EXCLUSIVE: Xbox President Sarah Bond has set up a new team dedicated to game preservation and forward compatibility

Nintendo wondering if she's stupid

See you in 3 years when the whole team is cut. You know, for not making any money.

IDK, MS really went all the way with backwards compatibility. They literally built emulators for the 360 and OG Xbox in order to let people play old games using old disks they already owned.

I'd be shocked if they didn't stay committed to this.
- I hope I'm wrong but companies are about cutting good ideas for short term gains.
- The Series S doesn't have a disk drive.
  
  The rumored Series X refresh doesn't have a disk drive.
  
  It'd be hard for Microsoft to remain committed to game preservation in that way without them.
  
  To me, this sounds more like they're looking at Nintendo's virtual store playbook and wondering how many times they can sell the same games to their customer base.
- That was seemingly really only to dunk on Sony and secure another year of sales.
They could stand to make a bunch of money reselling old games with 4k, vrr, HDR, and calling it remastered.
- They could which sounds like this team or they can make do the GTA route and make a masterpiece again.

irony is they're closing the 360 online store this year

It was still running?!

Consumer friendly products? What is going on?

They are loosing to Sony so they have to find new ways of competing for business. You know, how it's supposed to work.

Wish it worked that way more often.
- You know what, this makes me so happy that I’ll give ‘em that:
  
  “Good job capitalism!”
  
  Now I got to go wash my fingers for typing that.
- But just remember that during the 360/PS3 era when MS were in the lead, it was Sony trying to by all consumer friendly, advocating online cross play and having free online service.
  
  MS weren't interested then.
- they have to find new ways of competing for business
  
  Yeah haha. Regrettably doing right by the consumers because a competitor is.
  
  Although I would not be surprised if they find a way to make a money pit out of it. (Such as not being chill like Sony and releasing on steam, forcing users on to the Windows store)

I love that

Forward compatibility? I get backward compatibility, but FORWARD compatibility?

It’s future backward compatibility.
Ensuring that future titles have a preservation plan as part of the development?
I think that just means not making any crazy technological decisions that will likely make games incompatible on future hardware. A great example was the PS3's cell processor. It was excellent tech when used properly, but absolutley not "forward compatible"
- In fairness here, you can't predict the future.
  
  Cell was just PowerPC as was the Xbox 360's Xenon chip. PowerPC is all but dead now, but the same thing could happen to x86 or ARM in the future. No king rules forever.
I mean Computers basically kind of have it

I should be able to play any games that releases in the next 5 years on my current set up
Think of all the old games that are no longer playable because the master servers are no longer online.
Right? Like isn't that a joke in Homestar

I am wondering if her father is called James.

I refuse to build up expectations, the little I'll hope for they will mess up. This is the same company that tried to make physical games unsharable long-term.

Which they walked back and hacen't tried again since. Their latest console is also still backwards compatible with games from the first xbox.

I'm legitimately hopeful. Won't ever stop the best option from being piracy and open source emulators on PC, but Microsoft's track record for backwards compat is sparkling.

Sure, it's not true hardware based backwards compat. It works by using the disc as a key to download and run a full copy of the original game + an emulation layer customized for the specific game, so if you don't have internet or they pull the plug on their store servers you can't just use the disk alone. If you lose the disc or it breaks, you have to buy the game again from their online store. Also, I've encountered some crashes and minor emulation issues with some titles. Poor, poor Kotor.

It's sad, but that's still leagues better than their competitors in the console market.

Sony makes you buy the old games again on each platform. Standard "Virtual Console" type shit. Thankfully, they usually do this by making a general emulator that homebrew folks can later shove non-supported games into.

Nintendo. Nintendo. Are you shitting me? An ongoing subscription to keep access to the same 30 year old games you've been reselling since the Wii?

You can use homebrew to shove other games in, but you risk a ban from their online services. Also, if you're already doing homebrew, the consoles they offer games for this way on the Switch are more than easily handled by Retroarch running as homebrew.

Mario 3D All Stars? Take all the time and money to get a half port half emulation solution working on the Switch for one Gamecube and and one Wii game, sell it as time limited, don't include the direct sequel to the Wii game that was built on the same fucking game engine in the package... and then never use that tech again? Are you fucking kidding me?

That last one shouldn't surprise me too bad though. They managed to emulate the N64 on the Gamecube, and only used it for Legend of Zelda. Once in a limited preorder bonus for Wind Waker, and also in a limited Nintendo Power magazine bonus disc for subscribing.
- There's reason to believe that the next Xbox will just be a PC with a coat of paint, the same way that the Steam Deck is, and so this preservation team would, in that case, probably be built to legitimately emulate the Xbox 360 on PC, because that's where the biggest compatibility gap is.
- Emulation is probably a better strategy than hardware compatibility, since future machines will have the chops to emulate current machines.
- Like I said, they tried. They had leadership change, but at the end of the day consoles in general largely disrespect your freedom and are designed around it.
  
  I do own several consoles and I like them for their emotional value, but I'm never going to trust lip service from ANY company that tolerates things like always-online DRM or worse: actively implements it themselves. (refer to figure A: latest Forza)
  
  PS: I'll admit I didn't read all of your comment because by God that was WAY too much for 2:30am, but I'll forget to reply otherwise and think I want to react to your initial statement at least.
  
  Edit: Read the rest, my comment wasn't to paint Xbox as worse than others (after reversing course), but rather expressing they all try to eat away your freedoms.
  
  Backwards compat is nice, but only fixes self-imposed problems.
To be honest they’ve been doing this for a while with backwards compatibility so it’s continuation to make it forwards compatible as well. It’s a bummer they’re not following up with physical copies but it’s clear there’s been a lack of demand for Xbox games. Seems like they want to go the Steam route which I’m all for.

As long as it brings some focus on backward compatibility at Sony too, I’m all for it. But I don’t have too much hope sadly.

By the way, Sarah Bond looks great and I feel weak not hating her even if she works for Microsoft.

I wonder if MSFT would build an Xbox app that emulates Xbox, 360 and Xbox One on PC, making it possible to circumvent the need of cross saves/cross progression of older games. Currently it is annoying that you can't just pick up a game on Xbox and continue playing it on your handheld gaming device for most games.

[x] Doubt

mircosoft ad remove

Ah yes. Unless it's shitting on something, or something negative, it's not news. Or something anyone would be interested in.