Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list updated
by Joystiq Staff 
{ Aug 28th 2006 at 8:55PM }
In their ongoing battle to appease fickle gamers with Xbox titles that are playable on the 360, Microsoft has just released their newest list of current-gen games that will now be usable on its next-gen machine. Sorry Tim Schafer, Psychonauts didn't make it this round.
With this updated list now in, are there still games missing that absolutely need to be in there?
Check after the break for the updates.
[Thanks, to everyone who sent this in]
Aggressive Inline
Aquaman: Battle of Atlantis
All Star Baseball 2003
All Star Baseball 2005
Burnout 3: Takedown
Catwoman
Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Kart UPDATED
Counter Strike
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Dead to Rights
Digimon Rumble Arena 2 UPDATED
ESPN Major League Baseball
Fatal Frame 2
Ford vs. Chevy UPDATED
Freaky Flyers
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows
Tom Clancy´s Ghost Recon - Island Thunder
Half Life 2 UPDATED
The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer UPDATED
IndyCar Series 2005
Kabuki Warrior UPDATED
Lego Star Wars II
Links 2004
Magatama UPDATED
Maximum Chase
Mortal Kombat: Deception UPDATED
MTX: Mototrax Featuring Travis Pastrana
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection
MX vs. ATV Unleashed
Outlaw Tennis
Over the Hedge
Sid Meier's Pirates
Richard Burns Rally
Rogue Trooper
Serious Sam
Shincho Mahjong
Smashing Drive
Sneakers UPDATED
Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run
The Legend of Spyro: A Beginning
TAZ: Wanted
True Crime Streets of LA
The Suffering
Trigger Man
Torino Winter Olympics 2006
Vietcong
Wrath Unleashed
X-Men II: Wolverine's Revenge
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Hiro Protagonist @ Aug 28th 2006 9:01PM
Are Call of Duty and Call of Cthulhu related other than namewise?
What about Call of Juarez?
I was just wondering.
Matt @ Aug 28th 2006 9:02PM
+10 points for the picture alone.
Tetra @ Aug 29th 2006 4:16PM
I prefer "Call of Nature." Unzip and let it fly, boys!
jarod @ Aug 28th 2006 9:04PM
@hiro - call of duty is the war game, call of cthulhu is based on HP's horror stories.
im so relieved with this update, the only reason my old xbox is hooked up is for gauntlet seven sorrows! WOOO!
Sloppy Seconds @ Aug 28th 2006 9:09PM
As soon as they bring Conker: Live and Reloaded over to the 360, I'll buy one.....and no sooner.
Mike @ Aug 28th 2006 9:12PM
Finally I can play Catwoman on my 360, I was getting tired of playing Barbie Horse Adventures.
Nah, I'm just kidding. How could anyone possibly get tired of Barbie Horse Adventures?
Evan @ Aug 28th 2006 9:13PM
Aquaman on my 360? THANK YOU MICROSOFT! That and Barbie Horse Adventure and Drake of the 99 Dragons is all I need.
Belcho @ Aug 28th 2006 9:19PM
Come on still no Conkers WTF! I'd like to see the Warrios on there also. I bought it real cheap, but my Xbox 1 broke.
Franky Digital @ Aug 28th 2006 9:17PM
No "Jet Set Radio Future", no care.
Jigen @ Aug 28th 2006 9:17PM
#2. I agree, but the picture earns +100 from me.
Jim @ Aug 28th 2006 9:18PM
where is Timesplitters 2 and 3?
Eggman @ Aug 28th 2006 9:22PM
Wow how dissapointing, are these guys even listening to player feedback. A majority of those games are just meh. Personally looking forward to conquers live & reloaded, capcom vs. snk 2, marvel vs. capcom 2, few others.
Doesn't see them putting much effort into this... and if they are, what a waste of energy. They could atleast spend the time bringing better games on.
GSI @ Aug 28th 2006 9:24PM
WHY THE F*CK isn't Panzer Dragoon Orta on that list yet? That game is far SUPERIOR to Links, Digimon, ANY of the Crash Bandicoot games, etc.
Marty @ Aug 28th 2006 9:24PM
Okay, seriously, how awesome is it that that shot is so good that you can see older Biff in the background?
Joe @ Aug 28th 2006 9:26PM
Where the hell is morrowwind?
Goose @ Aug 28th 2006 9:27PM
20,000 Gigawatts!? Great Scotts!
This is heavy, Doc.
superbagman @ Aug 28th 2006 9:30PM
I REALLY wish they would get to work on Mechassault...
Also I find it funny that the list includes Lego Star Wars 2 before it's even released.
MajorBill @ Aug 28th 2006 9:29PM
Wow...I thought I might see good games.
Aquaman? Ford vs. Chevy? Catwoman?!?
Seriously, either the game developers are throwing money at them to make these poor games or they just have no concept of what are "Platinum Hits"
dvdguy @ Aug 28th 2006 9:31PM
Not bad... got to move another 6 titles over to the BC shelf. And seeing ESPN Major League Baseball gives me faint hope for ESPN NFL2K5 soon...
NITROSLICK @ Aug 28th 2006 9:33PM
Where're my Oddworld games on those list?!
guises @ Aug 28th 2006 9:41PM
Really, the only game I'm waiting on is Panzer Dragoon. Very dissapointed to see it absent. Again.
Guano @ Aug 28th 2006 9:43PM
So, why would I buy the 360 version of Lego Star Wars II when the Xbox one is BC? Are there any other extras besides being able to dl the characters from the first game off Live? Because that's not worth $10 to me.
silverfox @ Aug 28th 2006 9:46PM
Otogi!!!!!!!!!!!!
one of the most underrated game for xbox imo. give it a try if you haven't.
guises @ Aug 28th 2006 9:46PM
Er, wait. Panzer Dragoon's not the only one - second NITROSLICK's call for oddworld games.
Robert Summa @ Aug 28th 2006 9:45PM
Hey Marty,
I thought the presence of "Old Biff" was the icing on the cake.
Crosswayboy @ Aug 28th 2006 9:48PM
YAY!!!! Counter Strike!!!!!!!!
Ian @ Aug 30th 2006 12:11AM
I don't mean to be an ass or anything but MS knows what games we want back compat. They listen to the community and they know we want Psyconauts and JSRF. I know its easier for titles that don't use to much of the systems power and that emulation is hard but they know what we want. They obviously were listening when we were screaming Splinter Cell, Doom 3, etc. so why can't they give us what we want? Instead of releasing a mediocre update to where people will say "what, no psyconauts?" every time. I'll give MS props for releasing regular updates to the back compat list but I think they need to get the games people want out there the most.
Dave @ Aug 29th 2006 1:24AM
No Psychonauts?! That game ruled.
kitsune @ Aug 28th 2006 9:56PM
Still no Phantom Dust. sadness
Logic Bus @ Aug 28th 2006 9:56PM
Pretty happy about Burnout 3. I still like it better than Burnout 4 -- the 360 version.
logikil @ Aug 28th 2006 10:37PM
Chronicles of Riddick
Panzer Dragoon
Psi-Ops
Breakdown
Come on MS, Please step it up already.
MajorBill @ Aug 28th 2006 10:05PM
@ #28
If it is harder to emulate games with more power then other games, why not focus on the games people want except games people hate? I would much rather see 15 games I love then have 30 games I don't like.
epobirs @ Aug 28th 2006 10:09PM
Get a grip, people. Microsoft doesn't pick and choose the games. If they did, don't you think they'd choose the ones that stand to make them money through new production royalties if there were enough new sales to Xbox 360 owners? If it were just a matter of playing favorites the list would include everything in the Platinum Hits line and generally read like an Xbox all-time bestsellers rundown. Although that would leave out some of the titles that generate the most whining, like the sales bomb Psychonauts. Just goes to show how little relation there is between those of us here and the mainstream market.
Does it come as any great surprise that some of the best Xbox games also push the machine the hardest and are thus the most difficult to get working under emulation?
The playtesting for this is very time consuming. Several of these titles may have been runable for a good while but due to their low regard were at the bottom of the pile. Until a major new rev of the emulator is produce all the test crew can do is be thorough. When a new rev comes around you can bet they'll start with the most desirable titles. Not just in hopes of them working and pleasing the user base but also because it's a drag to play bad games.
Did the guys who had to verify Kabuki Warriors get any special compensation for their suffering? I doubt it. All they can do is verify the crap until a new rev omes around.
Noel @ Aug 30th 2006 10:30PM
Pirates! Awesome.
HighDeFJeFF @ Aug 28th 2006 11:48PM
Mercenaries and The Warriors. Still missing.
ChaoZ @ Aug 28th 2006 10:20PM
To #15
1.21 Gigawatts. Great Scott! (No s)
amba @ Aug 28th 2006 10:22PM
The problem for me is it's the Sega exclusives that seem to be missing (the multiplatform Sonics seem to be there). People want JSRF, Panzer Dragoon, Shenmue 2. Maybe it's not just the BC team's fault... maybe some developers aren't being cooperative.
Griffon @ Aug 28th 2006 10:33PM
Soul Caliber 2
:(
Carl Winslow @ Aug 28th 2006 10:26PM
I think Old Biff is listening in for secrets to bring back to 1985 Sony.
botox salesman @ Aug 28th 2006 10:31PM
backwards compatability?! where we're going, we dont need backwards compatability!
Digi Smalls @ Aug 28th 2006 10:55PM
MS why do you hate Pandemic?
Mercenaries and Full Spectrum Warrior are two of the Xbox's very best. don't tell us Pandemic knew the xbox better than you Microsoft.
.
CYRiX @ Aug 28th 2006 11:11PM
read post 25 again.
Franky Digital @ Aug 28th 2006 11:28PM
Let me tackle this from a developer's perspective.
Most of the people who post on here have probably had at least some experience with emulators in the past: be it downloading old NES games and funking around for an hour or playing through japanese fan-translated RPGs, surely you've at least had a taste. Emulation is a very complicated programming problem, as it usually requires reverse-engineering both the system and the games in order to properly mimic how they work.
Many of the PC emulators that are around today are very, very similiar in theory to what Microsoft has within the 360; think of the original Xbox emulator inside the 360 as a program on your PC. Now, obviously Microsoft had complete access to the way that the original Xbox compiles, runs, etc. and are able to quickly port some simpler titles. However, because they are running this "software" through new hardware, they do not have access to the wide variety of hardware specific-tricks that a developer on the original console would have had access to using.
This means that all but the most simple games are incapable of being run "natively" through the 360. Context-sensitive cases must be program into the emulator to deal with the varying tricks that the developers used to get the games running; and because different developers code different ways, there's effectively an infinite amount of possible program methodologies that could be used to create a game.
Now, a team of not that many guys needs to trace back through the Xbox's large software collection and attempt to account for the many different tricks and tough spots that the hundreds of developers programmed in the past. This changes from developer to developer, and from software generation to software generation. They essentially have to go one at a time through each game and attempt to adapt the original emulator code to meet the needs of each game. Sometimes they'll get lucky and get a few games out of one fix (which would explain the somewhat random listing of games with each subsequent patch).
This is an incredible task for even the most devoted of programming teams, and I think everyone should just take a second to relax and respect what they're doing. They are surely working on the games we all want, and eventually I'm sure they'll all be compatible. This is the price 360 owners had to pay for smaller and cheaper hardware that doesn't go the brute-force route of just including the previous generation's hardware within it (ie. Sony).
So take a breath, relax, and be happy they've made some progress. Each BC update is one step closer to whatever game you want.
Petrie @ Aug 28th 2006 11:33PM
Can we get Franky a star please? Thank you for putting this in perspective for people. I admit I'm putting off a 360 purchase until a few more of the titles I missed on the X-box are playable, but it's nothing to get your panties all bunched up over.
apoc06 @ Aug 28th 2006 11:35PM
I can't help but laugh at the BC list updates every month. NONE of the games I own are on the list, except for Halo2.
Psychonauts is the first game I've played on my xbox in a few months now. I will be glad when it gets its due.
To MS's credit, Burnout Revenge is a great edition this month though. A shame it's a few months late considering they went ahead and released a version specific to xbox360.
EDIT: Sorry that's Burnout Takedown on the list.
idioteraser @ Aug 28th 2006 11:41PM
Maybe they should concentrate on releasing the bc games one at time say once a week or every few days if they are ready instead of a batch every few months? I think that would alleviate a lot of the gripes people have.
Also could they detail what has been upgraded so people can let them know if the games are still wonky?
jc @ Aug 29th 2006 11:28PM
Oh my god! Link 2004 is back on the 360! I will never play anything else ever again
Oh how I missed you. Promise me you'll never leave me again....
Johnny Hundo @ Aug 28th 2006 11:45PM
No panty bunching here - just what I, an f'n loyal xbox money guy. (ie: guy who has money who spends it on xbox games)
ESPN NFL 2k5 -- just never got the chance to play it on xbox ... just want to pimp out my pad. comon.
Warriors -- come out and plaaaayyya aaaaa.
Spartan: Total Warrior -- I like warriors?
Shenmue II -- and sailors
Star Wars Battlefront II -- more warriors.
Star Wars Republic Commando -- escapist? yes.
That's the short list -- don't make me have to unplug my component cables from the back of my big assed TV microsoft! I don't want to have to get up any more - you were the ones who put the power button on the controller! 20 lbs!
-Hundo
Yan @ Aug 28th 2006 11:47PM
I cry for my lack of DOA:XBV.
Lekko @ Aug 28th 2006 11:59PM
Well, I hope that they keep at it and not just hope that if they wait long enough, the fans will stop asking for it. I think that's somewhat their plan right now.
Sure, they're working on it, but I just don't see it ever being fully complete. They should really start now on BC for the xbox 720, because given their track record, they're going to need the time. Also, next time arround, hopefully there won't be a year-long lull in new games because of a new system like they just had.