The need for backwards compatibility this generation is a thirst that’s hasn’t needed to be quenched so desperately before. This article puts forward the argument of why backwards compatibility is an important feature and why excluding the feature is no longer acceptable.
When the PlayStation 2 came in to take the reins from the PlayStation 1, we had open access to the latter’s library of games without a problem. When the PlayStation 3 came out, the initial model allowed us to insert and play PS2 games unhindered. However, subsequent models of the PS3 and the PS4 entirely omitted the ready availability of the luxury of playing older games on new systems-but why? Something to do with RAM capabilities and hardware limitations most probably-the inherent flaw of making new generation systems. But omitting backwards compatibility will inevitably prevent new gamers from experiencing the greats of the console(s) that came before. Why would new PlayStation fans who want to indulge in the history of their new acquisition be satisfied with just the PS4 games and a few PS2 games on the side? Speaking of the PS2 inclusions-why hasn’t the PS4 gone the whole hog with backwards compatibility for PS2 games? PlayStation Now does somewhat rectify the problem for PS3 games if you have a stable connection-but you still won’t be able to play PS1 games, oh and it looks like you’ll need to buy all the previous consoles to get the whole PlayStation experience. Xbox gamers get a nicer slice of the backwards compatible action-because Xbox has actually incorporated backwards compatibility to a decent extent. Xbox gamers are treated to an eclectic library of great games that gamers can play at their leisure-ok so maybe they won’t get a Max Payne 3, Singularity, The Saboteur, 007: Blood Stone and umm…..Leisure Suit Larry: Box Offfice….Bust……(please don’t flog me), but there’s a lot of great games and hidden gems available to play both on Xbox 360 and the original Xbox. Microsoft sorely needed the Backwards Compatibility string to its weathered bow-and they knew gamers craved it-because when a new console comes along the older generations become obsolete-it’s not a nice way of looking at things, but like many industries the videogame industry is about looking forward and old consoles certainly aren’t forward. Nintendo had their virtual console gimmick, but Nintendo’s consoles are worth getting individually because each of them are vastly different and have different quirks. You buy a Playstation and an Xbox it’s usually just another entry, but a Nintendo console feels like it’s all its own entity. The GameCube for instance could easily be mistaken for a primary school child’s lunchbox, and then the Wii is a game your grandma can play whilst hoola-hooping and listening to Frank Sinatra, and the Nintendo Switch can be played anywhere. Admittedly this paragraph sort of contradicts the argument meant for this article, but Nintendo has shown how important it is to stand-out and apart from competition-SONY and Microsoft keep creating new systems and therefore the old ones will become dated pretty quickly, but Nintendo systems never seem old because they’ve got different innovations to each other. Portable games ought to be part of the backwards compatibility equation too, seeing as they are much smaller and should be easier to transfer onto the PS4 unphased. Maybe attempting to upscale the PSP visuals to high quality HD standard might take some work, but hey it would bring new audiences to these games that weren’t there before because many PlayStation gamers may have never touched a PlayStation Portable or a PlayStation Vita before. Ultimately, until a Playstation, Xbox or Nintendo system provides full backwards compatibility, their respective fans will keep craving for it-because a console that can run every game is the ultimate powerhouse and will save everybody money on buying expensive machines. People want backwards compatibility because they love their old games but don’t want to or they can’t afford to get an old console-and why should they? Technology should be powerful enough to give a console all it needs to run games on previous generations-and the ultimate console won’t happen until this is the case and we can play everything we want to. |
As exciting as a new generation of games consoles is there has been, particularly since the announcement of the seventh generation of consoles, a vocal portion of the gaming community that has rallied for backwards compatibility in the new consoles. Backwards compatibility is a means to be able to play games from previous systems on the new hardware, thereby eliminating the need to keep or maintain old gaming systems due to the software and peripherals being compatible with the new hardware. Although backwards compatibility had certainly existed before this time, the system that really made the feature a selling point of the system was the PlayStation 2. Partly because the PS2 was an all singing, all dancing entertainment system that played CD’s, DVD’s, PS1&2 games as well as being able to read information off USB memory sticks. However, it can become difficult or costly to implement such features into new hardware due to technological progression, as well as simple incompatibility between two hardware components. The factor of backwards compatibility has been a very contentious one with the ninth generation of consoles on the horizon, with each touting some form of backwards compatibility as a key selling point for the hardware, but is it really that important of a feature?
I will not deny that backwards compatibility is not something to turn ones nose up at, I’d rather have it than not. But would I rather have it at the cost of something else? Almost never is the answer. This is where backwards compatibility becomes an issue, because especially with games consoles, emulation of older hardware is not an easy thing to implement. Microsoft have been the undisputed kings of backwards compatibility on consoles ever since the Xbox 360 launched due to the ability to play most of the biggest Xbox games on the 360. This then evolved during the Xbox One’s lifetime to become the ‘Backwards Compatibility Program’ which has a mission of adding as many of the games from the previous Xbox generations as possible to work on current generation systems via emulation. The upcoming Xbox Series X is touting the ability to play four generations worth of Xbox games on one system due to this. But how do Microsoft achieve this? The answer stems all the way back to the name of the system, Xbox. Each Xbox console uses Direct X to play the games, due to the operating system of the console always being based off the Windows operating system currently used in PC’s. Whilst Direct X certainly has gone through revisions over the years, it’s still based off the original code from decades ago meaning that modern versions of Direct X can somewhat easily emulate previous versions of Direct X, that in tandem with ever more powerful hardware allows older games to even be enhanced due to the new power afforded from better CPU’s, GPU’s, and more RAM. Sony and the PlayStation consoles on the other hand are a bit more complex. Each Sony console has had its own unique architecture due to the operating system being made specifically for each console. On top of this, Sony tend to have been more experimental with their hardware over the years than Microsoft have been, therefore meaning components used in a PS2 won’t necessarily be compatible with the components in a PS3 because of the different hardware and operating systems. Whilst the PS2 managed to pull off emulating a PS1 perfectly well, with only small hiccups here and there, the PS3 is where things really got shaken up. The system’s CELL processor which was designed exclusively for the console works unlike any other processor on the market in order to allow developers to have access to a much larger pool of RAM power than was actually in the consoles due to the CPU’s functions. The issue is that because the CELL processor behaved in a vastly different way to almost any other mainstream processor, it was extremely difficult to get it to play nicely with older games. The original PS3 system was compatible with games from both the PS1 & PS2, but due to technical issues leading to total hardware failure of the console, the feature to play PS2 discs was removed from all future models. Once the PS4 released this then posed another issue, because all PS3 games had been developed with the CELL processor in mind they simply couldn’t run without it. Whilst PS3 backwards compatibility has been attained on PS4, it’s via the PS Now cloud gaming service, meaning the PS4 doesn’t do any of the work beyond streaming the game from Sony’s cloud servers where the game is being run from. The PS4 is also unable to play PS2 and PS1 games from the disc, due to the PS4’s laser being unable to read anything other than PS4 games and Blu-Ray or DVD films. Select titles are available to download from the PSN Store as the system can emulate games from the PS1&2 systems, but these titles must be purchased even if you own a physical copy of the game because it is a digital copy. Sony has confirmed the PlayStation 5 will be able to play many of the most popular PS4 games, though not all of them. As well as this the PS Now service will carry over to the new system making all generations of PlayStation games available to stream through this, but again, only titles they can attain the rights to, and any additions to PS Now may not be permanent ones unlike Microsoft’s Backwards Compatibility Program. But what about Nintendo? I haven’t even mentioned them yet. Nintendo’s history with backwards compatibility on home consoles is hit and miss at best. The Wii was their first shot at the feature, and it worked pretty well as the system handled Gamecube games really well. However, once the revised models released backwards compatibility was dropped in favour of a significantly lower price. The fact that you could pick up a brand-new Wii for less than £100 just because it ditched Gamecube compatibility was incredible! The WiiU was also fully backwards compatible with the Wii provided you had kept hold of the sensor bar and Wii controllers. This made backwards compatibility a little moot as a whole because if you wanted to get rid of your old Wii console, you couldn’t really sell it without any controllers or the bar that allowed the console to detect controllers. Then along came the Switch which ditched backwards compatibility because gone were discs and back were cartridges. A lot of people seemed pretty irritated by the fact that the Switch couldn’t play Wii or WiiU titles considering it was basically a mash up of the two which with a portable screen and motion controls, but no disc slot means no compatibility folks! The way the system works too is fundamentally different from almost any other console on the market meaning that games can’t even be ported to the system from those systems without having some heavy revisions made. Handheld consoles are also an interesting area to look into as most handheld consoles do not carry the ability to play previous generations games on them due to the type of media used to play the games being changed each generation. Sony is the easiest to sum up with the PSP using UMD discs and the PS Vita using cartridges, so much like the Switch it’s a no on the compatibility front. However, Sony made the vast majority of the PSP library available to digitally download onto the PS Vita, provided you were willing to purchase the games all over again. Nintendo are hit and miss. The Game Boy Colour was backwards compatible with all Game Boy games, with many receiving cool upgrades when played on the new hardware. The Game Boy Advance was also backwards compatible with Game Boy games for the most part, there were only a handful of late life models that didn’t allow for this to happen. The Nintendo DS also allowed backwards compatibility of all Game Boy generations until the launch of the DSi. With this model, and all models from that point onwards all Game Boy backwards compatibility was dropped completely in favour of other hardware features. Likewise, the 3DS started out by allowing original DS games to be played on them, but revised models changed the cartridge slot meaning that only 3DS cartridges would fit. Of-course then you have the Switch again which has, again, a different shape cartridge to any previous Nintendo device. Whilst I won’t deny that Microsoft certainly have something excellent going with the Backwards Compatibility Program, personally I do not see backwards compatibility as a system selling feature. The primary reason is because I never get rid of my old consoles. Part of this is because I am a collector, I like having all the old systems. But aside from this, nothing beats the feeling of playing an old game on the system it was made for. To me, playing a PS2 game on a PS4 via a digital download feels wrong; even playing a 360 game on my Xbox One using the original disc feels out of place. I understand that not everyone is a console collector though, so the desire to sell consoles once the new one comes out is them more understandable. But surely if you want to play those old games why would you want to sell the system in the first place? Even if you don’t have the system out on display like I would, why not keep it in a cupboard or a box and use it when you want it? Sure, the convenience of playing any game on a single system is appealing; but take the PS3’s innovative hardware design as proof that not having backwards compatibility as a feature designed into the console is actually a great thing. Come the latter half of the PS3’s life the first party titles that were being released for the system were visually far superior to the exclusives available on the Xbox 360. Multiplatform titles were certainly hit & miss depending on how much the developer or publisher cared about PS3 owners, but the first party line-up were so visually impressive that titles like Uncharted 3 were already so close to achieving what the PS4 and Xbox One could achieve back in 2011 that by the time the final exclusives like The Last of Us came out you began to question whether a new generation was even necessary if a PS3 could do pretty much the same thing a PS4 and Xbox One could. But what if your old console stops functioning? I can almost guarantee that replacing an old system will cost significantly less than the inclusion of backwards compatibility on new systems. Whilst Microsoft certainly have it slightly easier than Sony with all Xbox’s running off evolutions of the same OS and all utilising some form of Direct X to run the games, there’s still a lot they have to do to trick the new hardware to play nicely with the old software and all of that costs money which quickly bump up the cost of your new machine. Based off previous generations of games consoles that did include backwards compatibility, and ones that didn’t, it could cost upwards of £150 to get old games running on new systems per console. So, when you see a new console being sold for £400, just think you might have been able to get it for as low as £250 if it had the backwards compatibility stripped from it, and to replace your old console you would be paying little more than £80 for just the previous generation of systems. This is why it’s also handy to understand how the machines work. It saves you having to fork out for a replacement if your old console starts to go the way of the Dodo. Simple things like replacing the belt on a PS2 disc tray can cost as little as £5 and a google search, whereas buying a PS2 second hand is significantly more than that. Also opting swap out consoles mid lifespan for models that have a cheaper build quality is also helpful as these tend to cut many of the frills of the launch models. Take the PS3 Super Slim for example; this model has to have the disc physically placed onto the spindle and a hatch closed over the top, meaning that the arm that takes the discs from you on the other PS3 models has been removed and therefore the console is much easier to maintain. Even PC gamers aren’t immune from backwards compatibility issues. Issues first occurred when different types of computer used entirely different hardware and operating systems. Then once Microsoft and Apple began asserting market dominance it became much easier for PC gamers. However more recently with significant changes to both Windows and MacOS it’s becoming harder and harder to accommodate older games with legacy emulators build into the OS. Luckily though, particularly with games that run with Windows, it is much easier for the gamers to create mods for games to run on newer versions. This isn’t always a trump card though and every so often games will be unable to be ported to newer OS’ meaning the community is reliant on a remake to be developed, either official or fan made. Something I consider much more important than backwards compatibility is archiving old games for preservation. Whilst backwards compatibility can certainly contribute to this as the Xbox line of consoles will certainly attest to; the two things are not necessarily one and the same. Archival will usually involve creating a library of everything related to a game (data, boxart, manuals etc.) that will be playable for years to come. Digital backups are probably the best way to do this due to the ability to view the files on pretty much anything that can show an image or video, then as for the games themselves they can always be modified to run on newer hardware, or put in an emulation software to imitate the original hardware. These words may come from a somewhat privileged viewpoint as I certainly am more invested in video game hardware than the average gamer; and I understand that the solutions I have provided above to some of the common issues people face with backwards compatibility are not particularly straightforward. But if I could sacrifice backwards compatibility for a cheaper launch price of a new system, or even for the system to have more interesting hardware features (such as the PS3’s CELL processor), or greater leaps in hardware possibilities (like the Nintendo Switch) then I’d say it’s a feature to very easily live without. |