without anything in the way of an OS, so it was perfectly legal to build your own version. Colecovison did that.

http://www.the-liberator.net/site-f...-expansion-moduel-no-1-atari-2600-adapter.htm


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## Eerpow (May 14, 2013)

On portables, yes it is a big deal.
During a launch period with lacking software support you still would only need to bring one system for your trip and have advantage of both the new and old game libraries.


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## Sakitoshi (May 14, 2013)

of course on portables is the ideal thing, i cant imagine going out with all my handhelds without a bag or something to carry all that shit, good thing flashcards and softmods are available for gba/ds and psp and digital downloads of games are every day more supported on portables.
but in the house you dont realy need bc aside of the laziness of change plugs between consoles, and the thing is that without bc consoles could be cheaper and you could keep the old one.
virtual console is a kind of bc that is pretty cool and cheap for the companies because his efforts will be paid, nintendo could have done that in the wii u, boost extremely the broadway arquitecture losing native bc but made a virtualization of the wii functions possible to play wii games anyway, and ditch the wii menu a-la psvita psp virtualization and upload one by one every wii game to made it available digitally, or a disc verification like devolution, or just keep using the wii discs.


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## Parasite X (May 14, 2013)

I am with you I love backwards comptibility I use it on all of my games the thought of having a console that can use backwards compadability is amazing .The reason I am skipping PS4 is because it lacks any & all backwards compatibility which is why I got WiiU instead. 





RodrigoDavy said:


> Backwards compatibility is a big deal. For example, I wouldn't have bought a 3DS if it didn't play DS games. My line of thinking was: "I want to play DS games but why not invest a little more in a more powerful system that can run DS games as well?"
> 
> Now, people got to realize that backward compatibility has a cost, it increases the console price you're not getting it for free. Even in the case of the Wii which has a very similar architecture to the gamecube, you still pay for the controller and memory card slots. That's one of the reasons Nintendo releases non-BC versions of their console later in their life, it decrease production costs, which allows them to increase their profit and/or decreasing the retail price.
> 
> Now, if the person is interested in buying a PS4 for playing PS4 games, the lack of BC shouldn't be a problem and it's not a big deal at all


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## DinohScene (May 14, 2013)

Probably...

BC for me is quite neat.
But since I got every Ninty console (no Wii U)
Xbox and Xbox 360
PS2 and PS3.
I don't really care that much about BC.

I can emulate PS1/NES/SNES/N64/DC/Other Sega consoles/Atari games on me PS3/Xbox/Wii/360/PSP and play them on the original consoles if needed.

No, BC compatibility for me isn't needed.
It's nice to have it (love Xbox games on 360 controller) but it's not needed.


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## Sakitoshi (May 14, 2013)

thinking about it backward compatibility is like getting 2 consoles for the price of one, and the ps3 did something similar but was like 2 consoles(ps2 already plays psone games) for the price of 3.


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## Coto (May 14, 2013)

spinal_cord said:


> From what I can remember, yes. the A2600 hardware was all off-the-shelf parts without anything in the way of an OS, so it was perfectly legal to build your own version. Colecovison did that.
> 
> http://www.the-liberator.net/site-f...-expansion-moduel-no-1-atari-2600-adapter.htm


 
But by seeing the pics, they didn't seem to re-use logic from atari, but did they made their own way of "atari" logic?? wow, that's some love for assembly, and atari.


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## Fishaman P (May 14, 2013)

The main thing is that I sometimes skip a generation between consoles, and I don't want to miss out on all the great games.
What would a Wii be without Melee or Sunshine?

Also, new features + old games = YAY.

ex. Play modded GC games through USB, region free, etc.


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## Isaac (May 14, 2013)

Well, yes. Consoles are.... clunky. When I got my 360, I still used my original for games that don't work on my 360.  I also have an old CRT telivision with one plug set, so I had to swap cords to play certain games.


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## Parasite X (May 14, 2013)

I agree with you bc is the best being able to play N64 vc on Wii is awesome.


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## duffmmann (May 14, 2013)

Sakitoshi said:


> Like the title says, backard compatibility on game consoles has been something every whine about when absent, but is such a feature really necessary??
> if you have a console and want to buy the successor, why want said console to have compatibility with a console you already have?? is not that you previous console dissapear once you buy the new one.
> in handhelds is comprensible because your pockets cant hold all the gameboy and ds family, and psp/psvita??? holy shit you'll need a fucking truck to take a walk with the two of them.
> 
> ...


 

Let me put it this way, if I have a PC that plays plenty of great games, but as time goes on becomes incompatible with newer and more demanding games, I decide to go and buy a new higher end PC. I expect that my new PC will be able to play all the old PC games as well, as they still are PC games. And not to my surprise, just about every old PC game works on my new PC as well as the new games that wouldn't work on the old PC.

Why then is it stupid/wrong to look at consoles the same way?


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## trumpet-205 (May 14, 2013)

Parasite X said:


> I agree with you bc is the best being able to play N64 vc on Wii is awesome.


That is NOT BC. That is emulation.

There is a big difference between emulation and BC.

If you have no problem with VC you certainly won't have a problem with PS4. Sony plans to stream PS1/PS2/PS3 games over the internet to PS4.


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## duffmmann (May 14, 2013)

trumpet-205 said:


> That is NOT BC. That is emulation.
> 
> There is a big difference between emulation and BC.


 
To those that notice the differences sure.  But to the average person, its really not much of a difference.  Yes, by definition you are absolutely right.  But that doesn't change the fact that I can play NES, SNES, N64, etc. games on my Wii.  The Wii is backwards compatible with old games even if it is through a means of emulation.


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## WarMachine77 (May 14, 2013)

Yes, it is.

I have 40+ games (yeah I know, it's not a whole lot compared to some people), but it's like spitting in my face and those that have purchased games for me as gifts.

We've pretty much hit a ceiling in terms of graphics, and got all the fighting games we need.


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## WarMachine77 (May 14, 2013)

Yes, it is.

I have 40+ games (yeah I know, it's not a whole lot compared to some people), but it's like spitting in my face and those that have purchased games for me as gifts (PS3)

We've pretty much hit a ceiling in terms of graphics, and got all the fighting games we need.


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## Foxi4 (May 14, 2013)

I disagree with the whole _"BC is important *on portables*"_ idea - what's the big difference between a portable and a home console outside of the form factor and the fact that one needs to be connected to the mains and the TV and the other does not? If a home console can push through without BC provided it has a great launch title list, so can a portable.


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## Parasite X (May 14, 2013)

quote="trumpet-205, post: 4641978, member: 153216"]That is NOT BC. That is emulation.

There is a big differen





trumpet-205 said:


> That is NOT BC. That is emulation.
> 
> There is a big difference between emulation and BC.
> 
> If you have no problem with VC you certainly won't have a problem with PS4. Sony plans to stream PS1/PS2/PS3 games over the internet to PS4.


 This is exciting news but I just got my WiiU not to long ago I might just skip out on PS4 any way because I still have to re buy my physical disk in digital form if I want to play them so bc is still a big deal to me.


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## Foxi4 (May 14, 2013)

Backwards Compatibility comes at a cost. People fail to understand that to include it in the PS4/XBox720, one would have to literally put an _entire PS3/Xbox360_ onto the motherboard of the Next Gen system due to _massive_ hardware differences. These things can't be virtualized, there's too much of a gap.

You'd end up with two behemoths, both suffering from huge cooling problems, both costing well over $600 since they would have to cover the costs of both the last and the current generation hardware. This is _not_ an ideal situation.

Again, Backwards Compatibility is a neat feature, but not when it comes at a huge price - both in the financial and design sense.


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## The Catboy (May 14, 2013)

I actually don't mind if a system isn't backwards compatible, it's annoying, but not a deal breaker for me.
Personally I enjoy keeping my old systems and buying them because I am collector of them and don't mind having them around. Not everyone feels the same though.


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## Clydefrosch (May 14, 2013)

by the time a successor console appears, the old one is usually close to breaking down one way or another. i mean, i actually bought 2 ps2's and gamecubes back in the day, because both stopped working (mainly laser issues i guess) and both are not working anymore. i never got a ps3 though, we bought a final 3rd ps2 slim.... thats already giving me trouble with the dvd lit thing. if that one breaks, i guess ill just throw out all my ps2 games and forget about the good times we had.

until the 3ds was released, me and my brothers all went through about 2 ds's each. eventually, the L/R buttons would stop working, also sometimes the left and a buttons. and the highes... on the ds lite, those things were a mess. now we've got 3ds' and I'd have been pretty pissed off if i would have had to buy another ds to play the 40something ds games i bought.

at least half the reason to buy a wii was that it still used my old controllers and played my old games. i also didnt have much space left to put up another gamecube, so this was pretty good.

so in general, space issues and the fact that electronics seem to be manufactured to break, are quite the reason to complain about lack of backwards compatibility.
also, it  opens up the library a lot and gives people a way to get a few new games for just a few bucks. with the money you need to pay for one new ps3 game, you can easily buy between 5 and 10 ps2 games... and not even bad ones. just yesterday i saw metal gear 2 and 3, both for 5$ and DMC3 for 7$


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## Sakitoshi (May 14, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> I disagree with the whole _"BC is important *on portables*"_ idea - what's the big difference between a portable and a home console outside of the form factor and the fact that one needs to be connected to the mains and the TV and the other does not? If a home console can push through without it provided it has a great launch title list, so can a portable.


certainly there is no difference other than that, but is about the convenience of going out with just one handheld and not a bag full of them, imagine carrying all the pokemon main series with you, you'll need to lug around a gameboy a gameboy color a gameboy advance a ds and now a 3ds.
other thing is that portables need low power consumption, and re-use the same chip plus a new one is a smart idea because the old chip will feature lower power usage and less space on the board and can be used as a co-processor, meanwhile the new chip act as the main processor, that is what nintendo has been doing with all of their handhelds.


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## Foxi4 (May 14, 2013)

Sakitoshi said:


> certainly there is no difference other than that, but is about the convenience of going out with just one handheld and not a bag full of them, imagine carrying all the pokemon main series with you, you'll need to lug around a gameboy a gameboy color a gameboy advance a ds and now a 3ds.
> other thing is that portables need low power consumption, and re-use the same chip plus a new one is a smart idea because the old chip will feature lower power usage and less space on the board and can be used as a co-processor, meanwhile the new chip act as the main processor, that is what nintendo has been doing with all of their handhelds.


The exact same principle can be applied to home consoles though. Sometimes this can be done without losses - for example the GBC's CPU was re-used as a sound chip on the GBA. That way, full Backwards Compatibility was achieved at no additional expense. This is not always the case though and if Backwards Compatibility is pursued againts reason, it may lead to crippling the end product.

For example, imagine the PSVita with a UMD drive. The handheld already has pitiful battery life - with an optical drive would drain the thing twice as fast. This is why Sony opted for Digital Only when it comes to PSP Backwards Compatibility - so that the feature doesn't handicap the end hardware in any way.

Think of how much BC-related guff would be required to add native Game Boy/Game Boy Colour/Game Boy Advance functionality on the 3DS and how hideous it would look like. Seeing that the hardware is strong enough to pull off spot-on emulation, there was no need to add such funtionality.

As I said earlier, Backwards Compatibility is a great feature, but it should not be implemented if it would handicap the hardware in any way or hold it back. The Wii's Broadway legacy is the core reason as to why the system didn't get a lot of multiplatform titles - it was a generation behind and the Wii U appears to have similar problems despite having much, much more processing power.


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## Psionic Roshambo (May 14, 2013)

In my opinion the largest selling point for BC is being able to play the last gen games on a new console while you wait for the new games to come out.

I played a ton of PS1 games on my PS2 while I waited for games to come out, don't get me wrong there where a couple of awesome launch PS2 games but once you get bored with the 1-2 good launch games having access to the hundreds of games from the last gen can really help out.

On my Wii-U, one thing that kind of disappoints  me about the BC, is that I really feel like the pad should work as a Wiimote. Yes I have many wiimotes but switching controllers just feels awkward and I think the Wii-U pad would work just fine as a wiimote for some games (Mario Kart, Excite Truck ect.)


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## wrettcaughn (May 14, 2013)

I bought an Xbox 360 to play Xbox 360 games.


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## Rydian (May 14, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> I bought an Xbox 360 to play Xbox 360 games.


Apparently that means you're fighting the power.


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## emigre (May 14, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> I bought an Xbox 360 to play Xbox 360 games.


 
I bought a PS3 to play Neo Geo games. Cuz it has Neo Geo backwards compatibility despite the fact I can't shove any AES cartridges in it.


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## Foxi4 (May 14, 2013)

The way I see it, if you have any interest at all in playing Last Generation games or already have a collection of them, you probably have a console that plays them. If you don't then you're probably not interested in them - you had over 6 years to catch up and you haven't, so why complain now?

More often than not there are two options for each manufacturer - make a contemporary design that doesn't have to carry the _(heavy)_ legacy of a previous system which inflates its price _or_ doing the exact opposite and suffering the consequences. Each option has pro's and con's, but seeing that the latter is less restrictive, allows for flexibility in design as well as creating a cheaper Next Generation console which would attract more customers due to an attractive price point, I wouldn't be so adamant about _needing_ BC.


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## Psionic Roshambo (May 14, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> The way I see it, if you have any interest at all in playing Last Generation games or already have a collection of them, you probably have a console that plays them. If you don't then you're probably not interested in them - you had over 6 years to catch up and you haven't, so why complain now?
> 
> More often than not there are two options for each manufacturer - make a contemporary design that doesn't have to carry the _(heavy)_ legacy of a previous system which inflates its price _or_ doing the exact opposite and suffering the consequences. Each option has pro's and con's, but seeing that the latter is less restrictive, allows for flexibility in design as well as creating a cheaper Next Generation console which would attract more customers due to an attractive price point, I wouldn't be so adamant about _needing_ BC.


 
I can honestly see BC becoming more and more important as time goes on, my reasoning for this is that with each generation of consoles the content is not getting any smaller. Development times are not getting any shorter either, eventually it will take 4 years to create one AAA game even assuming developers get there hands on the specs a year ahead of time that still leaves and insanely large time frame from launch of console to having "gaems".


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## Foxi4 (May 14, 2013)

Psionic Roshambo said:


> I can honestly see BC becoming more and more important as time goes on, my reasoning for this is that with each generation of consoles the content is not getting any smaller. Development times are not getting any shorter either, eventually it will take 4 years to create one AAA game even assuming developers get there hands on the specs a year ahead of time that still leaves and insanely large time frame from launch of console to having "gaems".


The development time is getting longer and longer but so are the life cycles of the hardware. Moreover, development may very well begin well-before the hardware specs are even known - the engine and the assets can be created for the PC and ported over at any given time with some adjustments. The engines that were presented on the PS4 February reveal were no doubt in the works for several years before the console even took shape.


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## cdoty (May 14, 2013)

Sakitoshi said:


> Like the title says, backard compatibility on game consoles has been something every whine about when absent, but is such a feature really necessary??


 
Naah, not really; I've gotten in the habit of holding on to my old game systems. I can count the number of XBox games I've tried to run on the 360 on one hand... without the thumb. The PS2 backwards compatibility is probably a little more useful, but even that doesn't work smoothly on my HD monitor. So, either I play PS2 in standard def or swap cables to play Playstation. And, the DS Lite's GBA output is nice, but I'd still rather grab the SP. I have played a few PSP games on the Vita, more out of curiosity.


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## Rydian (May 14, 2013)

The above is one of the benefits of going x86 and increasingly PC-style hardware.  Far less lag time between conception of a port and the physical release.


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## Foxi4 (May 14, 2013)

Rydian said:


> The above is one of the benefits of going x86 and increasingly PC-style hardware. Far less lag time between conception of a port and the physical release.


People play the architecture card way too often when it comes to ports. 

C'mon lads, it's not like they're writing all this stuff in Assembly - most of it is C/C++ and SDK commands are still going to be different. The compiler isn't going to be _too_ fussy, C is C, all you need to do is to find equivalent functions. 

...it is somewhat cutting the time though, I suppose - just not as much as people may thing, so I figured it's worth to clarify that. Having the same architecture doesn't mean that it'll be a copy-paste job.


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## Kouen Hasuki (May 15, 2013)

Sakitoshi said:


> another point is the fact that nes/snes master system/genesis didnt featured bc and the same happened with the n64 and saturn, but no one complained about that, the first home console with bc was the ps2, and the only reason the gameboy had bc was because gameboy color is just a gameboy with color screen and slightly better cpu. then bc was made a standard feature in that generation, after that the ps3 fiasco happened and now ps4 is going to do the same, just now sony said since the beginning that bc will not happen.
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> just ducktape a retroduo with a gamecube with a wii u and youre set, NINTENDO MASTER RACE!!!



The genesis/mega drive had a official accessory to play master system games on it aka backwards compatible also the game gear had a cart to play ms games too


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## FAST6191 (May 15, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> People play the architecture card way too often when it comes to ports.
> 
> C'mon lads, it's not like they're writing all this stuff in Assembly - most of it is C/C++ and SDK commands are still going to be different. The compiler isn't going to be _too_ fussy, C is C, all you need to do is to find equivalent functions.
> 
> ...it is somewhat cutting the time though, I suppose - just not as much as people may thing, so I figured it's worth to clarify that. Having the same architecture doesn't mean that it'll be a copy-paste job.



I do not know if it is so much architecture as PC devs half assuming they have unlimited memory, do insane things like put normal natural number variables in double precision floats nearly all the time (you might be surprised), have unlimited storage, have fun with high end SIMD and whatever else.


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## Rydian (May 15, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> People play the architecture card way too often when it comes to ports.
> 
> C'mon lads, it's not like they're writing all this stuff in Assembly - most of it is C/C++ and SDK commands are still going to be different. The compiler isn't going to be _too_ fussy, C is C, all you need to do is to find equivalent functions.
> 
> ...it is somewhat cutting the time though, I suppose - just not as much as people may thing, so I figured it's worth to clarify that. Having the same architecture doesn't mean that it'll be a copy-paste job.


_Because all architectures are equal in ability, right_?  We've gone over this, people assuming that every architecture and chip can do everything other ones can...

Like how Firefox uses the SSE2 extended instruction set, so recent versions won't run on CPUs that lack it, even if they're x86.  And ZSNES supported the MMX instruction set, and that was a bit of a divide when it first came out so it made it a toggle nad included two engines (one that did use the instructions and one that didn't).  Back on my AMD K6-2, enabling MMX gave a noticeable performance boost (from <60FPS to >60FPS, right across that lovely battier).  So that's a major difference even within x86.  Move across architectures and some shit just won't work well (or at all), even if you type it in in a higher-level language (it's the compiler that converts it to assembly, and compilers are aware of the instruction sets).

Now yes, you can easily tell the compiler not to use that instruction set and get a build that's relatively-slower but functional... sort of like Dolphin on Android!  Like 99% of Android devices out there have to run it in a software rendering mode (so they get like 1FPS) _because the hardware doesn't support the instructions and techniques needed_, it's only OpenGL ES 3.0 devices that can actually use a hardware renderer.


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## Foxi4 (May 15, 2013)

Rydian said:


> _Because all architectures are equal in ability, right_? We've gone over this, people assuming that every architecture and chip can do everything other ones can...


That's not what I meant - I'm well-aware of the differences between architectures, I was merely outlining that those differences can _(and are)_ be combated via the SDK. From a programmer's perspective, unless they go as deep as to use Assembly, the differences are lowered to the level of knowing the SDK they're going to work on. 

For example, copying a string of data may look slightly different on one CPU than on another, but from the level of the coding environment, it's going to be _memcpy (at least in C )_ which is what I meant. I hope that clarifies what I actually said.

The more the SDK/Libraries are optimized the less work there is when porting. One SDK may have a function that's practically mirrored in another, y'know.


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## Rydian (May 15, 2013)

Modern games use much more than that, however.  Look at Dolphin for an example, some of the stuff it needs to run is not supported even on OpenGL ES 2.0, which means it's not simple stuff (otherwise we can assume it'd have been in from the start).


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## Rizsparky (May 15, 2013)

Not really, that's why I dont want the next Nintendo handheld to have backwards compatibility, mainly because it will be forced to include a 3D screen..


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## Foxi4 (May 15, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Modern games use much more than that, however. Look at Dolphin for an example, some of the stuff it needs to run is not supported even on OpenGL ES 2.0, which means it's not simple stuff (otherwise we can assume it'd have been in from the start).


What I meant was that if you have a function that assigns a texture to a mesh, it may be called "Potato()" in SDK #1 and "Tomato()" in SDK #2 but the end result is the same, so what you master are differences between SDK's - the whole outline of it is still the standard language though which is the same regardless of architectures.

Of course there's the phase of optimizing where coders do whatever they can to change the code in such a way that the end result will be the same or similar on different machines at the same framerate - this is the head-scratchingly-annoying process you are refering to. Doing so requires the knowledge of SDK/Architecture-specific special functions _(if any - that reminds me of using DMA Copying channels on the DS for some kinds of data, SWI copying for others or standard C copying if you couldn't be bothered)_, but hey!


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## Rydian (May 15, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> What I meant was that if you have a function that assigns a texture to a mesh, it may be called "Potato" in SDK #1 and "Tomato" in SDK #2 but the end result is the same, so what you master are differences between SDK's - the whole outline of it is still the standard language though.
> 
> Of course there's the phase of optimizing where coders do whatever they can to change the code in such a way that the end result will be the same or similar on different machines at the same framerate - this is the head-scratchingly-annoying process you are refering to.


The question of power is a big one though.  If Dolphin were a retail game and devices with ES 3.0 were the 740 and PS4 while 2.0 was the Wii U, they would probably opt not to put it on the Wii U if it's going to start at 1FPS and them having to rewrite the rendering engine to try to get anything better.


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## Foxi4 (May 15, 2013)

Rydian said:


> The question of power is a big one though. If Dolphin were a retail game and devices with ES 3.0 were the 740 and PS4 while 2.0 was the Wii U, they would probably opt not to put it on the Wii U if it's going to start at 1FPS and them having to rewrite the rendering engine to try to get anything better.


...unless they find a workaround or a Wii U-specific equivalent and feel like busting their ass while porting. 

Don't get me wrong here - I agree with you, just not to such a huge extent. I'm still a proponent of the _"consoles should be as beefy as possible to allow developers to be lazy and wasteful when it comes to programming, instead focusing on the artistic vision"_.


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## Rydian (May 15, 2013)

Agreed there, I'm just pointing out that a similar architecture, while still having instruction set differences, can go a long way even if you're coding in a high-level language.  Instruction sets are there specifically to take would-be-slower operations and make them feasible for use.


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## Foxi4 (May 15, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Agreed there, I'm just pointing out that a similar architecture, while still having instruction set differences, can go a long way even if you're coding in a high-level language. Instruction sets are there specifically to take would-be-slower operations and make them feasible for use.


I'm glad that we found mutual understanding.


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## Veho (May 15, 2013)

Rizsparky said:


> Not really, that's why I dont want the next Nintendo handheld to have backwards compatibility, mainly because it will be forced to include a 3D screen..


I don't think they would include 3D if the next console isn't going to be 3D too. They drop features in their backwards compatibility (game link cables on the DS, off the top of my head), and 3D would increase the price and be a hassle to implement so I think that _if _the next handheld isn't 3D in the first place, they won't bother with 3D support for 3DS games.


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## Rizsparky (May 15, 2013)

Veho said:


> I don't think they would include 3D if the next console isn't going to be 3D too. They drop features in their backwards compatibility (game link cables on the DS, off the top of my head), and 3D would increase the price and be a hassle to implement so I think that _if _the next handheld isn't 3D in the first place, they won't bother with 3D support for 3DS games.


I suppose, however some games (SM3DL) have elements within them that require some level of 3D to play so I dont know how far they could take it.


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## Pleng (May 16, 2013)

Veho said:


> I don't think they would include 3D if the next console isn't going to be 3D too. They drop features in their backwards compatibility (game link cables on the DS, off the top of my head), and 3D would increase the price and be a hassle to implement so I think that _if _the next handheld isn't 3D in the first place, they won't bother with 3D support for 3DS games.


 
Yup. Besides no 3DS games *need* the 3D to function.

Also, Somebody at Nintendo once said that their handhelds will always include 3D from now on. I can't be arsed to find the link but it was in an article where somebody was talking about what they did wrong with the 3DS. And the quote was something along the line of "...our next handhelds will still feature 3D, but it won't be a focal point, it will just be there if developers want to make use of it..."


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## Sean Kemp (May 22, 2013)

The new Xbox needs backwards compatibility Because if I buy one, I will need two consoles connected to my television so I can play my 360 games. 

Most importantly, the day will come when Microsoft will no longer support Xbox live for Xbox 360. That means no... more multiplayer for my Xbox 360 games and I will no longer be able to play any games or DLCs that require Xbox live. 

I think they need to at least develop an optical drive adaptor that can connected to the new Xbox One that will allow people to play their Xbox 360 games that way and still support the games and DLCs that require Xbox live.


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## Sean Kemp (May 22, 2013)

Also if Xbox included a way to include backwards compatibility, that would be a huge advantage over Playstations new concole


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## Rydian (May 22, 2013)

Sean Kemp said:


> The new Xbox needs backwards compatibility Because if I buy one, I will need two consoles connected to my television so I can play my 360 games.
> 
> Most importantly, the day will come when Microsoft will no longer support Xbox live for Xbox 360. That means no... more multiplayer for my Xbox 360 games and I will no longer be able to play any games or DLCs that require Xbox live.
> 
> I think they need to at least develop an optical drive adaptor that can connected to the new Xbox One that will allow people to play their Xbox 360 games that way and still support the games and DLCs that require Xbox live.


1 - The drive is the least of the worries when it comes to a lack of backwards compatibility.  There have been systems that had the right drives but couldn't play the earlier games, and there have been systems that did not have the right dirv,e but could still play the earlier games (PSX on PSP is a shining example).

2 - Consoles die, and you'll need to accept that eventually.  Even if the system still works, the online servers might not.  Online games for the Dreamcast, PS2, and PC have gone down time and time again, there's many games you cannot play online anymore.


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## xwatchmanx (May 24, 2013)

I used to care about backward compatibility, but now that I collect all the consoles I've liked, it doesn't bother me. Even consoles with true hardware compatibility (like the GameCube compatibility in older Wii models), I've bought for those one or two features that I prefer (like the Game Boy Player).

And I definitely prefer the expense of the console to go into power more than into backward compatibility. Nintendo pretty much gimped the Wii U with decade-old hardware for the sake of backward compatibility, something me and countless other Wii owners could live without... not to mention that Wii are pretty cheap nowadays.


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