4 ms·

Except we can still play our SNES and NES. Due to the fragility of the systems and supposed rumors it is most likely today's 7 year olds won't be able to play t

by b3b0p 13y ago

Except we can still play our SNES and NES. Due to the fragility of the systems and supposed rumors it is most likely today's 7 year olds won't be able to play their Xbox or Playstation when they are our age, sadly. They sure don't make games and systems like they used to.

jonnathanson 13y ago
It's not just the fragility of the hardware, but also the increasingly firm stance against backwards compatibility. No doubt this is driven by publishers, who'd rather focus on big topline profits on new releases than double-dip (or triple-dip) old titles. There's less and less ROI in investing the time, resources, and manpower to build emulation for old console hardware, or to get developers to do the same for their old games. That being said, I predict we'll see a golden age of backwards compatibility and cross-platform titling within a few console generations. Not for folks like you and me, whose old (by now, ancient!) games are evolutionary dead-ends. But for the 7-year-olds of today, whose consoles are basically just fancy PCs in shiny shells -- and whose games are going to be built very similarly, regardless of platform, and distributed digitally.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  There was no backwards compatibility in the 8-bit era. Backwards compatibility was a novel invention of the PS2 and the GBC.
  - chc 13y ago
    Although, in fairness, complaining about the lack of backwards compatibility has been with us since the SNES. I remember every single console generation brought a predictable chorus of "What?! You mean I'm not going to be able to play other systems' games on this new system? What kind of racket are these guys running?"
  - T-hawk 13y ago
    False. There was backwards compatibility long before the PS2. Just not in market-leading Nintendo's systems. Way back even before the 8-bit NES, the Atari 7800 was backwards compatible with Atari 2600 games. So was the ColecoVision, although through a hardware adapter that basically was an entire 2600 on a chip outputting raw video to the ColecoVision. And the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive had an adapter to play 8-bit Sega Master System games, running the SMS code on an auxiliary sound Z80 in the Genesis, so slightly hardware assisted but mostly built into the console.
  - jonnathanson 13y ago
    I think I should clarify my point about backwards compatibility. I brought it up not to suggest that it was a hallmark of the 8-bit era, but rather, to suggest that backwards compatibility (via emulation, via hardware, etc.) is the only thing that'll allow us to keep playing today's games when today's consoles become obsolete. This was a supplementary point to the parent post about how old hardware can still be played today, while today's hardware won't be playable in 10 years. I can see how my comment, as phrased, led to a lot of misinterpretation. My apologies on that.
- untog 13y ago
  Yeah, I loved playing NES games on my SNES. Wait. In all honesty, the digital era could well be a boon for backwards compatibility if anyone tried enough. Nintendo are a great example, packaging up old games to be sold on the Wii Store.
- pandaman 13y ago
  People don't want to pay for the backward compatibility, there is no publisher pressure or other conspiracy. PS2 had it for free from the design that used the PSX-on-chip as I/O processor. Later consoles had been more integrated and the BC hardware had been additional cost. This is why BC has been removed from PS3 and Wii during cost reducing revisions.
- gordaco 13y ago
  Also, I wonder if emulation of these newer systems, which is a special kind of retrocompability, will be feasible. It seems that the PS3 and XBox360 are already hard to emulate, not only because of complex hardware but because of all the annoying (from an emulator developer's point of view) non-gaming capabilities interfering with the third party software (achievements, online capabilities, etc). Another sad consequence of the consoles who want to be more than consoles. The Wii, on the other hand, has been emulated for a while, despite its unusual controllers.
majormajor 13y ago
I can't play my SNES. My N64 only turns on about 1 time out of 10, too. Thank goodness for emulators.

by b3b0p 13y ago

jonnathanson 13y ago

It's not just the fragility of the hardware, but also the increasingly firm stance against backwards compatibility. No doubt this is driven by publishers, who'd rather focus on big topline profits on new releases than double-dip (or triple-dip) old titles. There's less and less ROI in investing the time, resources, and manpower to build emulation for old console hardware, or to get developers to do the same for their old games. That being said, I predict we'll see a golden age of backwards compatibility and cross-platform titling within a few console generations. Not for folks like you and me, whose old (by now, ancient!) games are evolutionary dead-ends. But for the 7-year-olds of today, whose consoles are basically just fancy PCs in shiny shells -- and whose games are going to be built very similarly, regardless of platform, and distributed digitally.

Pxtl 13y ago
There was no backwards compatibility in the 8-bit era. Backwards compatibility was a novel invention of the PS2 and the GBC.
- chc 13y ago
  Although, in fairness, complaining about the lack of backwards compatibility has been with us since the SNES. I remember every single console generation brought a predictable chorus of "What?! You mean I'm not going to be able to play other systems' games on this new system? What kind of racket are these guys running?"
- T-hawk 13y ago
  False. There was backwards compatibility long before the PS2. Just not in market-leading Nintendo's systems. Way back even before the 8-bit NES, the Atari 7800 was backwards compatible with Atari 2600 games. So was the ColecoVision, although through a hardware adapter that basically was an entire 2600 on a chip outputting raw video to the ColecoVision. And the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive had an adapter to play 8-bit Sega Master System games, running the SMS code on an auxiliary sound Z80 in the Genesis, so slightly hardware assisted but mostly built into the console.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  I think I should clarify my point about backwards compatibility. I brought it up not to suggest that it was a hallmark of the 8-bit era, but rather, to suggest that backwards compatibility (via emulation, via hardware, etc.) is the only thing that'll allow us to keep playing today's games when today's consoles become obsolete. This was a supplementary point to the parent post about how old hardware can still be played today, while today's hardware won't be playable in 10 years. I can see how my comment, as phrased, led to a lot of misinterpretation. My apologies on that.
untog 13y ago
Yeah, I loved playing NES games on my SNES. Wait. In all honesty, the digital era could well be a boon for backwards compatibility if anyone tried enough. Nintendo are a great example, packaging up old games to be sold on the Wii Store.
pandaman 13y ago
People don't want to pay for the backward compatibility, there is no publisher pressure or other conspiracy. PS2 had it for free from the design that used the PSX-on-chip as I/O processor. Later consoles had been more integrated and the BC hardware had been additional cost. This is why BC has been removed from PS3 and Wii during cost reducing revisions.
gordaco 13y ago
Also, I wonder if emulation of these newer systems, which is a special kind of retrocompability, will be feasible. It seems that the PS3 and XBox360 are already hard to emulate, not only because of complex hardware but because of all the annoying (from an emulator developer's point of view) non-gaming capabilities interfering with the third party software (achievements, online capabilities, etc). Another sad consequence of the consoles who want to be more than consoles. The Wii, on the other hand, has been emulated for a while, despite its unusual controllers.

majormajor 13y ago

I can't play my SNES. My N64 only turns on about 1 time out of 10, too. Thank goodness for emulators.