3.) Bring Back Backwards Compatibility!!!

       Once upon a time, when you bought a new games console, it was often possible to play most of the games designed for the previous machine. This was a handy feature for people who didn't want to have multiple game consoles under their television sets. Backwards compatibility was also great for those who didn't own the previous console device, but did want access to its inevitably much larger and cheaper array of games. In all honesty, I miss Backwards Compatibility and maybe I probably shouldn't. Take a look at the sleek new PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles. Neither the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4 is backwards compatible with their predecessors. You can't insert a disc from your library of PlayStation 2 and 3 games into your PS4 expecting it to play. Just as your Xbox One will shrug indifferently if you slot in Xbox 360 games. I wish I could, and I understand why I can't, but it does not make me want the feature any less. Now however, it seems that for Sony and Microsoft, backwards compatibility, is itself a relic. It... Is... Not! This is mostly my opinion, so feel free to agree or disagree. In this next blog post, I will explain my reasons why.

Why is Backwards Compatibility Important?

1.) Convenience and the Fight Against Clutter

       Let’s start with the really, really obvious. Backwards compatibility in new systems means that you can put your old systems away. First world problem, I know, but the space below my TV is currently occupied by an Xbox 360, a PlayStation 2, a Wii U, a Super Nintendo and a PlayStation 3. I play each system on at least a semi-regular basis. Believe it or not, the 360 sits in the least played category for the first time in its entire life in my house. I don’t want to put any of these away. I play them so much that it doesn’t make sense for me to unhook them, wrap up the cables and toss them on a shelf in my closet. I’d only repeat the process in the reverse order next week. Backwards compatibility means that I can say sayonara to an aging system below my shelf while still boasting the ability to enjoy its software library. Sure, I miss GameCube gaming on the regular, but my Wii U now accounts for two systems. My Xbox 360 almost accounts for two systems, too. Hold on while I bust out my TI-83+…

…that’s four systems over the span of two console spaces below my TV. Space is tight, backwards compatibility makes it a non-issue.

2.) Backwards compatibility is helpful for the launch of a new console. 

       It helps justify the investment by allowing you to actually play your new console (and take advantage of some of the new features) with the last few quality titles of the previous generation. It can be a selling point for those shifting their console loyalty, as many did this new generation, from Microsoft over to Sony. Jumping onto a new platform with a whole collection of exclusives from the past eight years could have been very attractive to early adopters. It also could have presented a competitive advantage for one console and allowed those like me, running out of storage space and HDMI ports on their television, to remove old consoles from their TV cabinet. It could have been a major selling point for either 2013 console, but in the long-run, backwards compatibility becomes a forgotten feature, and I understand why it's absent. The Wii U is fully compatible with every Wii game, but I have already happily abandoned playing Wii discs on the system in favor of games like Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. I wish I could take my Red Faction Guerilla disc out of the Xbox 360 and finish the game on the new console, but by demanding that capability (and likely forgetting it in a matter of months), I am probably short-changing other more important console features that will have greater longevity. I want the feature now in the early hours of my next-gen console ownership, but ask me again in a few years and just maybe, I might not miss it as much.

3.) It Shows Console Makers Care 

       When a console manufacturer announces some plans to include backwards compatibility with their new system, it tells me that they care about me as a gamer. They have no reason to spend money implementing old gaming architecture other than pleasing fans. Old games rarely earn them money, especially since they are so often purchased through secondhand needs, so there’s no fiscal reason for a console maker to pump funds into developing backwards compatibility. When they do it, they do it because they care about fans. They care that we invested in their system’s last generation by buying up piles and piles of games. They care that we want to continue playing them. So, they work to make backwards compatibility a reality. Both Sony and Microsoft are building their PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with completely new system architecture  That means they can’t possibly play old games. Only Sony is putting money into making backwards compatibility a reality. Yes, they’ll likely charge for it, but we know they spent at least $380 million on purchasing Gaikai, a cloud gaming company, in order to make old games playable on the PlayStation 4.

5.) The Preservation of Games

       Finally, for me, backwards compatibility boils down to the preservation of gaming as an art and historic medium. With film, most studios took care to hold on to the original prints of classic movies. With the coming of new film tech, those prints are revisited again and again so that the public may enjoy them on VHS, DVD and through online streaming. The same can be said for music as it’s moved from vinyl to tape, CD and digital download. These mediums are being preserved across leaps in technology. Gaming? As it stands right now, once the last Xbox 360 dies, that gaming catalogue is almost done forever. Until Microsoft decides it’s time to release a super HD version of Crackdown, we will never be able to play that game again. Game consoles fail over time. And the Xbox 360 especially experienced a completely terrible rate of failure. Who’s to say there will be any working 360s available for purchase 10 or 20 years from now? The difference between games and film or music is that games are very rarely recreated for new platforms. Companies only spend the time porting software if they think that a new generation of players will spend money buying it up. Backwards compatibility is the blanket solution for gamers wanting to play old games.

Proof that Consumers are Effected by Backwards Compatibility 

       There are clearly enough consumers who do want backwards compatibility and sadly, many became the targets of an internet hoax. A recent post on the notorious 4Chan forum encouraged gamers to access the developer mode on their new Xbox Ones and then enter a code that would ostensibly "unlock" the machine's hidden ability to play Xbox 360 titles. It didn't do that, however, it instead locked the machine into an endless reboot cycle, effectively rendering it useless. What ass holes! So if there's enough desire out there for backwards compatibility to warrant a hilarious internet trick, why don't the manufacturers supply it? These are expensive, technically advanced consoles, after all. How hard can it be? Well, the answer is, "very hard and getting harder with every successive generation". I will explain further, so please continue reading. 

Why Xbox One and PS4 Lack Backwards Compatibility 

Hardware Implementation

            One of the most effective ways to provide compatibility with previous consoles that console manufacturers utilized in the past is through hardware implementation. Hardware implementation involves actually including some of the chips from the old machine into the new machine. The Nintendo Wii, for example, was in many ways just a more powerful version of the older GameCube. So backwards compatibility was reasonably straightforward. The Wii originally had GameCube controller sockets and two memory card slots. It was like a GameCube in disguise. The PlayStation 2, meanwhile, had the original PlayStation chipset built in, so it ran pretty much any PlayStation one title. When that chip wasn't being used for backwards compatibility it doubled as an input/output processor, which was pretty canny. As you can see, hardware implementation is not an effective approach because its a technical hurdle that would hold the Xbox One and PlayStation 4's hardware back. What's different now is the increased complexity in hardware and software, and heat issues. The best way to support your old console, in terms of broadest support of all old games, is to actually include the hardware of the old system inside the new one. CPU, GPU, sound chips, ideally the whole caboodle.

            This works well enough when you look at the price list for components, as the old chips have become cheap enough to include without bumping the cost of the new system. Sadly though, with the high frequency clock rates (GHz), designing your board to incorporate the entire old machine is not easy or cheap, and worse, it will emit just as much heat as the old system did on it's own. Heat is a big factor with modern system designs and you do not want to add 100 watts to your output, and another jet turbine style fan. So as new hardware becomes more complex, the inclusion of older chips and processors becomes more expensive, and with margins so tight (manufacturers often make a loss on new machines anyway), it's an easy feature to jettison. Indeed, although both the original versions of the Wii and the PS3 included old feature-sets in the architecture, later versions ripped these out to cut down on costs and allow for price drops.

Emulation

       So what about emulation? This involves running a program on the new console that effectively pretends to be the old machine so that it can play classic games. Nintendo, for example, offers its Virtual Console service for the Wii and 3DS which allows owners to download and play classic Super Nintendo, Game Boy and even Sega Mega Drive titles in their original form. Once again, however, the problem with emulating more recent consoles is technological advance. "It was when the PS3 tried to emulate the PS2 that the increase in technology began to present problems," says developer Byron Atkinson-Jones, whose new game Blast 'Em has just been released. "Like the PS1, the PS2 had a single processor but the graphics system was a lot more complex, allowing for parallel processing, which meant it could run more than one bit of code at a time. You can emulate this on the more modern processors but you have to get the timing between the true hardware-based parallel processing and the software emulated version exactly right. And that timing would also have to take into account the differences between the territory versions, i.e. a game running on PAL or NTSC.
       There are other factors that might be enough to break a game." And timing is not the only issue – the increasing adaptability of the hardware itself is also causing problems. "It's complexity versus schedule," says Hollis. "If your emulated graphics processor is programmable (as PS3 and Xbox 360 are) that creates a huge explosion of possibilities to emulate and test – easily trillions of cases. We are talking large possibility spaces here. No way you are going to be able to emulate all the games, and do the job in a rush. If you had ten years, well maybe. "The second piece of bad news is performance headroom. To emulate an old system's hardware in software you need a system which is significantly more powerful, I'd say ten times more powerful is a good rule of thumb. This current generation is simply not that much more powerful than the last, especially in terms of general purpose compute. Moore's law is basically over for CPUs, and has been for around five years. That means new machines do not have the power to emulate last generation in software."

Cloud Saves the Day?

       Sony and Microsoft are working on leaping with non-hardware streaming solutions. Sony has made promises with its Playstation Now streaming service saying it will allow the PlayStation 4 to play PlayStation 3 games online with streaming video. I was hoping that you would need only a disc from your library to play, but the reality is there are fees associated with playing games you already own which in turn is a major downside. So in my own opinion, backwards compatibility is very necessary! The same goes for Xbox One and Xbox 360 games. Microsoft is already tempering expectations towards how game streaming will work on its console. Even if these systems work well, by the time they are available, the time when they would be most valued will have already passed.

HD remakes.

       From a software standpoint, game companies certainly have the physical ability to port last-generation games to next-generation, and it wouldn't be particularly costly. The downside to this is that people would pay money for games they essentially already own. Because of this reason, game companies should allow gamers to trade in their original copy of the game to put towards the HD remake copy of the game to play on their next-gen system. Console manufacturers and publishers alike need to realize that they revive revenues if they put in some effort to ensure that their games, even long after the previous console generation is over, gets a digital release so that everyone can enjoy them.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

1.) Keep your Xbox 360 and or PS3

       Many of you are reading this and thinking, that is so obvious! But as a former employee at Game Stop, I cannot tell you how many times consumers bought next-gen assuming they were backwards compatible. There are plenty of gamers who don't care for backwards compatibility because they will keep their previous game console anyway. As gamers, right now this is the easiest way to keep playing PS3 and 360 games. With that said, forcing players to own an old console to play old games would obviously mean higher sales of discounted last-generation systems, which would obviously benefit Sony and Microsoft.

2.) Digital Downloads

       The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, the Wii, and Wii U offer the ability to purchase and download old games from previous consoles, but this is less a function of backwards compatibility, and more a storefront for fans to easily purchase and replay older titles. Digital downloads of older games on PS4 and Xbox One would be essential for consumers looking for older games which are no longer made into hard copies. Downloads of older games is also essential if certain store retailers eventually stop selling hard copies of those games. For backwards compatibility to be a selling point for a new console, the ability to put an old disc from your library into a new system is necessary.

3.) Improve Playstation Now Streaming
       One of the downsides to Playstation Now as I mentioned before is that there are fees associated to games you already own and you have to keep paying for the service monthly to play your last-gen games on PS4. The other issue with Playstation Now is the internet requirements needed to have a smooth gaming experience while streaming to prevent latency. Latency also hurts the visual quality of this videogame you are playing while its streaming. Here are some solutions:

• Major markets for the PS4 need to soon upgrade to higher bandwidths for better connection speeds
• Majory markets for PS4 need to come up with lower paying internet solutions since the higher bandwidth is greatly needed 
• Affordable computer server farms needs to be built within a close enough proximity to people to ensure low latency

4.) Release a Backwards Compatible PS4 & Xbox One Console!!

       For me, backwards compatibility is a huge deal. Console manufacturers argue that backwards compatibility drives the build cost of consoles up. As I discussed with you earlier, this is true and that’s fine. Since its such a technical hurdle for console manufactures to supply this feature, give me (gamers) the option to buy a machine with backwards compatibility for $100 more. I’ll do it! If the Xbox One without backwards compatibility sells for $349, I’d gladly pony up an extra hundred just to play Xbox 360 games on the new system. I don’t think I’m alone with that notion.