WHats going to happen when Microsoft ends support for the 360?

[Alhanelem]

That's why people are informing you, stop becoming aggressive because people reply to your post with information you lacked when making it.

I don't call the "informing" that was conducted informing me:

Oh, you haven't heard? It's like one of the first things they announced about the XBox one.

The way this was written (starting with "Oh, you haven't heard?") struck me as rude sarcasm.

Maybe that wasn't the intention, but that's what it sounded like to me.

Now, if backwards compatibility is easy to do, there's no reason not to do it. that 5% segment of your population will be happy- no reason to upset people if it's easy not to. If you don't switch to a different processor architecture, backwards compatibility is almost effortless. Obviously, that isn't the case in this situation- but if microsoft didn't half-ass backwards compatibility the first time, more people might have used it.

[Anjou]

Personally of all the big gaming companies out there, Nintendo is obviously the best when it comes to backwards compatibility, if they can turn a console that uses motion sensors to play back into their Gamecube, I don't understand why Microsoft can't do the same.

Personally it should be mandatory that consoles are backwards compatible to a certain extent, they could still be making money off of 360 games long after 360 service ends.

[Mirage]

What do you mean by "turn a console that uses motion sensors to play back into their gamecube"? The Wii is a gamecube on speed, with motion controls attached. That's why it can play gamecube games, not because of some Nintendo Hocus Pocus magic.
The PS4 and Exbone are not PS3s and 360s on speed, they are completely different architectures, and that also very apparent when you look at the difference in power between PS2-3 and 4 and between the GC, Wii and WiiU.

[Alhanelem]

What do you mean by "turn a console that uses motion sensors to play back into their gamecube"? The Wii is a gamecube on speed, with motion controls attached. That's why it can play gamecube games, not because of some Nintendo Hocus Pocus magic.

More accurately, it's easy for the Wii to have a gamecube mode because the Wii uses the same archetecture. The Wii U has Wii compatability easily because again, it has the same archetecture- just a faster CPU, better GPU, more memory, etc. It honestly puzzles me why the other console makers felt the need to reinvent the wheel with a special archetecture for each generation, rather than just using the same thing and improving upon it.

Anyway, you're right, it's not hocus pocus magic- the compatibility was there because little work was needed to allow it. I'm sure if Microsoft wouldn't have to have gone to great lengths and considerable investment to do it, they would have done it- because any extra segment of customers you can reach, even if it's small, is worth reaching if the cost is low enough to justify it.

[Mirage]

Well you're not gonna find out if a certain architecture is better than an older architecture without actually testing it out. There isn't really *that* much innovation going on at the x86 front. They're just following the same paradigm that "american muscle cars" do.

[Alhanelem]

Well you're not gonna find out if a certain architecture is better than an older architecture without actually testing it out. There isn't really *that* much innovation going on at the x86 front. They're just following the same paradigm that "american muscle cars" do.

Well most of us are on x64 systems now- but that's not to say there isn't been any innovation within the archetecture, there's been all sorts of CPU technologies added to boost performance in various situations. IMO, the only really big innovation likely to come in the mid term is quadratic computing (if/when they can prove that their chips are actually doing that).

The PS3's unique archetecture was purpose-built from the ground up for what the PS3 was designed to do- but in the end, that only made it more difficult to develop on. Was it really worth it?

Backwards compatibility was extremely iffy on the PS3 and xbox (moreso the latter), and I think that's the real reason it was so underutilized. If every game worked and didn't have problems,

On the Wii U, the only Wii games that don't work at all are the ones that require the dance pad, since the Wii U doesn't have the gamecube controller ports (If it did have them, they would work perfectly), and the small number of games that actually used Wii Connect24 will no longer be able to use that functionality- that's the entire extent of incompatibility.

[OmnysValefor]

I've always had trouble believing backwards-compatibility is the issue they make it out to be. Simply put, they've this idea that there's little money to be made in old markets, so why bother. I know the differences in hardware, and more importantly, hardware architecture. It just doesn't seem like backwards compatibility could be an issue at all, if they set out with that feature in mind, and when you're replacing a system, that has to be one of the first topics you address, as a compny.

In Sony's case, remember that the first PS3s were backwards compatible.

There are rumors that neither company's system will play used games and this seems more in that vein. Current-gen systems' games don't have the checks in place, nor-likely-a unique id in each copy of the software. Nixing backwards compatibility allows them, so they think, to rake in the dough.

What they don't realize is that many people would rather spend $40 on 4 used games at gamestop and return/share/resell them than $70, or even $40 (lol that won't happen) only to find out the game was overhyped and the 100 hours of story was marketing bs and the game is done six hours later.

[Mirage]

Well most of us are on x64 systems now- but that's not to say there isn't been any innovation within the archetecture, there's been all sorts of CPU technologies added to boost performance in various situations. IMO, the only really big innovation likely to come in the mid term is quadratic computing (if/when they can prove that their chips are actually doing that).

Most of us are on x86-64. It's a 64-bit extension of the x86 architecture, not a new architecture. The processors still have most of the old gunk in them that is required to execute 32 and 16 bit code, and that is a bit of wasted space if you're gonna use the processor it in a system that will never use these features. Aka consoles.

Also, the Cell architecture was not meant to only be used in PS3, but it turned out that way because it was perhaps not as good as they had hoped. There were a few servers made by IBM that utilized it, and some of Sony's TVs used Cell CPUs as well.

[Camiie]

I've always had trouble believing backwards-compatibility is the issue they make it out to be. Simply put, they've this idea that there's little money to be made in old markets, so why bother. I know the differences in hardware, and more importantly, hardware architecture. It just doesn't seem like backwards compatibility could be an issue at all, if they set out with that feature in mind, and when you're replacing a system, that has to be one of the first topics you address, as a compny.

It's to strongly encourage you to buy the lackluster launch titles rather than just buy the system, play the games you already have, and wait for the truly good games to come later. It's also so they can port last-gen games over as downloads and have you repurchase them if you want to play them in 4k HD on your new system.

[Alpheus]

Current-gen systems' games don't have the checks in place, nor-likely-a unique id in each copy of the software.

PS3 was technically capable since all Blu Rays have a unique serial number printed to each disc (this was when they announced it as a format) they just never pulled the trigger on utilizing those serial numbers.