Heard it was this way a while back, but I' m actually quite surprised that Microsoft won' t allow devs to make their own games compatable themselves.

We' d absolutely love it if our Burnout games worked on 360," said Ward, " but it' s down to what Microsoft wants to do. It controls and decides what games its emulator works with. I' ve actually asked them four times myself for them to make it happen, but it' s really not up to us.

Criterion in an interview with Eurogamer.

and

Backwards compatibility is not something that works from our code - rather Microsoft has developed a software emulator that should make this happen at some point in the future. Should that be the case, it will be downloaded on Live or by visiting the Xbox.com website. I think at the moment the emulator doesn' t work with all games but Microsoft say they are going to fix it so everything works eventually. So we don' t know really; it' s out of our hands.

From an interview with Sumo digital about OutRun 2006 at UK Resistance.

This whole thing really does suck. Surely it would be in Mircosoft' s interest to allow developers to code their own emulation software, which would then easily be intergrated with Microsoft' s own, much like a Windows patch.

Take new releases like Black. The amount of people willing to shell out for an Xbox has diminished greatly since the launch of the 360, and since 360 owners are currently starved for games it would make perfect sense. Even more so for those who just don' t want to play stuff like Ghost Recon or The Outfit, which were coming out, but rather OutRun 2006 for the orig Xbox.

What do guys think, because for me I hate having to get my chunky old Xbox back out just to play new games, mainly because the RGB output is so blurry compared to the other consoles (In UK Xbox' s Microsoft added a softening effect to combat jaggies in interlaced mode 480i, and you have no access to 480p through the first XB without modding).

Where can i check which games are backwards compitable?
And will they load and look a bit better?

May i add this printed from UKrestance.co.uk From an interview with Sumo Digital about Outrun 2006.

***THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF THEM ALL***

Q:
Will the Xbox version work on Xbox 360? This is the most important question of them all, so please answer it like this is a serious interview for somewhere proper like IGN or Edge.
A: Sumo
Sol: Backwards compatibility is not something that works from our code - rather Microsoft has developed a software emulator that should make this happen at some point in the future. Should that be the case, it will be downloaded on Live or by visiting the Xbox.com website. I think at the moment the emulator doesn' t work with all games but Microsoft say they are going to fix it so everything works eventually. So we don' t know really; it' s out of our hands.

Huh, that' s the same as my quote just with the question included.

I heard MS gave the info on the emulators to devs so they could make the new games backward compatible from start, but from what i heard with Black, thats not possible, and i dont see why, absolutely insane!

That' s exactly what I was saying. The devs should be told the info they can choose to have it ready for when their game hits the selves.

Sadly MS are being absolutely stupid about the whole thing. Are the team responsible even back from their ' holiday' working on the next batch of games, or at the very least they should sort out the problems with existing ones.

I should at least be able to play DOA3 without it crashing two seconds into a fight, yet the rolling demo never crashes at all.

Where can i check which games are backwards compitable?
And will they load and look a bit better?

Xbox 360 is not backwards compatible - most games , even those that are listed have huge bugs, framerate drops , and are unpredictable.

I call this a fuckin lie

Xbox.com has a list somewhere on their website, or you can try IGN which the page is easier to find.

Anyway before you can play anything other than Halo 1&2 (the only games which worked out the box) you' ll need to download the drivers via Xbox Live, or if you aren' t on live, you have to download the drivers using your PC and then burn them onto a CD to use on your 360.

After that, like me, you can experience the absolute monumental mess up that is 360 backwards compatibility. Enjoy, or not.

Where can i check which games are backwards compitable?

Here...

http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm

They do look slightly better but most have longer loading times because the enumator is still fairly young, so to speak.

When you put a game in your 360 that is on the list, if you don' t have the right version of the eulator, it will automatically do it for you through Live.

Ther aren' t a lot of good games on the list though, even though there' s over 200. Half Life 2 is terrible on 360 it has the worst framerate i' ve ever seen!

There will be another large group of games added to the bc list soon...

You have to understand the way the emulation software works.
What microsoft is working to, is one software profile to run it all, but to do this it has to be controlled by one developer.
If they were to give away control, it might have unpredictable results, or break outright.

Some of these profiles also require bits (or outright full) parts of game content for bug checking, and feature addition, some companies are less then cool with that idea.

It' s not like with sony, where they can just throw in some chip from the previous generation, the pentium 3 and the geforce chip are a great deal more sophisticated and harder to produce then anything sony is using.
Plus microsoft doesn' t own the patent for last generation, something sony will learn with the ps4.

Black will run on the 360, but it' s not of high priority right now because the xbox still sells briskly.

Its in MS biggest interest to have most titles (especially the new ones) backward compatible!! It' s a mistake not to allow the tools to be placed on new Xbox dvd' s so that it works instantly, it would sell more games, more machines, so its money to everyone!

It is in my opinion very soon, as soon as september of this year.
There will be no " list" for micosoft' s emulation software, and most xbox games will work outright.

At least this is how i understand it.
This is still in beta, and like all things in beta, just won' t work right at first.
but for the time the xbox360 has been out, the number of games that work flawless/close to flawless, is pretty impressive.

But still, if people do learn how it' s done, it might be easy to do all sorts of things microsoft just doesn' t want to happen, granted i wouldnt mind getting homebrewsoftware to run on my 360...It' s just not going to happen.


So, very soon this might not be an issue.

Black will run on the 360, but it' s not of high priority right now because the xbox still sells briskly

Not quite in the UK, they have slowed down considerably, whereas PS2 is still selling healthy amounts on a weekly basis.

All we seem to sell at the place I work is preowned Xbox' s, nobody really buys new ones anymore. And software sales are certainly down.

It' s understandable why Microsoft want to control the software to reduce bugs and to maintain a decent level of quality control, however they have failed completely in this respect. Most of the emulated games have serious issue which ruin the gameplay completely. Even in flagship games such as Halo 2, there are glaring problems which you cannot fail to notice (transparent map-like image floating around in some single player levels, looks like screen burn).

If Microsoft had ironed out these problems with the compatable games then I wouldn' t have minded new games not being compatable from the off. Less games working close to perfectly is better than loads working with mixed, often gameplay damaging results.

I' ve said it before, and I' ll say it again (and again, if necessary): F*ck backward-compatibility!!

I didn' t buy a 360 to play Xbox games! I play those on... guess what: my Xbox!! Go figure! Yes, the emulation of games is not 100%! Does anybody actually believe that it' s EASY to get an Xbox game to work on the 360? The fact that Microsoft has a whole TEAM of people working on just that is two things: impressive, and a waste of energy and resources!

Also, the non-backward-compatibility of Burnout is planned. Why would they want you to be able to play the Xbox burnout on your 360 when there is a 360 version right around the corner!? That would impact sales, no?