The backwards compatibility for European 360

by Ross Miller { Nov 18th 2005 at 4:30PM }

Microsoft has made a few odd decisions regarding backwards compatibility - while the US Xbox 360 will be compatible with over 200 Xbox games right out of the box (a feature we will be enjoying during our 48-hour playtest this weekend), the Japanese list featured a paltry 12 games. Do these number corollate with the popularity of the console in each region? It might appear that way, especially with the list of European Xbox games compatible with the 360, released today.

The list features 156 games - not as many as the US, but still 13 times the number of BC Japanese games. The list, as with all regions, will be constantly updated as they get more original Xbox titles to work on your 360.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Zachary @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

I think it's very important for everyone that reads any article about backward compatibility not to ignore the last sentance in this article," The list, as with all regions, will be constantly updated as they get more original Xbox titles to work on your 360."

Ryan @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

You'd think MS would make the Japanese BC list larger than the US's, since they need to do everything they can to succeed in that market. Limiting it to 12 games is only going to hurt their already poor reputation in that region.

Repsode @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

Each game is not exactly the same for all regions. Especially in europe where the game has to be changed to the PAL system. Therefore the emulation is seperate for each version of the game as they don't share the exact same code. A us version may run but a europe version will not necessarily

Besides the games we're missing aren't particularly important to the majority.

Scott G @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

Does it really matter that the 360s backward compatibility list for Japan is going to be so small at launch? I mean hell, their Xbox1 sale numbers a freaking paltry.

INR V0YCE @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

I've heard many different things about the backwards compatibility of the 360, some of which are scary and shouldn't actually be referred to as "backwards compatibility". The more I hear about it, the more confused I get, so I'll just that it seems like aLOT of people in Europe and the few in Japan that have Xbox, and will get a 360 will probably put up with the monstrously sized original for a while. Like maybe a year. Or two. Or forever if the compatible list isn't updated because of lack of sales as a result of not being backwards compatible with more Xbox games... Oh please microsoft, I pray you make this work for everyone. (I'm a satanist!)(Also, I DO hope the 360 succeeds)

Faar @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

If I was to make an educated (?) guess, I'd say this is most certainly because of localization issues. At least for europe, as we have lots of crazy people here who refuse to learn english and thus console manufacturers need separate versions for the french, german, perhaps spanish or whathaveyou markets.

As it's unlikely the xbox executable binaries have all the text strings neatly sorted into a separate file just in case microsoft would need to recompile the original source for a completely different CPU architecture, they'd have to recompile and verify versions for each separate language.

As for the japanese market... Did there ever come out more than 12 games there? ;) My guess is MS simply isn't bothering a whole great deal with that small piece of the pie.

ulises @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

TO FAAR who wrote this "At least for europe, as we have lots of crazy people here who refuse to learn english and thus console manufacturers need separate versions for the french, german, perhaps spanish or whathaveyou markets."

obviously you are not educated.

i speak spanish , when you become educated, maybe you will learn that spanish is by far the language in more countries in the world, maybe you will learn that english is not the language that most people speak, maybe you will learn that in miami its almost the official language.

"Yo puedo entender cada palabra de lo que escribes y dices, tu puedes, si no, ya sabemos quien es el analfabeta"

Josh @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

Just so you know, 200 games arent compatible 'out of the box' only halo and halo two are, a patch has to be downloaded and i dont think that download is availible untill tuesday, oh and you cant play halo2 online with out the patch either.

ulises @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

of course you need to download a patch to play the games in the xbox 360, if one thing we know for sure is MICROSOFT always need to fix they crappy first realeses, when you buy some microsoft product is already know that the first thing to do is download something to fix something, they many times have i patch ready before the actually product release, and you know that the patch wont be final, you must be download some new patch periodically, forever

Smotchberry @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

I agree with "Faar". This is probably because of the discs are region coded. Over here, the NTSC-J games are lacking in the GTA (and other similar games) department. If that's enough to justify the sheer lack of compatible games - I don't know.

However many games on the north american list aren't sold in Asia.