Great Ars article on xbox360 backwards compatibility

[oldsk00l]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars

"Should the Xbox 360 be incompatible with the current generation Xbox, we think that publishers will face a dilemma. Most will plan to produce SKUs for the PS2, PSP, and Xbox 360, but will be faced with a decision whether to produce future games for the current generation Xbox." "If the Xbox 360 is incompatible, sales of current generation Xbox hardware are likely to rapidly decline, making the support decision even more difficult. Further complicating the decision is the cost of next generation software development, expected to be $10 - 15 million per game, compared to $3 - 5 million for current generation software development. In order to support both the current and next generation Xboxes, publishers will be required to spend $13 - 20 million per game chasing a combined installed base that is not assured to grow over the first few years without backward compatibility."

I have to say, from my perspective...the one where I have NO INTENTION of buying ANY next gen console this upcoming x-mas or the entire year of 2006....that when the time finally does come backwards compatibility will be even that much more of a factor when I do decide to plop.

By then, we'll have seen how important it is.

[Diamond_G]

How much is backwards compatibility worth to you? Cause the way I see it they will probably make you buy the most expensive system and live just to get it...

[stncttr908]

I'm fine with having my xbox hooked up next to my xbox 360. I don't really see the big deal.

[Connaught]

I personally do not have enough room to have both next to each other and having the switch between the 360 and xbox would be time consuming and frustrating. Because i do not know whether the 360 will be backwards compat or not, i do not plan on buying any xbox games besides conker, and advent rising simply because why spend the money when i could save it and buy the 360 with games...

[|MaguS|]

His figures for current development cost is way off, FF7 on the PSX costed around the 5-10 million mark to make, even though it made around 5x that in sales.

[six_storm]

How much is backwards compatibility worth to you?

That's a very good question to ask. When I bought my PS2, I never played any of my PS1 games. I think that maybe once a nice collection of games are available for next gen consoles, people will forget about the older gen of games. Heck, at least I will.

[|MaguS|]

I played plenty of my PS1 games on my PS2 and if the PS3 will allow me to play PS2 games on it, I will play them on it aswell. Having backwards compatiblity made it alot easier for me, especially since I always end up with all the current consoles.

[Athena]

If he is right that is way to bad because all the new games will not have any graphical improvement over the old PS2. I have to many games now that look subpar because they where developed w/ the PS2 in mind. Kill it now and put us out of it misery.
I want games w/ a true revolution in graphics, AND CONTENT, not more games that look like old Dreamcast games running in low res.
My new catch phrase should be NO MORE JAGGIES!!!!