Japanese hardware sales, Nov. 5 - Nov. 11: Twice in a lifecycle edition

If you were a console company CEO, how much would you spend to provide that convenience? How much would you make off of it?

Both MS and Sony have lost money on BC. That's why they've both killed it. MS spent over 2 years recoding Xbox games for the 360 for their BC. Sony has already lost at least $100 million on it.

The difference is, PS2 games are still coming out with a very high regularity. If they had stopped making PS2 games, or at least offered the same thing on PS3 (ie: singstar, buzz, GH2 80's and the like), then yes, backwards compatability would be a waste. As it stands, the slim PS3 is a pain in the ass to have in the entertainment center because it needs wired peripherals, (i don't mess with aftermarket shit so don't even mention it) you have to get up to turn it on or off, it takes up an additional input on my receiver/tv, and another power outlet.

So, this being the case, sony would seriously lose out on my purchasing any more games for their only successful gaming product currently on the market if they had no BC.

why should i care about sony's finances? i just want a good videogame console that isn't a ripoff. so I chose the 360 :p

Curse ye reply system, making mine witty retort fly away from the battle in which it belongeth. Verily mine last post was intended for thee Name123.

That IS Microsoft killing BC. Those are ports that you have to buy (or re-buy). Microsoft will now make a profit off of their old games instead of taking a loss. Their next system won't have BC, but it will have ports of select 360 games for downloading for a fair price. This is smarter and far more profitable, BC is stupid and costly.

"Xbox 360 backwards compatibility soon to be forgotten"
http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=105410

Also, consoles will eventually drop optical storage. It would be stupid to add an optical drive just so people can play their old games.

"Also, consoles will eventually drop optical storage."

Possible now, but chances are optical/physical storage isn't going away any time soon. Maybe around 2030-2050 ish it'll happen. The two major problems with this are that download rates are nowhere near as fast as they need to be worldwide as of yet, and #2 people like to have a hard copy in hand (not to mention that if it's anything like steam it will occasionally say you didn't buy the game and you'll have to restart your computer/console).

As far as BC goes, it's not all that costly, allow me to cite what Sony said on taking it out of the 40 gig PS3.

According to the WSJ: "Mr. Tretton conceded that removing that capability [backwards compatibility], along with a few other features, isn't dramatically reducing Sony's cost of manufacturing the console but will instead encourage buyers of the entry-level PlayStation 3 to purchase more games designed specifically for the new system."

As to the supposed stupidity of it, it's not a dumb idea at all. Firstly, the PS3 has offered me nothing that I couldn't get elsewhere thus far, this gen. So, it's only edge, to me and people like me, is that it does have the ability to play games that were unlike any experience out there, see Shadow of the Colossus. I know for a fact, had the PS3 not had BC from the start I would not have bought one until next year at the earliest, when the price will probably have dropped to about $200. BC moves consoles early on, that's all there is to it. It's stupid not to include it if you don't have an amazing line up of games at launch that includes games of nearly every genre.

Also, with about 380 games that are BC from xbox to the 360 via software, I'm pretty sure they've not dropped it at all, and thus far only the 40 gig PS3 has even touched on killing BC, which only took out PS2, not PS1 BC.

You know what, I'll just sum up what I just said in a few sentences.

1) Removing BC from the 40 gig PS3 was not a cost reducing measure.

2) Backwards Compatibility is good until your new system has a diverse library of games.

3) Thus far the 40 gig PS3 is the only thing that has even remotely touched on getting rid of BC.

+1 for summary!

Haha guilty, I read the summary first as well. Really though, BC for the win. Only confusing part is that I can go buy fable and halo 1 new retail as part of their $9.99 "best of platinum hits" collection. Like I said before, my PS3 will have BC. My launch PS2 cannot be expected to last much longer.

Thanks you two :)

I figured I could distill my rant to a few sentences and save people the trouble of reading paragraphs, but the big one is there to quash moronic statements saying I have no proof.

Backward compatibility is a "square peg in a round hole" problem. There is no good way to do it. That's why Sony removed it and Microsoft is selling Xbox ports. Microsoft isn't going to make their next system backward compatible because they and game developers stand to make a lot more money off of Xbox 360 ports.

'Backward compatibility is a "square peg in a round hole" problem. There is no good way to do it.'

Nintendo pulled it off quite well, in my opinion. So I disagree with your claim that "there is no good way to do it."

The drawback with Nintendo's approach is they can't make any big changes to the hardware.

And, barring some intelligent comment name123, this will be my last post on the comment.

1st- Congratulations name, for being able to see the future without any error at all.

"Microsoft isn't going to make their next system backward compatible"

2nd- I'm going to assume you're one of those elitist types that don't go back to play good games for older systems, else you would love BC.

3rd- If the second statement is true (and even if it's not) the simple fact remains that BC is neither expensive, nor hard to accomplish. See the emotion chip present in all models of PS3 but the 40gig and the statement I mentioned in a post a while back in this story.

4th- I've played all but a handful of games for my PS2 on my PS3 (DDR and GH excluded for hardware reasons) and guess what. Not a single title had an issue! So, unless the software in the units that use that kind of emulation is complete shit, all of your points are invalid when applied to the PS3. As for the Xbox-360 issues, all of their emulation is determined from title to title, hence the occasional bugs in their BC (which for the most part don't affect gameplay adversely).

Oh, I almost forgot the Wii and Gamecube. They've made as big a change they're going to make for quite some time methinks, in switching to DVDs. The mini-discs work extremely well in the Wii, so that too is about as flawless as the PS2 to PS3 emulation in those that have it.

Good day to you sir. Quit giving fanboys of all sorts (especially Sony, they do a bad enough job without you) a bad name.

yup, Kaz Hirari got a phone call from Satan - he was worried about the temperature.

That's right, Microsoft pays millions of dollars to own websites just so they can make fun of sony. That totally makes sense.

well said.