Xbox vs BC and PS3/Wii and the future?

[Theenternal]

Well support for the original xbox is very minimal at this time. In the past if a game was on all 3 systems, I would usually get the xbox versions for the graphical updates (if they were there). However, now when I go to eb/gs, etc Im really only looking at ps2/GC titles as I know they'll be compatable with next gen systems.


For you multiconsole owners, are your purchases similar?
Do you guys think that it would have been more worth it to include a dedicated xbox board on the 360? Instead of allocating resources to BC and losing out on those xbox end sales? (from BC fear)



Do you guys think that used game stores will see a continual surge of non bc xbox titles? This would be very helpful for getting a few hard to find titles cheap.
The outlook of BC? The growth seems pretty slow at this point, with no real care from microsoft to push it any further.

Future support? Like other optical based software titles, sega cd, pce, psx, and some saturn, (sorry cdi/3do/jaguar) they still found support from the emulation community. With the xbox software, one would not be able to use the original disc and instead have to rely on image files.

 

[epobirs]

Funny, the BC list just added a pile of titles yesterday. The emulation work is far from over. In less than a year since final Xbox 360 hardware became available they've gotten over 25% of the US library running.

If I own an Xbox I'm going to buy games for that system regardless fo the BC progress on the Xbox 360. Keep in mind that Sony's BC promise is only that for now. How effective it will be remains to be seen. If I'm looking to get the best version of a multi-platform title today, it's because I want to play it today. Whether it works five years from now on a different platform is not an issue.

The Xbox will be emulated on PCs just like any other platform. At least two such projects are already well under way.

http://www.caustik.com/cxbx/screenshots.htm
This one uses the approach of creating binaries to run under Windows but who cares? So long as you have a legit original copy you need not feel guilty about creating a DVD to run on your PC if many years from now your Xbox is dead and cannot be easily replaced.

I've little doubt a full emulator will eventually appear. It's just a matter of the average PC becoming sufficiently powerful to make it a project for hobbyist rather than the fulltime pros working on it for MS. Doing it an x86 platform makes it far easier on the hobbyists.


Putting dedicated Xbox hardware in the 360 is not viable for the same reason the 360 is not an extension of the Xbox. The deal with Nvidia was ill conceived and there was no resolution in sight. Nvidia does not want to manufacture chips, especially not the updated designs that would be needed, for Microsoft to produce a smaller Xbox or compatibility within the 360.

This is why MS made sure to have full ownership of the 360 chipset. They have complete freedom in this generation and the next to do with these chip what they wish.

As for ongoing Xbox support, it's a matter of how the company regards the market and the budget of the title. A low budget title is still sutiable for release on the Xbox. Higher budgets make the Xbox 360 a better choice. The audience is smaller but currently more enthusiastic, so a good game can easily match or exceed the numbers it would have done on the Xbox. It the 'big fish in a small pond' effect.

The Xbox support is drying up first because its successor is out. Nothing unexpected. The same thing happened to PS1 support when the PS2 arrived. For those who couldn't afford the new machine immediately it wasn't the best situation but such are market dynamics.

When the GameCube dried up there was little for N64 owners to complain about since their support had severely declined long before. A pattern now being repeated on the Wii. Despite having full backward compatibility support on the Wii, the GameCube has well fewer releases left on the schedule than does the Xbox. Yet the Xbox's software has a more uncertain future.

Could it be the Xbox still offers third party publishers a better venue for some products?

 

[Kaijufan]

^I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a legit Xbox emulator released my Microsoft in a few years with PCs are powerful enough to run it.

I still buy Xbox games even if they aren't BC because I still have both systems hooked up to a TV. I'm not looking forward to the day my Xbox dies, but I haven't had any problems with it, and since I got it in 03 I'm expecting it to last a few more years.

 

[Enternal]

[quote name='epobirs']

This one uses the approach of creating binaries to run under Windows but who cares? So long as you have a legit original copy you need not feel guilty about creating a DVD to run on your PC if many years from now your Xbox is dead and cannot be easily replaced.[/QUOTE]


Thanks epobirs, you always provide good insight. However, creating a copy is still a problem correct? As you would need a working (possibly modded) xbox to dump the files, or some other kind of special drive to read the discs. Or download already created images.

 

[62t]

Currently DVD drive on PC can not read Xbox games.