kaczmar
Member
As the PC market has shown, servers go offline. Games become unusable. BC doesn't resolve this.
Just curious. Do you have examples of this?
As the PC market has shown, servers go offline. Games become unusable. BC doesn't resolve this.
Exactly.The PS4s success was nothing to do with back compatibility.
All real world data at hand demonstrates that BC isn't remotely important to a platform's market-level success. You have just said so yourself in an earlier sentence.All things been largely equal this showing back compatibility will be very important.
Your comparing a completely different point in time before mainstream digital adoption.
Off the top of my head, every defunct MMO and also SecureROM DRM'd games not running on Windows 10.Just curious. Do you have examples of this?
I thought there were talks of including BC with a PS+ membership?
I'm not convinced that BC is a feature that everyone wants but few actually use. I always have new games to play. I personally, rarely go back to play anything old. Maybe I'm alone in this thinking.
I thought there were talks of including BC with a PS+ membership?
I'm not convinced that BC is a feature that everyone wants but few actually use. I always have new games to play. I personally, rarely go back to play anything old. Maybe I'm alone in this thinking.
Those costs surely arnt high relative to how much money they would make by retaining a large player base and large volume of future sales.
Backwards compatibility hasn’t done shit to move Xbox sales. So, no.
My point about backwards compatability not been important last gen is simply because MS showing was so awful. If both consoles were roughly equal (i.e no major miss-steps) then I'd contend it would have been important.
I have a sizable library of physical games stretching back to the NES era. You'd think that I would celebrate backwards compatibility, but as the years progress I am less and less interested in the idea.
Since I'm comfortable retaining old hardware, I'd rather have that hardware focused on the games designed for it. Pretty straightforward. Nothing controversial about that.
"But what about consoles that do offer it? Aren't they better?"
Well, actually no. They're not. See, I have delved deep enough into these systems (as have many other gamers) and realize that almost every example of backwards compatibility is mediocre, at best. There are countless PS1 games that perform worse when played on a PS2 or PS3. There are Xbox and Xbox 360 games that cannot be played on their successors, and among the games that can be played many of them have performance issues. SEGA... SEGA just sucks. The lack of SEGA CD -> Saturn and/or Saturn -> Dreamcast compatibility is a huge sore spot for me. SEGA's hardware quality is pretty darn good so perhaps in another universe they did it correctly.
You know who did BC correctly? Nintendo. Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player were both excellent pieces of hardware, and the Game Boy line did a great job of supporting older cartridges. But Nintendo is the only one who has been consistently great with BC. Sony and Microsoft have half-assed it.
And then there's the added problem of compatibility with modern televisions. It's not such an issue now, but there are still plenty of games on 360 and PS3 (mostly shmups) that are better on a VGA display at 480p. If you don't have this hardware -- or worse, if you're playing the game on a modern system that doesn't support older displays -- then you're playing a worse version of that old game.
I understand the convenience of it all, but it just hasn't payed off for me yet. I'm fine buying and preserving the old systems instead of demanding the new companies make their new systems compatible.
Good point. Playing Gamecube on Wii and playing the Wii on the Wii U is really impressive when you consider that you can still use the old controllers, too. Pretty darn good.I'm in the same boat with large collection of physical media going back abit further than yours going back as far as the Atari 2600. You're probably right too, b/c has felt a bit half assed and because I also have all my old consoles, all setup, in good working order, I can dive into the retro library of last gen or further whenever. Its nice and convenient to have but its not the biggest thing in the world to me either at this point.
For the record Nintendo did great with b/c as well when allowing Gamecube games to play on the Wii.
You can contend all you want but you don't have a lick of evidence or previous precedent from the past to support this point. Even using straight logic, it doesn't make sense.
I don't think the average gamer cares about playing games from 5-10 years ago.
BC doesn't impact market share.
Consoles without BC haven't suffered a decreased marketshare - conversely, they have an increased marketshare and rapid rate of adoption (Switch, PS4)
Consoles with BC haven't enjoyed an increased marketshare (Wii U, XBX1)
BC may be important to you.
BC is not important to the market.
Some sales of Black Ops and Red Dead at heavily discounted rates doesn't represent a viable recurring revenue stream at a market level. Exceptions are not the norm.
Not going back to discs, and not getting burned twice.
If you're asking what the market has dictated, you can only use things that have happened up to present day.The question will be for the next generation. So when I ask "has the market dictated" I mean going forward for next gen.
I don't think the average gamer cares about playing games from 5-10 years ago.
Real question, if ps4 had BC would we still have demon souls servers? That's the only real question that matters
Reading some of these comments in here is really mind blowing. Sony has actually managed to turn their own customer base in loathing people that spite themselves by arguing a position that is against their own best interest. This must truly be the pinnacle of fanboyism.
Totally forgot about Warhawk... Love that game! It should 100% be one of the first BC games!One does not guarantee the other. In fact, let me ask you a better question. Let's pretend that even the Warhawk servers were still up and that the PS4 could run PS3 games.
Online multiplayer is free on the PS3, but I want to play Warhawk on a PS4. Should I be able to play it without PS+ or not? Food for thought.
That's funny. I feel exactly the same about online multiplayer paywalls, which thanks to the "pinnacle of fanboyism" have indeed become standard. So, thank you.
One does not guarantee the other. In fact, let me ask you a better question. Let's pretend that even the Warhawk servers were still up and that the PS4 could run PS3 games.
Online multiplayer is free on the PS3, but I want to play Warhawk on a PS4. Should I be able to play it without PS+ or not? Food for thought.
That's funny. I feel exactly the same about online multiplayer paywalls, which thanks to the "pinnacle of fanboyism" have indeed become standard. So, thank you.
The average gamer is still playing and buying a game (GTAV) from 5-10 years ago thoughI don't think the average gamer cares about playing games from 5-10 years ago.
Reading some of these comments in here is really mind blowing. Sony has actually managed to turn their own customer base in loathing people that spite themselves by arguing a position that is against their own best interest. This must truly be the pinnacle of fanboyism. We getting close to Trump level mania where they could end up taking your digital games away from you and some how Sony would still end up getting more popular among its base as they simply can't do anything wrong in their eyes.
No blu-ray player. Check
No Cross-play. Check
No Backwards compatibility. Check
No affordable consumer friendly services. Check
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzZ8jigea0Ph0pgUgrX5U-Q/videos . These are only a fraction of the games killed in the last 2 years. The guy hates any game that requires an online connection for these very reasons and wants to look into legal ways to stop companies from killing video games.Just curious. Do you have examples of this?
I don't think the average gamer cares about playing games from 5-10 years ago.
I don't think the average gamer cares about playing games from 5-10 years ago.
The game industry is constantly plundering its past, so there's some evidence to the contrary.
You're missing some facts in that logic.Straight logic... Jimbo has a collection of games. He has a choice between two consoles one will carry over all his old games and one will not. He goes with the one that does. How is that not logical.
I don't want to go to much in the past as I think the market has changed considerably the last 7 years as I detailed earlier. But if you want an example PlayStation 2 is one of the best selling consoles of all time and that was fully backwards compatible.
Yes there's a percentage of people who don't care about carrying their games forward but even if it was 10-20% that do (I think it's a hell of a lot more) that's still alot of money left on the table. Why wouldn't these manufacturers do everything in their power to try and grow their day 1 install base and incentivise digital sales going forward into this new gen. It's a fact digital sale growth is outpacing physical sale growth is it not. It would damage consumer confidence if they thought all their purchases where for "nothing" at the end of each life cycle. Which to be fair isn't THAT unfair on their behalf given how much digital sales have been pushed by both Sony and Microsoft. Everyone wants to keep what they perceive as owning, even if technically in a legal sense they don't.
Steam does it right and yeah PC is it's own thing, but console gaming for years now has been moving into that space. It's not unreasonable the same expectations should be applied.
Sony has a history of not learning from their mistakes, and I think honestly they just got lucky this generation with the PS4. If backwards compatibility were a "sure thing" for the next Playstation, E3 would have been a great time to make that announcement - there are a lot of people (OP included) that have stopped buying digital games because they know the generation is drawing to a close. Others, like me, started shifting all of their multi-platform digital game purchases to Xbox because they play better on the X and it seems much more likely that they'll also be playable on future hardware. You did make a good point about how critical consumer choice is at the beginning of the generation though, and with digital libraries being much more prevalent now than they were in the past, backwards compatibility will definitely be a battleground that could sway more customers in any one direction if future consoles do/don't have it.
Had xbone launched with it's current bc I think it'd be the best selling console in America at the moment. All the 360 owners would have stayed with MS this gen.