No Backwards Compatibility - One of the many signs of industry greed?

[Racecarlock]

No seriously, who else has noticed this crap? It's easy to spot. My 360 can't play most of the original xbox games excluding of course ones co-produced by microsoft. I heard sony isn't putting backwards compatibility into any of the new ps3s, but both companies ARE selling games from those systems as digital content so you'll have to buy them again. What a load of shit. It's extortion. Or at the very least they're intentionally gouging you. Why the fuck do we put up with this? Why are we letting them make it so we can't play our old games until we buy them again from some digital store? We need to send them a message. Backwards compatibility or no money for you!

And being a business does not excuse them from this shit. For fucks sake, at this point, the mafia is technically a business since they also do whatever they can to make money.

 

[OrokuSaki]

Or, if you're like me, you can buy the old PS3 that has backwards compatibility, put a bigger hard drive in it, and pray that it doesn't break down.

 

[Jedoro]

I think it's garbage that Deus Ex: Invisible War isn't backwards compatible. Not an amazing game, but I enjoyed it, but now I can't play it since my brother lives in another state and has our old Xbox. So yeah, I don't buy the digital version of old games because the physical copy isn't backwards compatible. It is indeed a rip-off.

 

[Racecarlock]

Or, if you're like me, you can buy the old PS3 that has backwards compatibility, put a bigger hard drive in it, and pray that it doesn't break down.

Wait, they HAD backwards compatibility and they took it OUT?! That's even worse! Now I'm convinced it IS extortion. Also, I only have a 360. Was cheaper at the time.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Or, if you're like me, you can buy the old PS3 that has backwards compatibility, put a bigger hard drive in it, and pray that it doesn't break down.

Wait, they HAD backwards compatibility and they took it OUT?! That's even worse! Now I'm convinced it IS extortion. Also, I only have a 360. Was cheaper at the time.

They took it out because it was the least vital thing they could remove to bring prices down.

Why did they want to bring prices down? Because people bitched about the prices.

Edit: You do realize that Sony sells PS3s at a loss, right? They sell them for LESS than it costs to make them.

 

[d43dr34m3r]

Yeah, and I really hate how when they released the 360 and PS3 they snuck into everyone's houses and stole their old consoles and games. Oh, wait... They didn't. Well, at the very least, they defied expectations by bucking the trends they created previously. I used to love playing my N64 and Xbox -1 games on my GameCube and the original Xbox. Oh, wait... I didn't. Well, at the very least they didn't keep on re-releasing old games with slight updates in previous generations. Oh, wait...

 

[JustShyofGenius]

Most consoles haven't been backwards compatible.

Edit: Yep, pretty much what the guy above me said.

 

[Soviet Steve]

No seriously, who else has noticed this crap? It's easy to spot. My 360 can't play most of the original xbox games excluding of course ones co-produced by microsoft. I heard sony isn't putting backwards compatibility into any of the new ps3s, but both companies ARE selling games from those systems as digital content so you'll have to buy them again. What a load of shit.

How dare corporations attempt to turn a profit! D:

It's extortion. Or at the very least they're intentionally gouging you. Why the fuck do we put up with this? Why are we letting them make it so we can't play our old games until we buy them again from some digital store? We need to send them a message. Backwards compatibility or no money for you!

I'd love to see this but you have less chances than demanding Swiss citizenship along with every copy of Football Manager 2011 than enforcing a boycut of gaming consoles. Also letting stores sell your products is extortion now? Are you so incapable of self-control that seeing a gaming console forces you to buy it? If so I would recommend seeing a doctor.

And being a business does not excuse them from this shit. For fucks sake, at this point, the mafia is technically a business since they also do whatever they can to make money.

Really now? What law have they broken? Corporations exist to turn a profit, that's their sole mission. The US constitution doesn't guarantee backwards-compatibility with all your gaming systems and gamers generally don't give a shit, so removing it to cut costs makes perfect sense.

 

[targren]

Really now? What law have they broken? Corporations exist to turn a profit, that's their sole mission.

To be perfectly honest, that's hardly indicative of whether it's wrong or not. It should be obvious to anyone capable of rudimentary pattern recognition that laws governing corporate behavior are hand-crafted to the highest bidders.

 

[Racecarlock]

It's just not fair. The PS2 had backwards compatibility. And the only reason the Wii has to have a digital n64 store is because they couldn't fit a cartridge holder on top, and even then they still made it backwards compatible with the gamecube. Although it is kind of noble of sony to try and lower the prices of the ps3 for the customer now that I'm fully informed.

But that still does not excuse the manufacturer of the one system I have, the xbox 360. Is there any reason I can't play midway arcade treasures anymore, but Halo 2 is still fully functional? Bullshit. That kind of exclusion should not be allowed.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Or maybe its like other technology in that BC is a freaking ***** not only to implement but also to maintain. Legacy software has been a thorn in many a side. That's not say that lack of BC isn't so they can resell there games, but there is a very good reason for not wanting to deal with it.

 

[Still Life]

Really now? What law have they broken? Corporations exist to turn a profit, that's their sole mission.

Corporation, noun:

A company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

Now, I don't disagree with you except that corporations have a responsibility to ethically turnover a profit in order to maintain their existence in their respective market. However, no not all corporations turn exist purely for the sake of profit.

While I think the OP is being histrionic, I don't think it's unfair to ask for backward compatibility. I could think of a few reasons why it would benefit consumers, though I can think of a few things preventing it as well.

 

[d43dr34m3r]

Really now? What law have they broken? Corporations exist to turn a profit, that's their sole mission.

To be perfectly honest, that's hardly indicative of whether it's wrong or not. It should be obvious to anyone capable of rudimentary pattern recognition that laws governing corporate behavior are hand-crafted to the highest bidders.

To rephrase Istvan's question, in what way have they acted immorally? They never promised backwards compatibility, don't lie and say they have it, and the history of gaming hardware has not created a reasonable expectation worthy of condemning them for not including it.

 

[MrLS]

It's just not fair. The PS2 had backwards compatibility. And the only reason the Wii has to have a digital n64 store is because they couldn't fit a cartridge holder on top, and even then they still made it backwards compatible with the gamecube. Although it is kind of noble of sony to try and lower the prices of the ps3 for the customer now that I'm fully informed.

But that still does not excuse the manufacturer of the one system I have, the xbox 360. Is there any reason I can't play midway arcade treasures anymore, but Halo 2 is still fully functional? Bullshit. That kind of exclusion should not be allowed.

Now I logged in just to reply to this statement.

You know why the PS2 had backwards compatibility? Because it literary had a PS1 inbuilt into the console. They released one PS3 model that had a PS2 inbuilt, the 60GB models. But the problem was that the 60GBs was extra unstable and it made the console expensive.

 

[fenrizz]

Or, if you're like me, you can buy the old PS3 that has backwards compatibility, put a bigger hard drive in it, and pray that it doesn't break down.

Wait, they HAD backwards compatibility and they took it OUT?! That's even worse! Now I'm convinced it IS extortion. Also, I only have a 360. Was cheaper at the time.

They took it out because it was the least vital thing they could remove to bring prices down.

Why did they want to bring prices down? Because people bitched about the prices.

Edit: You do realize that Sony sells PS3s at a loss, right? They sell them for LESS than it costs to make them.

Sure, the Japanese PS3's would be cheaper without backwards compatibility since it had a PS2 hardware.
But the European and American versions of the PS3 had backwards compatibility via software.

I can't imagine that they saved a whole lot of money from removing that.

I think they did it so they could sell us old PSX titles via the Playstation Store.

 

[Soviet Steve]

To be perfectly honest, that's hardly indicative of whether it's wrong or not. It should be obvious to anyone capable of rudimentary pattern recognition that laws governing corporate behavior are hand-crafted to the highest bidders.

Hence why slavery abolition, child labour laws and social reforms never stood a chance of passing. Yes, the industry is greedy, but that is the whole point of it being an industry. They want to lower prices and increase the purchase rate of new machines, they take out peripheral features to lower production costs and hope to earn more money.

Really now? What law have they broken? Corporations exist to turn a profit, that's their sole mission.

Corporation, noun:

A company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

Now, I don't disagree with you except that corporations have a responsibility to ethically turnover a profit in order to maintain their existence in their respective market. However, no not all corporations turn exist purely for the sake of profit.

The only thing they're doing is selling new products at a reduced price though, and I tend to seperate non-profit organizations from corporations. All the relevant companies in this discussion exist to turn a profit.

While I think the OP is being histrionic, I don't think it's unfair to ask for backward compatibility. I could think of a few reasons why it would benefit consumers, though I can think of a few things preventing it as well.

No but unless it can be demonstrated to the tactical planning level that still selling BC-capable machines (perhaps at increased price to the consumer) is going to be profitable.

 

[klausaidon]

Actually, the reason Xbox didn't have full backwards capabilities, was because they legally couldn't. They didn't have the license for any game that wasn't produced by them. Sony was only able to do it, because they bought the rights to do so, because they knew they would be making Playstation 3 some day. After the Xbox was released, they started to buy the licenses to games, so they could release them on the console. However, doing so was actually kinda tricky. They couldn't do the same thing Sony did, and just put the chip from the previous Console into their new console. They had to emulate the Original Xbox instead, so making it possible to load older games required a software patch so that the 360 could recognize the game, and not have any weird disc reading fuck ups.

As for Sony, and Nintendo removing Backwards capability, I assume it was to reduce the price, but that's all I can figure.

 

[daemon37]

I understand the frustration, but why don't you just keep your old console instead of giving it away or trading it in to Gamestop for $5 when a nextgen system is released? That way you can play the game on the console it was made for. MORAL: Just keep your old systems for retro goodness in the future.

I still have a SNES and NES, which works... kinda. If my XBox wasn't stolen I wonder how long it would've lasted. That is one sturdy machine IMO.

Most consoles haven't been backwards compatible.

Nintendo only recently got onto the backwards compatible bandwagon, and that is probably because they wanted to boost the initial sales of the Wii. PS2 was backwards compatible with PS1, for probably the same reason. I don't remember too well, but I don't think the PS2 had such a great launch line-up.

 

[arsenicCatnip]

The person who said it was the least-expensive thing they could remove to cut costs is right.

Seriously, are you going to sell your system and ALL your games that go with it to buy a PS3/360? If you're like me (lazy and somewhat cheap, I'd rather avoid replacing my game library with virtual content if I can), you'll keep your older system. It's not that big of a deal that they're not BC, because you'll have the old one AND you won't be spending the money to buy the virtual stuff.