Microsoft still going forward with backwards compatibility

#20 Just FYI, if you change your 360 display mode to 480p, this fixes the squished screen issues. It's stupid that you have to do that manually to make things work...are you listening MS??!? I think it's one of the major bugs in the emulator. The emulator by default uses the original aspect ratio, but outputs in the XBOX 360's setting ratio. I have the same issues with Half Life 2.

Does Anyone Know If That New Ea College Baseball Game Or 25 To Life Is Backwards Compatible?

Good, I have really wanting to play some SW:battlefront 2 on the 360. I think this should be a full time project for them. Some Shenmue 2 would be a great time waster, if it ever gets bc.

Unfortunately, it may be too little too late. In my opinion, Microsoft should focus more on quality software releases and abandon this backwards compatibility quagmire. Most people who play XBox games own an XBox. Who wants to play a game on software emulation that doesn't quite replicate the original game when they can experience said game on the machine it was built for?

Face it: emulation software sucks. Until emulation software gets to the point of being able to accurately replicate the hardware, M$ should count their blessings that Halo and Halo 2 are playable and be done with it.

Well I hope they can fix the problems they are having because of the mere 5 Xbox games I kept, only Halo and Halo 2 appear to work properly. SC: Chaos Theory hangs between levels and both Jade Empire and Fable have large black borders on both sides of the screen making them 4:3. But this is shown as a widescreen image within the 4:3 area which means that the game fills about a third of the available space. And no ammount of tinkering, zooming, positioning appears to make a difference. Hmmphhhh.....

Would be helpful if they put out an update to the effect of: "We're working hard to make the following games playable on your Xbox360!" Then, at least, I can sell my old Xbox.

While BC seemed irrelevant at first, I find myself looking to the vast Xbox library to add diversity to my 360 play-time. For $20, I recently picked up Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and am now enjoying the fact that I can use the new 360 wireless controller to play it with. As older, cheaper and best-selling XBOX games become compatible... and as long as the gameplay is there, so shall I.

I wish they would get this up and running, I dont own an Xbox, because I only ever buy 2 systems a generation, and this is the only thing stopping me from looking into getting X360 unless all games work on it (or most FF anthology doesnt work well on PS2 btw) I wont know when I walk into the local games store if I can even have the privilage of buying one of the Xbox games they have in the clearance box, game looks cool, but im not sure it will work and the store doesnt take back open games...

Originally I didn't care about backwards compatibility, but while moving my XBL account to the 360, I saw that I would not be able to move my account back to the original Xbox. So all those Live games that I have cannot be played online (and worse, I can't get any updated content) until either they are made compatible with the 360 OR I get another XBL account. I can tell you I'm not paying another $50/year. That's my biggest gripe. I don't think they fully thought through the XBL side of things.

#2 - That's not realistic, because there are A LOT of good games for the original Xbox. My girlfriend said that she gets my Xbox since she bought me a 360. That means I have titles I can't play unless the Xbox is around. Not to mention any future "last gen" games I purchase will be for the Xbox unless it happens to be a Gamecube or PS2 exclusive.

Also, I know several people that ask me about buying an Xbox, but then they realize that the money's better spent toward a 360. Blame them? Hardly. I'm sure they aren't alone.

Anyway, I think the BC emulation is pretty good. If you have used emulation software before, the 360's Xbox emulation is quite good. Sure, there are occasional problems, but most have been minor for me so far. It's nearly impossible to perfect emulation for all games as they all challenge the original hardware differently. Try using the SNES emulator for the DS and then I can understand complaints. Or even the SNES and Genesis emulators for the PS2. Those can get pretty bad, but the efforts from the programmers are to be applauded and thanked.

#7 - When I migrated my account to my 360, I was still able to play Halo 2 on my old Xbox on Live with my account. Not sure why you had a problem?

I ended up removing my account from the Xbox so the g/f wouldn't mess with my account should our relationship not work out. LOL!

"Originally I didn't care about backwards compatibility, but while moving my XBL account to the 360, I saw that I would not be able to move my account back to the original Xbox. So all those Live games that I have cannot be played online (and worse, I can't get any updated content) until either they are made compatible with the 360 OR I get another XBL account. I can tell you I'm not paying another $50/year. That's my biggest gripe. I don't think they fully thought through the XBL side of things."

Um...your account is still on your Xbox and can be used. I have both my Xbox and my 360 hooked up and switch between the two regularly and play online games on both. Migrating your account to your 360 doesn't negate the one on your Xbox, you just can't use both consoles online at the same time.

at # 7:

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I play xbox live games on my 360 and on my original xbox all the time. Have you tried it yet?

Sometimes I play splinter cell on my 360, other times I play it upstairs on my xbox and I have NO problems whatsoever getting online. I've also played Madden on the old xbox as well and don't have any problems.

Maybe you're just having networking problems with your connection.

#11 if that's true, then MS needs to reword their account migration text. I remember seeing something to the effect of "If you upgrade your XBL account to a 360, it cannot be used on another console." There was even an ominous "Are you sure you want to do this?" confirmation dialogue box. I'll give it a shot tonight and see what happens.

Psyclerk,

I think what they mean is that you wouldn't be able to manage your account via the original xbox, and that it would have to be mangaged via the 360 or online.

yep, best way to get microsoft to make a statement is to put out a fake statement that they don't want people to hear. Bingo, they start singing like a canary. Nice tactic.

Here's to hoping for Advent Rising ;)

portorikan - If you had read his post, you would see that is obviously not what he meant and he is obviously wrong. I migrated my live account and still have it on 4 other Xbox's and it still works fine everywhere. Of course, every game I've put in the 360 has worked, so it really hasn't been an issue for me, but my friends can use my live account if they like.

As you can read on my small article (website) I wrote about this today, and what I think Microsoft should be doing with current releases for Xbox titles. The smart way to go about things would be to slowly filter the Xbox 360 support onto retail disks so that people don't need to be forced to buy a hard-drive (not to mention how they could make a butt-load of money). Only time will tell if this actually happens, but I believe that all Platnium titles should be migrated to this format as soon as possible.

This would be one of the quickest ways to expand the Xbox 360's library of games, and if they were smart, part of their Quality Assurance would force the developers to have support for 360 singleplayer (at the minimum).

Ali-I personally think BC is a waste of time but, c'mon, think a bit here. Jade Empire and Fable were designed to be played in 4:3. Do you think the game designers are going to go back and redesign the entire game for 16:9 viewing? nope.
to be honest, at least the 360 displays at the proper aspect ratio when in 1080 and 720p. the original had me switching aspect ratios on my tv instead of it happening in the xbox.
Cheers!

#19 - It isn't in 4:3 though. It's in widescreen but in an area the size of 4:3. So I basically get borders top, bottom, left and right.