Xbox One adds Xbox 360 backwards compatibility

Forced V-Sync and possible drops in performance. I would bet there would be added latency as well which would basically kill trying to play shmups like that.

In Geometry Wars 1 at least, there is no noticeable lag when playing it on the Xbone via BC from my personal experience. And AFAIK no shmups suffer from screen tearing or unintended framerate drops on 360.
 
In Geometry Wars 1 at least, there is no noticeable lag when playing it on the Xbone via BC from my personal experience. And AFAIK no shmups suffer from screen tearing or unintended framerate drops on 360.
Not talking about 360, talking about potential issues with how it seems X1 BC is handled affecting shmups. But I guess we'll have to wait and see.
 
Not talking about 360, talking about potential issues with how it seems X1 BC is handled affecting shmups. But I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Part of what I'm trying to say, is that the issues caused by forced v-sync in BC seem to only affect 360 games that already suffered from both unstable framerates and tearing on 360. At least that's the case so far.
 
I'm currently replaying Mass Effect on Xbox One via BC, and came to the realization that ME is currently the best RPG on Xbox One. Combat/gunplay is a little rough, but otherwise the game still holds up wonderfully.
 
I'm currently replaying Mass Effect on Xbox One via BC, and came to the realization that ME is currently the best RPG on Xbox One. Combat/gunplay is a little rough, but otherwise the game still holds up wonderfully.

It's best to play it on hard also, it makes your weapon and power choices more critical.
 
I really hope they add some of the game that were released towards the end of the 360's lifespan that I never got to play like South Park: The Stick of Truth.
 
"Millions of people made investments in 360 content," he said. "We thought the right thing to do was to make that content go forward, but we didn't know [how difficult it would be]."

"[Emulation] is hard," admitted Spencer, explaining that the company was dealing with having to harmonise PowerPC architecture with x86.


"The approach that we've taken is to actually emulate the full Xbox 360 hardware layer. So the [operating system] for the 360 is actually running when you run the game," Spencer explained.

"If you watch the game's boot you'll see the Xbox 360 boot animation come up. From a performance standpoint it allows [emulation] to work. We're able to get frame by frame performance equivalents."

"[Xbox Live] thinks you're on a 360, so people have been asking 'hey, why are you playing Mass Effect on the 360?,' I was actually playing on the Xbox One."

Spencer continued to explain that, since the Xbox One thinks it's playing a normal game, features such as streaming and screenshots are supported.

"The 360 games think they're running on the 360 OS, which they are. And the 360 OS thinks its running on the hardware, which it's not, it's running on an emulated VM. On the other side, the Xbox One thinks it's a game. That's why things like streaming, game DVR, and screenshots all work, because it thinks there's just one big game called 360."

Delving deeper, Spencer explained exactly how the emulator packages the Xbox 360 games, and how it compares to Xbox 360's emulation of original Xbox games.

"You download a kind of manifest of wrapper for the 360 game, so we can say 'hey, this is actually Banjo, or this is Mass Effect. The emulator runs exactly the same for all the games.

"I was around when we did the original Xbox [backwards compatibility] for Xbox 360 where we had a shim for every game and it just didn't scale very well. This is actually the same emulator running for all of the games. Different games do different things, as we're rolling them out we'll say 'oh maybe we have to tweak the emulator.' But in the end, the emulator is emulating the 360, so it's for everybody."

Asked about whether Microsoft would require permission from game publishers to adjust game code, Spencer clarified it would not be interfering with code.

"The bits are not touched," he said. "There's some caveats, and as always I like to be as transparent as I can be on this: Kinect games won't work from the 360, because translating between the Kinect sensors is almost impossible."

Finally, the subject of multi-disc games was also addressed. According to Spencer, it's an issue engineers are looking into.

"We're still working on multi-disc," he said. "Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon are some of my favourites from the 360. There's actually work in packing a multi-disc into single that requires us to go back and look at the original package on the multiple discs and reconfigure that."

Microsoft announced Xbox One backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games at its E3 press conference. According to the platform holder digital Xbox 360 titles already purchased via XBLA, as well as retail discs of last-gen titles, will eventually be "natively" playable on Xbox One.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/revealed-how-xbox-one-can-play-360-games-via-backw/1100-6428366/


I really wich there was a sequel to Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon so much.. :( ... LOVED those games too...


sigh .. T_T
 
"The 360 games think they're running on the 360 OS, which they are. And the 360 OS thinks its running on the hardware, which it's not, it's running on an emulated VM. On the other side, the Xbox One thinks it's a game. That's why things like streaming, game DVR, and screenshots all work, because it thinks there's just one big game called 360."

The magic of software. ^^
For all the moaning from devs about not being able to code "to the metal" and being forced to use standard API, I guess the counterpart is making such feats possible.

Since the X1 is already running on "VMs", I wonder what the future will look like in terms of backwards compatibility/emulation.
 
Lost in that faq was the info that Live Gold sharing is coming to 360 at the program's launch. Backwards Compatibility is probably the reason this is happening because Gold can't be shared on emulated 360 games.
 
Since the X1 is already running on "VMs", I wonder what the future will look like in terms of backwards compatibility/emulation.

One of the reasons I went digital only this generation. If they are able to replicate that for the next-gen Xbox (or ability to run XBO OS on future Windows 10 machines...or however the future will be), I would potentially have all of my games with me going forward. That would make going to the next-gen system much easier. I do wonder if they would do it for the OG Xbox (and just have the ability to download games as finding those discs would definitely be hard) and have a system that is similar to the PC where no matter the gaming system upgrade, your games carry over.
 
The magic of software. ^^
For all the moaning from devs about not being able to code "to the metal" and being forced to use standard API, I guess the counterpart is making such feats possible.

Since the X1 is already running on "VMs", I wonder what the future will look like in terms of backwards compatibility/emulation.
Not quite since they are not just providing the API on the X1 but are instead emulating the hardware by the sounds of it on which the OS runs. But yes, if they forced everyone to use the API at all times then what they can do is build/port the API, then the application would be able to use that to communicate with the hardware without really caring what that hardware actually is. (as long as behaviour is replicated, and the code respects the API specification)
 
Waiting
im
patiently for Halo Reach and Fable Anniversary. I'm in Preview but theres nothing on the list yet that I need to play right now.
 
with seeing all the issues Mass Effects suffers from, I worry Red Dead will be insanely hard to get running problem free given how hard it pushed the hardware.
 
with seeing all the issues Mass Effects suffers from, I worry Red Dead will be insanely hard to get running problem free given how hard it pushed the hardware.

Agreed, but I'm sure Microsoft knows getting Red Dead running on X1 would be a huge win, so I think they'll dedicate a lot of time and effort to getting that particular title emulated.
 

Whilst I don't think it's likely. I wouldn't say the chances are zero. I often argue how porting all their Xbox One games to PC doesn't make a lot of business sense, as if someone decides to play on PC instead, then MS loses out on Gold fees for online, and likely third-party royalties as anything not first party would probably end up being bought on Steam. With the 360 games however none of that is really a concern. Due to the games actually thinking they're on a 360, even PC players would require Gold if they wanted to play them online (and they would have no reasonable argument for that requirement to be removed), and every 360 game will require MS to receive their cut regardless of whch PC storefront it's bought from, which would probably lead to them all being Windows store exclusives by default. Their store would immediately have a ton of real, substantial games exclusive to it, to differentiate it from Steam.

Also, the situation on PC could potentially be even better than on Xbox One, as Windows already knows how to use pretty much every Xbox 360 accessory.
 
Whilst I don't think it's likely. I wouldn't say the chances are zero. I often argue how porting all their Xbox One games to PC doesn't make a lot of business sense, as if someone decides to play on PC instead, then MS loses out on Gold fees for online, and likely third-party royalties as anything not first party would probably end up being bought on Steam. With the 360 games however none of that is really a concern. Due to the games actually thinking they're on a 360, even PC players would require Gold if they wanted to play them online (and they would have no reasonable argument for that requirement to be removed), and every 360 game will require MS to receive their cut regardless of whch PC storefront it's bought from, which would probably lead to them all being Windows store exclusives by default. Their store would immediately have a ton of real, substantial games exclusive to it, to differentiate it from Steam.

Also, the situation on PC could potentially be even better than on Xbox One, as Windows already knows how to use pretty much every Xbox 360 accessory.

Accessories is not the same league like a game than runs on PowerPC etc...

Sry but BC should stay on the console.
 
Accessories is not the same league like a game than runs on PowerPC etc...

Sry but BC should stay on the console.

Well yea, but for all we know they've already worked that part of the issue out via the Xbox One version. Xbox One is basically running WIndows as it is, so we don't actually know that there would be any significant challenge to porting the VM over.
 
Part of the point of BC was to get 360 owners to upgrade to an Xbox one, many of those titles are available on pc and can be had very cheap too.

People will have the choice of playing their 360 games on pc then not investing more into Microsoft platform/store fronts so they gain little money from it.

Plus publishers want their cut of pc which might he affected by people just playing their 360 versions which they already got paid for.

If it does happen it won't be for a long time, they want people to upgrade to xbox one which is why they did it.
 
with seeing all the issues Mass Effects suffers from, I worry Red Dead will be insanely hard to get running problem free given how hard it pushed the hardware.

I disagree. It's running on a 360 VM but the X1 has the modern hardware. Any previous performance would have been a result of not enough juice. The X1 has excess juice. There has to be a performance increase, right?
Disclaimer: I have no programming knowledge.
 
Part of the point of BC was to get 360 owners to upgrade to an Xbox one, many of those titles are available on pc and can be had very cheap too.

People will have the choice of playing their 360 games on pc then not investing more into Microsoft platform/store fronts so they gain little money from it.

Plus publishers want their cut of pc which might he affected by people just playing their 360 versions which they already got paid for.

If it does happen it won't be for a long time, they want people to upgrade to xbox one which is why they did it.

Hmm, I hadn't actually considered the whole "use your own discs" thing. I was kinda assuming that wouldn't be there. Essentially it would just be a way of generating instant port of 360 games. So their store would have stuff like Red Dead Redemption, Vanquish etc that were never before playable on PC. It'd probably have a separate approval list if it happened, so a pub like EA could say yes to FIFA, but no to Mass Effect, as they already sell that via their own store.

Anyhow, like I said, I don't think it's likely. I just think it would actually be a good idea, as it provides their store with content not available on Steam, whilst also not offering games that are key to selling the current console. They're already trying to find this balance with stuff like Killer Instinct. The 360 games are just a rather large variety of games that fit a similar criteria imo.

I disagree. It's running on a 360 VM but the X1 has the modern hardware. Any previous performance would have been a result of not enough juice. The X1 has excess juice. There has to be a performance increase, right?
Disclaimer: I have no programming knowledge.

That's not at all how it works unfortunately. Emulation isn't free, and generally requires performance far in excess of the original hardware in order to run the same. Think of it like two people that speak different languages talking to each other through a translator that speaks both languages.
 
with seeing all the issues Mass Effects suffers from, I worry Red Dead will be insanely hard to get running problem free given how hard it pushed the hardware.

I would assume it doesn't matter what the game is doing as long as the One has the power to run the Xbox 360 emulator full speed when the emulated 360 system was running at 100% load. Just a guess.
 
They will of course improve. I am talking about the current state of the emulation.
Also the improvements they are implementing don't really help the game we are talking about here but the drawbacks of their current implementation would hurt them significantly.
So wait and see. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was a bad idea.


The current state of Mass Effect you mean.

I played Geometry Wars and it played flawlessly and that in the current state, I experienced no lag at all. I would expect the same performance with other Shmups.
 
I'd love to see multi-disc games working on X1 soon...Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and Castlevania LoS would be the tits.
 
The way the uservoice reads it seems they may only add games once a month which is a damn shame :l

QZ3CdhN.png
 

BL1? Thats true. But BL2 and PreSequel is on the One and looks and plays better (sadly had to wait for that big performance patch a month after release -.-* But it works now :D )


The way the uservoice reads it seems they may only add games once a month which is a damn shame :l

QZ3CdhN.png

Thats disappointing :/ I hope its at least 15 games a months. Will probably take a while until i can play South Park, RdR and Fable Anniversary huh? :(
 
The way the uservoice reads it seems they may only add games once a month which is a damn shame :l

QZ3CdhN.png

Yeah, that is pretty much how they worded it in all of the interviews too. I think they are supposed to be large dumps of games every month though. Probably along with the monthly updates? That would let them preview the games first


Yeah, that is from an Xbox daily video from last week. It's actually addressed in the original FAQ they had on BC (since pulled) but Borderlands is definitely coming
 
What are the odds that they will bring this xbox 360 emulator to Windows 10?

Who knows, but if you ask me, it makes sense... If Ms' goal is to make Xbox into a ubiquitous platform and brand, instead of a series of consoles, it would make a lot of sense to make their software more readily available on PCs.

Yes, they are starting to release some of their console exclusives on PC, but selling this emulator on Win10 would, IMO, go a long way towards getting PC gamers into their ecosystem...

But how long until the Pirates come and ruin everything?
 
Who knows, but if you ask me, it makes sense... If Ms' goal is to make Xbox into a ubiquitous platform and brand, instead of a series of consoles, it would make a lot of sense to make their software more readily available on PCs.

Yes, they are starting to release some of their console exclusives on PC, but selling this emulator on Win10 would, IMO, go a long way towards getting PC gamers into their ecosystem...

But how long until the Pirates come and ruin everything?

It doesnt make sense to release it for PC. Microsoft needs a reason to sell the XboxOne to 360/Ps3 users.
 
It doesnt make sense to release it for PC. Microsoft needs a reason to sell the XboxOne to 360/Ps3 users.

They don't need to sell the xbox one at all. They just need to sell the xbox games and app store. The xbox one is just the living room conduit for that

If they can get their store to take off, the xbox one hardware itself is meaningless. Just like steam machines for valve
 
This is probably the most impressive thing coming out of current gen consoles.

So if the most impressive thing about this gen is playing 10% of the 360's library, then how impressive is an actual 360?
 
So if the most impressive thing about this gen is playing 10% of the 360's library, then how impressive is an actual 360?

Don't be stupid.

Emulating a 360 on an Xbox One is impressive (and previously thought impossible by most). It's not impressive for a 360 to play 360 games...
 
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