Xbox One Backwards Compatibility May Still Happen

[HardOCP News]

I honestly don't see why Microsoft couldn't do backwards compatibility in the first place. Cloud or no cloud, you'd think the Xbox One should have more than enough horsepower to run a Xbox 360 emulator.

"The power of the cloud brings many possibilities on Xbox One. Albert was speaking theoretically about backwards compatibility as an example of the features the cloud could enable in the future."

 

[pxc]

I can't see how MS *could* do backwards compatibility since the triple core PPC 3.2GHz CPU would be a bear to emulate even on higher end processors. Graphics emulation would also be tricky with any success while handling low level tricks used in some games.

 

[pcjunkie]

I can't see how MS *could* do backwards compatibility since the triple core PPC 3.2GHz CPU would be a bear to emulate even on higher end processors. Graphics emulation would also be tricky with any success while handling low level tricks used in some games.

As far as processing power you do understand the "cloud" part of his statement don't you?

 

[temujin987]

is there anything left that they said was impossible and may then be miraculously added to the final box? while they're at it, could they change the design of this fugly thing to something that belongs in the 21st century?

 

[KainPT]

Yes but if the game is streaming from somewhere else then it isn't really backwards compatibility.

 

[armandh01]

I'm no expert in programming, but it seems like the more complicated the hardware gets the more difficult it becomes to emulate well enough to run the games created on that hardware. I personally think the cloud idea is OK,because I think it is about as good a solution to the problem as there will ever be. But again I am not expert on the matter so maybe emulation is easier than I think.

 

[HardOCP News]

I can't see how MS *could* do backwards compatibility since the triple core PPC 3.2GHz CPU would be a bear to emulate even on higher end processors.

You can play Xbox 360 games via an emulation on lower end PCs right now. Trust me, the people that actualy MAKE the game surely can.

 

[temujin987]

You can play Xbox 360 games via an emulator on lower end PCs right now. If carppy hackers can do it, the people that actualy MAKE the game surely can.

[citation needed]

 

[Inu]

Emulation is always so iffy though. Seems like there are weird little glitches, mostly graphical etc. That means they would have to consider each game on a case-by-case basis. Nintendo is currently doing this for "some" games and its taking forever.

 

[jvilla]

i don't get why these microsoft people can not sell us a expensive media/game streamer to play games with and put everything on the cloud. use all that cloud stuff to balance pings and response time of all gamers on the cloud and give us close to real time play mode. Since they charge us monthly for the cpu cycles that we use on their (Live)cloud computer network. oh wait Microsoft is needing more money for those crappy windows product and phones and Craplets they invented.

 

[Unknown-One]

You can play Xbox 360 games via an emulator on lower end PCs right now. If carppy hackers can do it, the people that actualy MAKE the game surely can.

No, no you can't.

 

[dandirk]

If they could do something to carry over 360 games it would be a pretty big move to keep a lot of 360 gamers. As what I would call a "normal" user for consoles, I wouldn't care one bit if it was streamed etc as long as I somehow could play the same games I bought.

For me the fact the PS4 won't do backwards compatibility is the main reason why I will probably wait until games are no longer available on PS3... At that time hope that some games have been ported over with HD super versions.

While I might not care so much my GF loves her lego games and would be very disappointed if I upgraded and she didn't have access to all the same games. And yes I know I can use both, but I won't do that.

You would think that since most of these games have crappy PC ports they could at least re-compile for the newer PC based platforms? Though I have no clue how much labor/work that would be.

 

[jynxycat]

There wasn't ever a successful regular Xbox last-gen emulator, a 360 one would probably be more than worth the trouble.

 

[Aluisious]

It could be more complicated things like rendering full games like a Gaikai and delivering it to the box. We just have to figure out how, over time, how much does that cost to deliver, how good is the experience

Good to know that Microsoft employs idiots at a senior level.

How the fuck are you going to render a frame of a game, send it to a box on the other side of the country, display it, get controller response, send that back, and render the next frame and send that and have it be anything other than a slide show?

I feel like I should be shorting Microsoft, just on the basis of the crushing stupidity of this one guy and the implication that he's probably not the only fuckwit who doesn't understand his own product, industry, technology, etc that Microsoft has ever hired.

 

[Exavior]

Emulation is always so iffy though. Seems like there are weird little glitches, mostly graphical etc. That means they would have to consider each game on a case-by-case basis. Nintendo is currently doing this for "some" games and its taking forever.

That is how it worked for the 360. The Xbox 360 does not have full backwards compatilbity. Given the system changes they had to write special patches for each and every game that would work. They started at launch time with I think the most popular 50 games or so. then slowly added more games over time they they covered what they considered to be the more popular games that people might try to play, then stopped.

While a lot of people here make a big deal about it just because they can, backwards compatibility never really has been possible except for what 1 generation? Try playing your NES games on your gamecube and let me know how that works. Or your Genesis games in a Dreamcast. PS1 to PS2 worked, however that also broke the system as did playing DVDs in it as it for some reason would cause the gears to adjust the laser to get off by a few teeth and it would give you disk read errors unless you took it appart and manually adjusted the laser to the correct position so that it could read all the disk types again. PS2 ot PS3 supported that for a short while, then they dropped the price and removed that feature so if you bought one right now that wouldn't be supported. Xbox to Xbox 360 as i said was limited.

Gamecube to Wii was fine. Wii games in Wii U is fine (i think). You then have the Nintendo hand helds that support that.

But overall it isn't something that people really are use to having for years and years and years. They are used to having to use the old system for old games, the new one for new games. Or rebuying the old games as a digital download when they are released on the new console. So if you can't play your 360 games on your Xbox One or PS3 games on your PS4, most average people won't care.

 

[Rob94hawk]

Backwards compatibility is why the Wii when it came out was a big hit for me and the kids. It could play Game Cube games. This is why I wont be buying any more consoles. I have a pile of games.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

There isn't any reason why the next xbox (xbox2?) wouldn't have backwards compatibility, but it's a little more than waving a magic emulator wand at this xbox (xbox1) to make it work well enough to be a selling point feature.

 

[Exavior]

We just don't know of the secret secret secret group of hackers that have broke the methods needed to do so. They are so secret that anyone that ever knew them was killed off, and then anyone that knew those people were killed off and so on. The towns were they all lived were then refilled with planted actors just like in the movie The Truman Show. Their works are kept in their underground cities miles under the earth.

 

[DPI]

As far as processing power you do understand the "cloud" part of his statement don't you?

Ahh yes, The Magical Cloud™. Elemental. Primal. Nigh unstoppable. And bean dip dispenser.

 

[Exavior]

There isn't any reason why the next xbox (xbox2?) wouldn't have backwards compatibility, but it's a little more than waving a magic emulator wand at this xbox (xbox1) to make it work well enough to be a selling point feature.

the next one is the 3rd Xbox generation. You had the orginal, then Xbox 360 and now Xbox One.

The reason it doesn't have backwards compatibility is due to the complete hardware change. The last two generations used the IBM powerpc proccessor. The same thing the old Apple computers used. The new one uses your normal 64-bit x86 cpu like your computer uses. Software for one doesn't run on the other. they use completely different instruction sets. Hense why when Apple went from PPC to x86 not a single old program would run anymore on OSX.

doing a little bit of reading on a powerpc emulator for x86, there is a platform that can emulate it that has been around about 10 years. but according to their site as of the current version

•CPU GENERIC: Sort of G4, including altivec. A more or less portable CPU. Using this CPU, the client will run about 500 times slower than the host. As of version 0.4 the generic CPU emulation runs well even on big-endian and 64 bit platforms.
•CPU JITC-X86: Sort of G4, including altivec. A very fast CPU for x86 systems that translates PowerPC instructions into x86 instructions on-demand. By caching these translations, a lot of speed is gained. Using this CPU, the client will run about 15 times slower than the host. Only works on x86 hosts

Xbox 360 used something that was much higher end than the G4. So you are not going to be getting something very usable at all for gaming if you try to emulate it on a x86 platform.

 

[jvilla]

i would like quantum processing and photon beaming xbox please.

 

[ITSTHINKING]

That is how it worked for the 360. The Xbox 360 does not have full backwards compatilbity. Given the system changes they had to write special patches for each and every game that would work. They started at launch time with I think the most popular 50 games or so. then slowly added more games over time they they covered what they considered to be the more popular games that people might try to play, then stopped.

While a lot of people here make a big deal about it just because they can, backwards compatibility never really has been possible except for what 1 generation? Try playing your NES games on your gamecube and let me know how that works. Or your Genesis games in a Dreamcast. PS1 to PS2 worked, however that also broke the system as did playing DVDs in it as it for some reason would cause the gears to adjust the laser to get off by a few teeth and it would give you disk read errors unless you took it appart and manually adjusted the laser to the correct position so that it could read all the disk types again. PS2 ot PS3 supported that for a short while, then they dropped the price and removed that feature so if you bought one right now that wouldn't be supported. Xbox to Xbox 360 as i said was limited.

Gamecube to Wii was fine. Wii games in Wii U is fine (i think). You then have the Nintendo hand helds that support that.

But overall it isn't something that people really are use to having for years and years and years. They are used to having to use the old system for old games, the new one for new games. Or rebuying the old games as a digital download when they are released on the new console. So if you can't play your 360 games on your Xbox One or PS3 games on your PS4, most average people won't care.

I can play nes and genesis games on my (modded) dreamcast although that is kind of a bad comparison in the first place... My launch ps2 is still out in the living room and plays dvd's and ps1 games just fine. You always heard from the people with broken ps2's not the ones that worked just fine. I'd say that qualifies as years and years. Never once needed a physical repair.

 

[Exavior]

I can play nes and genesis games on my (modded) dreamcast although that is kind of a bad comparison in the first place... My launch ps2 is still out in the living room and plays dvd's and ps1 games just fine. You always heard from the people with broken ps2's not the ones that worked just fine. I'd say that qualifies as years and years. Never once needed a physical repair.

Yes modded doesn't count. And instead of years and years. I guess I should have said generations and generations. PS1 to PS2 is only 1 console. you didn't take your NES games, to your SNES, to your Gamecube, to your Wii, to your Wii U. You didn't take your games from your Atari and play them on your NES, then on your gensis, and then on some other console. At best you had 1 maybe 2 generations of buying a console from the store that let you play order games on them. That is the point i was trying to make,

And that is true about the PS2, but that is the same with anything. That said I did go through 2 PS2s. First one had that laser issue about 8 times in 2 years.

 

[dyzophoria]

I'm not sure how the cloud will easily be able to emulate your games, but let's say it is indeed possible to emulate the PPC infrastructure on the x86 infrastructure it is pretty simple why MS hasn't opted to do this just yet, they still want to squeeze every ounce of money out of the 360, won't be surprised if in 2016 (the supposedly EOL of the 360), something magical happens and a working emulator is developed

 

[Anaerin]

The last two generations used the IBM powerpc proccessor.

Sorry, not quite. The original XBox was a Intel PIII Coppermine processor on an NVidia NForce motherboard, with a GeForce 3 GPU. This is why Linux was ported so quickly and easily to the original XBox, and how XBMC made the jump back from XBox only to Windows/Mac/Linux as it is now.

The 360 has an IBM "CELL" processor, which is kinda like a PowerPC processor in the same way an i7 is like a 386.

The same thing the old Apple computers used. The new one uses your normal 64-bit x86 cpu like your computer uses. Software for one doesn't run on the other. they use completely different instruction sets. Hence why when Apple went from PPC to x86 not a single old program would run anymore on OSX.

Well, that and IBM didn't want to support the PPC family, preferring to go forward with CELL.

doing a little bit of reading on a powerpc emulator for x86, there is a platform that can emulate it that has been around about 10 years. but according to their site as of the current version

Yes. If you want to see it in action, you can grab a copy of PearPC Which will do it's best to emulate a G4 Mac. As mentioned elsewhere, the bytecode interpreter is more compatible, but around 500x slower, whereas the JIT interpreter is faster (15x slower) but less compatible. And this is running a single core. To JIT JUST the CPU of a 360 would require at least 6 CPU cores (Each CELL core is double-threaded) running at 48.0GHz. Then you have to write the necessary emulation for the hardware, bridges for the GPU code, and more. And that's assuming you have the original source for the OS to work from.

Xbox 360 used something that was much higher end than the G4. So you are not going to be getting something very usable at all for gaming if you try to emulate it on a x86 platform.

A possible solution might be so-called "Dynamic Recompilation", where the program code is decompiled for Cell and recompiled for x86-64. However, that would take a LOT of processing power, and an incredible amount of bandwidth to send over essentially the entire game, though you would only have to do it once.
A second solution (And probably what they're thinking of) is having racks filled with CELL blades to handle the processing, and using a streaming solution like Gaikai or OnLive's system (or a variant thereof) to handle the load. The XBOne can handle the upscaling (as the X360's GPU did - very few (if any) 360 games actually run in 1080p, they're upscaled), and possibly even the 3D rendering if the rendering code can be split like that.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

the next one is the 3rd Xbox generation. You had the orginal, then Xbox 360 and now Xbox One.

The reason it doesn't have backwards compatibility is due to the complete hardware change. The last two generations used the IBM powerpc proccessor. The same thing the old Apple computers used. The new one uses your normal 64-bit x86 cpu like your computer uses. Software for one doesn't run on the other. they use completely different instruction sets. Hense why when Apple went from PPC to x86 not a single old program would run anymore on OSX.

doing a little bit of reading on a powerpc emulator for x86, there is a platform that can emulate it that has been around about 10 years. but according to their site as of the current version

Yea, exactly. This is why I (xbox2) (xbox1). Meaning; xbox1 will never have proper emulation, but the 2020 model probably will.

 

[BladeVenom]

Xbox 360 used something that was much higher end than the G4. So you are not going to be getting something very usable at all for gaming if you try to emulate it on a x86 platform.

No it wasn't. A G4 was the closest thing to one of the 360's cores.

If MS really wanted to create an emulator, I'm sure they could.

 

[quimby999]

not sure why bc is such a big deal just keep a 360 and a ps3 to work thru your backlogs then start building an xbox 1 and pss4 backlog should keep most of us busy for years ll got a spare unopened 360 and ps3 in closet hust in case . the perfect accessaryfor the next gen this gen systems for bc

 

[Wrecked Em]

Interestingly, this is the single feature that would make me buy one right now. My 1st gen 360 finally kicked the bucket last night. My plan was to wait for the xbone launch, and grab a used 360 to finish my 4 year old stack of games that are still wrapped in cellophane. If these games play on the bone though, I'd just go that route.

 

[quimby999]

there are goingto be great games released over the next few years for the current systems too., but I'l get next gen versions if both are available

 

[quimby999]

my 360 backlog consists of working thru the whole halo series and fable and gears also have dragon age and fallout series to get thru that'll take a solid year or so if I play seriously and about 35 ps3 games to get through . not sure why I'm getting the PS4 and Xbox one. I'm probaly set for the forseeable future. I don't really expect a next, next generation.

 

[Anaerin]

No it wasn't. A G4 was the closest thing to one of the 360's cores.

If you read up a little, you'll see that the "G4" (The PowerPC 7400, to use it's actual name, rather than Apple's marketing term for it) is 5 generations behind the PPEs in the Xenon/CELL processor.

If MS really wanted to create an emulator, I'm sure they could.

It's a matter of scale. You CAN create an emulator. However, the resulting code would run 500x (Give or take) slower than actual speed, making it unusable on a console.

 

[Blown 89]

Yes but if the game is streaming from somewhere else then it isn't really backwards compatibility.

MS intends to use cloud computing services rather than streams for everything else, I imagine they are trying to do the same thing.

 

[Quix]

I still think they'd be better off making a software package that maps the Xbox 360's APIs to the Xbox One's APIs and then recompiling a large number of popular games and distributing the new binaries over Xbox Live while using the original assets.

It's much more feasible from a performance prospective and it doesn't require any hardware so they could implement it any time. Emulating a RISC platform on a CISC platform is too intense to be feasible. Even high end Core chips would be hard pressed to emulate the Xeons CPU and you'd need to worry about the GPU too.

They could just port old games over to the new system and sell them on Live, it would be nice if they offered licenses to existing 360 disc owners but I don't hold out much hope of that.

 

[Serpent]

[citation needed]

Indeed... not that I doubt it. The coding on the 360 probably isn't much different from a PC.

 

[Liger88]

I can't see how MS *could* do backwards compatibility since the triple core PPC 3.2GHz CPU would be a bear to emulate even on higher end processors. Graphics emulation would also be tricky with any success while handling low level tricks used in some games.

IIRC the majority of games are still focused on a single core out of those three. I may be wrong or it may only be certain titles, but there was a recent quote regarding Gears of War mostly being a single process game. I don't know if developers even have access to more than 2 cores even if they could based off the XBONE's automated allotment of 2 cores.

 

[sculelos]

I still think they'd be better off making a software package that maps the Xbox 360's APIs to the Xbox One's APIs and then recompiling a large number of popular games and distributing the new binaries over Xbox Live while using the original assets.

It's much more feasible from a performance prospective and it doesn't require any hardware so they could implement it any time. Emulating a RISC platform on a CISC platform is too intense to be feasible. Even high end Core chips would be hard pressed to emulate the Xeons CPU and you'd need to worry about the GPU too.

They could just port old games over to the new system and sell them on Live, it would be nice if they offered licenses to existing 360 disc owners but I don't hold out much hope of that.

Ports are possible but time consuming so it's unlikely that much would be ported over except the most popular titles or titles with devs that are determined to port over their 360 games to the xbone.

Cloud computing could be possible but it's rather expensive server-wise and leads to game-play that's not great so I'm not sure if Microsoft would want to pursue this.

Emulation is simply too slow for now. At beast Emulators run at maybe 1/20th speed ratio which is fine and dandy if your emulating games that are N64 era or older but it gets slow when you start talking about PS2 or newer on games that pushed the systems.

 

[bufodr_T]

If the new Xbox had bw comp I would buy it over the ps4. If it doesn't I have no reason not to jump ship to the ps4. $100 more is a good chunk of change for the shit they call kinect that I don't want or need. If prices are equal I would buy another Xbox. Screw kinect. Not worth the $$$$

 

[Serpent]

Did they not say, forget Kinect, it's no longer part of the package?

 

[jbltecnicspro]

I can play nes and genesis games on my (modded) dreamcast although that is kind of a bad comparison in the first place... My launch ps2 is still out in the living room and plays dvd's and ps1 games just fine. You always heard from the people with broken ps2's not the ones that worked just fine. I'd say that qualifies as years and years. Never once needed a physical repair.

Now that you mention the Dreamcast, your username makes more sense. 9/9/99 - Never forget!