BC update out now! 21 games! Doom 3 and Lego Star Wars!

While the BC list doesn't really thrill me at the moment, the possibility that other titles in some of those series may make it onto the next list or two fills me with a glimmer of hope. That and I'll gladly take the five or six titles on that list that I care about over nothing any day.

And if I recall, didn't Microsoft say way back when regarding BC that they would be working with the original companies in order to get their titles to be compatible with the 360? I would imagine that if a handful of companies aren't cooperating that wouldn't help the emulation team in the slightest. Also, if each game's code has a different structure from one another and is as nightmarish as most of the student-written OS code I've seen from the brightest programmers during my undergrad years...boy, that emu team gets screwed nine ways from Sunday.
 
[quote name='Duo_Maxwell']It wouldn't be such a thankless job if they added games that people actually play, like the top selling titles they said they would add about 7 months ago.

One thing I find odd and troubling is why the hell they leave some good and also top selling titles off the list that run on the same or very similar engines to games they've already done. Like why the hell would you work on MLB Slugfest 2004 when there's the new one, or even MLB Slugfest Loaded from last year. Or why not work on Fatal Frame 2 or Spiderman 2 which is a freaking platinum hit title instead of a craptacular budget title like Bad Boys?[/QUOTE]

Well, MLB Slugfest 2004 is the best version of that series, so I'm actually happy that it's currently worked out that way.

The thing is, I'm pretty certain that they are working on a lot of the games that everyone wants. These are just the games that they have been able to get working well enough to release to the public. I'm sure Bad Boys just was a game that happened to work when they got another game working. It can't be the most complex Xbox game out there.
 
Yeah, there really is no benefit for a company to put time and money and resources into BC for the 360. They already sold the game, so no need to put more of their money into trying to get the game BC. NOW, I could see if they did that with NEW releases...but I would NOT purchase an older XBOX game for my 360.

I knew people would bitch :)
 
[quote name='LinkinPrime']Update up:

June 2006 Back Compat titles added:

1. 4x4 EVO 2
2. Amped® 2
3. Bad Boys 2
4. Big Mutha Truckers
5. DOOM 3®
6. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
7. Fatal Frame™
8. FlatOut™
9. Grabbed by the Ghoulies™
10. Intellivision Lives
11. LEGO® Star Wars®
12. Minority Report
13. MLB SlugFest 20-04
14. The Punisher™
15. RalliSport Challenge
16. Silent Hill® 4: The Room
17. Spawn® Armageddon
18. Spider-Man
19. Star Wars Battlefront™
20. State of Emergency
21. Zapper™[/QUOTE]

Can't say I'd want to play any of those... ah well, that's why I kept my Xbox 1. I honestly think that we're all better off waiting for an Xbox emulator for the PC since no matter what, there's still going to be a lot of games that won't be supported given the amount of work required and the practicality at this point.
 
wow, so worth the wait. Glad to know they were spending all that time converting Bad Boys, State of Emergency and a bunch of discount bin crap.

yeah, I am ungrateful because the list sucks-- there are some decent ones, but it's 90% suck. Why don't they get 360 owner input through a survey-- include a list of all the games, allow the person to pick 10, compile the data, and go from there.

[/whine,moan,complain]
 
[quote name='seanr1221']Not a bad update, but it could be better.

I'm just happy we are still getting more games on the BC list.[/QUOTE]

Don't count on it. Microsoft learned from their mistake last time...they won't make any more comments on BC status because it'll cause a large backlash if it's a negative comment. They may be content to just phase it out and not say anything...because if they don't say anything, there's a much less likely chance that the public will get riled up over it.

I'm hoping I'm wrong, but it seems kind of odd to me to do such a fast 180 on a stance like backwards compatibility like Moore/Microsoft have. I think it's more damage control to shut people up than it is an honest effort.
 
Understand that when Microsoft's backward compat group make one game work, others might work as a by product.

Believe me, Barbie's Horse Adventures, Bad Boys 2 and Big Mutha Truckers were not ones they set out to make compatible... but remember that Spider-Man and Minority Report use the same engine. So making Spider-Man work, made MR work.

The best place to send requests for games to work on 360 is [email protected]. It’s tracked and they make a lot of their decisions based on the volume of unique requests. This is where Lego Star Wars and some of the others came in.

Personally, I am happy this month with the releases. Lego Star Wars Rocks!
 
Just saw the new list of BC titles, and YIKES...if it's gonna take 3-4 months to come out with a list like THAT, then don't even bother (and I'm an advocate FOR supporting BC). :(
 
[quote name='Chrono72090']All I have to say is...

WHERE THE fuck IS PSYCHONAUTS?![/QUOTE]

That game sold a total of about 60,000 copies on xbox. It's a great game, but it bombed. It certainly isn't in that "best selling" category. I'm sure Big Mutha Truckers isn't either though, so hey...

I think the update is OK. Better than just the 2 games the last one gave us. It's nice to see a couple of obscure but great games like Fatal Frame and The Punisher. SH4 is a nice addition too. I don't understand the lack of the Doom expansion or FF2 though. I wonder if they intentionally hold back on similar titles going forward just for the opportunity to have more frequent updates.
 
[quote name='KaneRobot']Don't count on it. Microsoft learned from their mistake last time...they won't make any more comments on BC status because it'll cause a large backlash if it's a negative comment. They may be content to just phase it out and not say anything...because if they don't say anything, there's a much less likely chance that the public will get riled up over it.

I'm hoping I'm wrong, but it seems kind of odd to me to do such a fast 180 on a stance like backwards compatibility like Moore/Microsoft have. I think it's more damage control to shut people up than it is an honest effort.[/QUOTE]

I honestly don't think it was a mistake, just very poor words on Peter Moore's part (imagine that). When he said "no one's concerned with backward's compatibility anymore" he didn't mean that nobody cared about it. He was actually trying to say that people aren't concerned about Microsoft's effort to continue to support it because they have proven that they are trying to make as many games working as possible. He was trying to say the community wasn't worried that backwards compatibility was going to be abandoned. Damn, this is hard to explain, as it just gets confusing.

Bottom line: Moore did not mean that they were going to stop adding games to the backwards compatibility list.

And Psychonauts and Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath were both very complex games that pushed the Xbox in many respects. As far as I know, both of those games ran on their own unique engines, so they are probably giving the backwards compatibility team fits.
 
Just curious, are the images for BC games on 360 stretched horizontally on HDTV's? Or do they retain their original aspect ratio?
 
[quote name='grendel19']Just curious, are the images for BC games on 360 stretched horizontally on HDTV's? Or do they retain their original aspect ratio?[/QUOTE]
Games that aren't 480p maintain their correct 4:3 aspect ratio. Games that are also maintain their correct 16:9 aspect ratio.
 
I'm trying out both Doom 3 and the expansion tonight when i get home to see how well/if they run.

Why do I get the feeling this update was part of a smaller update that got rushed when Moore opened his mouth? Maybe they planned a 30-40 game update with a few more AAA titles on the list for July, but when the BC backlash happened, they just said, "What can we release next week to prove we're not dropping it?"
 
This could've gone in the old BC threads, but whatever.

It's all based on the difficulty of emulating certain games. Stuff that's relatively plain and simplistic is easier to emulate while something like Morrowind would prove to be extremely difficult. An emulator has to be made for each game that's added to the BC list and it's not exactly making MS more money to devote resources to that task which is why the games that do get added to the BC list are usually shitty.
 
[quote name='asianxcore']has anyone tried out Lego Star Wars or Doom 3 on their 360 yet? wondering how well they run.[/quote]

I posted earlier in the thread that I tried out the Doom 3 Collectors Edition. Both Doom 3 and Ultimate Doom ran fine. Doom 3 was actually nice looking really.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Because backward compatability isn't magic.[/QUOTE]
Is it that hard? Could it possibly be laziness? Is that the official list that was posted earlier?
 
[quote name='Mr Wahoo']Is it that hard? Could it possibly be laziness? Is that the official list that was posted earlier?[/QUOTE]

Yes, Yes, Yes.
 
I actually went out and bought some games so I could play them with the bc update. I guess I better start the hunt for a cheap xbox.
 
I just tried Doom 3: CE and I can confirm that yes it does work. Woo hoo! That alone makes me happy with the update, but it still sucks that so many great games were left out again.

The Doom 3 expansion does NOT work though. Which I figured. Doom 3 runs great from what I've seen though so no worries there.
 
[quote name='morpheus_49017']That game sold a total of about 60,000 copies on xbox. It's a great game, but it bombed. It certainly isn't in that "best selling" category. I'm sure Big Mutha Truckers isn't either though, so hey...[/QUOTE]
Actually the first Big Mutha Truckers sold over a million copies across all platforms and got a sequel. Sadly, I doubt Psychonauts will ever achieve those kind of sales.

Also, for all you bitching about Bad Boys 2, Minority Report, et al.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilityfaq.htm
[quote name='Xbox BC FAQ']Q: Why did you include some games on the list that clearly weren't as popular as ?

A: Todd Holmdahl answers this in his interview: "As we focused on the top sellers, we discovered that many other games worked due to similarities in their technology. As an added benefit, games that share engines and technology have been in some cases easier to certify for backward compatibility and have made the lineup as a result."[/quote]

I wouldn't complain when you're getting genuinely good games like Amped 2, DOOM 3, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, LEGO Star Wars, RalliSport Challenge, Silent Hill® 4: The Room, Spider-Man, and Star Wars Battlefront.
 
[quote name='Mr Wahoo']I actually went out and bought some games so I could play them with the bc update. I guess I better start the hunt for a cheap xbox.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps you should have waited to see what games would be on the list before making your purchases.
 
[quote name='Mr Wahoo']I actually went out and bought some games so I could play them with the bc update. I guess I better start the hunt for a cheap xbox.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps you should have waited to see what games would be on the list before making your purchases.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']What they are basically saying is that they were only working on a few titles, yet once they found out that these turd games worked, they are claiming to be putting so much effort into backwards compatability and can now tout this as such.[/QUOTE]
Yes, that's their strategy. They focus on a few titles and get them to work. Anything that works due to the work they put into their target title is a bonus. Many games are based on similar technologies so it's not a bad way to go about it. Besides just getting one title to work perfectly could take literally thousands of man-hours. The BC list is an impressive percentage of Xbox games, if you compare it to the percentage of titles that work in other compatibility-layer emulators like Cedega on Linux, especially considering that games require a high level of performance.
 
[quote name='radjago']Yes, that's their strategy. They focus on a few titles and get them to work. Anything that works due to the work they put into their target title is a bonus. Many games are based on similar technologies so it's not a bad way to go about it. Besides just getting one title to work perfectly could take literally thousands of man-hours. The BC list is an impressive percentage of Xbox games, if you compare it to the percentage of titles that work in other compatibility-layer emulators like Cedega on Linux, especially considering that games require a high level of performance.[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't go so far as calling roughly 25% of the current Xbox library an impressive percentage. I understand how difficult the emulation is though, and as long as they are still trying to work on it, I'm not going to get upset that certain games aren't on the list.
 
RSC1 over RSC2? I'm guessing the Live structure made it a pain in the ass. RSC2 is one of my favorite racing games of all time, and looks VERY nice. The first one had no Live abilities.

I'm still hoping for 2d fighters down the road, but I'm guessing those are all a pain in the ass.

The list might be small and there are still hundreds of games left, but something is better then nothing. I'm hoping more of the newer releases go backwards though, because I have a better chance at resisting something that isn't backwards when It's released, and I'm sure some of the developers are suffering in sales since their newer titles aren't backwards.
 
Ooh, Fatal Frame! But they couldn't do Fatal Frame 2?

I sure hope the 360 version of LEGO Star Wars 2 can read the save for the original so we can still have all the original figures to play with.
 
Not that impressed with the new list of games but as many have said Doom 3 and Lego Star Wars is a plus and I am also a fan of SW Battlefront and Fatal Frame.

I have not really kept up with BC basically because I kept my old Xbox, but the list they have on xbox.com is not a bad list of games. There are a bunch of quality games on the list now.

I know we all want our favorite games on the list like OddWorld, Psychonauts, Riddick, Otogi and Panzer to be included as well as others but I think, (I hope) that if we are patient these games will someday be added.

Until then play some 360 games why don't you?
Also you should never trade in old hardware!
 
I was hanging on to SW Battlefront and Lego Star Wars for the longest time but just sold them last week because I figured they'd never end up going BC. Oh well.
 
The only one of those games I have is Battlefront, so this update is pretty meh for me.
I wish we could vote for BC games on Xbox.com
 
Lego Star Wars ! .... Runs to put disk in Xbox 360 :)

Realizes Xbox 360 is still at service being repaired :(


I am happy with the games that made the list, but I am concerned with the rate they are updating. More than 21 new Xbox games have been released since they started working on this update. Seems like they are bailing the water out at a slower rate than it is leaking in.
 
It's a decent update. Doom 3, Battlefront, Silent Hill 4, Punisher, Lego Star Wars.. wanting to try out Dreamfall..

..but very disappointing. No Riddick, no Indigo Prophecy, Path of Neo, Republic Commando, and every other great game. I'm glad my original XBox still sits next to the 360.
 
Ugh...typical MicroSloth. Say your working on something big, and then when it comes out, it totally blows. To be honest, I've almost stopped caring about BC. The only thing I have to do to switch from one system to the other is switch optical autio cords. Though I'm seriously thinking of getting that optical audio splitter thing from mono price. Then all I'd have to do is hit the switch on my component system selector.
 
[quote name='Kaijufan']The only one of those games I have is Battlefront, so this update is pretty meh for me.
I wish we could vote for BC games on Xbox.com[/QUOTE]
email them, they have said numerous times, that they try to react to requests. It happened with the last b/c update, as they got battlefront 2 b/c due to the requests. It also has happened with the dashboard, with the recent updates.
 
[quote name='seanr1221']Any sound quality loss with that splitter?[/quote]
I've no idea honestly. Have yet to purchase one. With standard shipping it comes to about 8 and a half bucks (at least thats what it is when I input my zip code for their shipping calculator).

Heres the link if you want to check it out:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10423&cs_id=1042301&p_id=966&seq=1&format=2&style=
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...42301&p_id=966&style=&seq=1&format=4#feedback
 
I don't know what thread to put this in. I picked up Atari Anthology for $8.96 yesterday at CC, largely since the back of the box says it's 1080i compatible. So if I play it on the 360, will it really be 1080i? Can I really play Pong and Centipede in 1080i?
 
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