Thoughts on reverse compatibility

[The Blackangel]

I'm pretty sure everyone here will agree with me on this, but I think it's a great thing. However, the reason I'm asking this is because I have seen tons of gamers ditch their games and systems when a new one comes out. For example when the N64 came out, there was a kid in my math class that was selling off all his SNES games and console to get money for the N64. He had raved about Mario RPG and Blackthorne for 2 years. Then all of a sudden he didn't want them anymore because a new system was out.

Now we have systems that are reverse compatible. PS2 to PS1. PS3 to PS2(originally) to PS1. Xbox One to Xbox 360. Wii to Gamecube. ANd so many others. SO I'm wondering why. Why would you abandon the games you loved because a new system is out, even if it's reverse compatible? Is it a status thing? you can still play them, just the console has changed. And if you had a game you were working on and were worried about losing it because you got the new one, you can just upload it to the cloud and then download it to the new system.

I know some see reverse compatibility as pointless and useless. The reasoning I hear most is wondering why anyone would play previous games when "newer and better" games are coming out. That's not necessarily true. Newer, obviously. Better not sure about that. I play a lot of PS4 games, most notably RDR2. And I still play them on my PS5.

It's just weird to me that when a new system comes out, that some think they need to get rid of everything they previously enjoyed when they can just keep playing it on the new one. I know there was a lot of heat towards the PS4 for it not being reverse compatible. Which was stupid in my opinion. Yet some said there was no reason for it to be.

So is it pointless and useless in your opinion, or a great thing? Should it just be to the previous system, or encompass more? Should the Series X be able to run games from the original Xbox? Should the PS5 be able to run games from all the previous PlayStation consoles?

If the answer to that is no, then why do people abandon games from the previous system when they get the new one?

[Tonberry]

I think it's at worst a convenience, and natural at best. Which isn't a bad worst at all, as I believe that it should be the standard, or at least close to. If the PS5 hadn't been able to play PS4 games it would have had like three games as of writing this which would've been inexcusable.

Although I can understand some companies being sticklers if the reason is that it's too difficult to reliably have backwards compatibility constantly, be it through hardware or emulation, but seeing Jim Ryan's braindead statement about Gran Turismo or whatever made me realise that we need back-compat, as many executives just view games as products of their time never worthy of any sort of archival or functionality simply on the, frankly completely out of touch, statement that "who would want to play an old game when there is a new one?".

In short, I'd consider backwards compatibility is objectively a good thing, both for the health of the medium, and as a kind of show of respect to the industry as a whole.

[Shagger]

It's not something I would consider to be that important, but nice to have. Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't buy a band new generation of console to play old games on it. I will say though that with modern consoles there really isn't an excuse to not include backwards compatibility given the way the hardware works. So whilst I do not consider that important, for modern console there is no excuse to not have it, and with digital distribution and games being tied to an online account, it is more important now hat it has been in the past.

[Syntax]

I think that it is a super nice to have, especially when people drop a ton of hardware (controllers) and games on prior gen consoles. I don't see it being a huge task to support software wise, and can help more people make the jump since they don't need to just toss or sell their old games to get the same game on the next gen console. 

[Kane99]

That's why I hold onto a lot of my retro consoles, because backwards compatibility doesn't always happen. It's a nice option and I think it helps sell consoles somewhat, but I think it comes down to what gamers want. They are focussed on getting those new titles and that's their main reasoning for getting a new console.

Backwards compatibility is nice, and I welcome it with newer consoles because in reality it should be a lot easier to make these digital games work on newer consoles without much work. Or they could take the route of emulation and just let people load their older disc based games that way. Or if they already own the digital games on the Xbox marketplace for example, it should be playable on all future consoles under that brand. I think Xbox is trying to make that a reality. So any new games you buy from the Xbox 360 and up, will probably be playable on the newer xboxes, well anything that's digital at least. 

[Grungie]

I think it's a nice feature if you didn't own the previous console, or you can save that port on your TV for one console instead of using it for 2.

I personally don't understand the mindset of selling all of your games to get the newest console. One reason for me is what if I still want to play those games? Then there's the lack of games on the new console. I just beat the one game I want on the new console, well fuck, I don't have any other games left...

[Akun]

Well, as with all things, there's truth to both sides of the argument. For me, I like it if the game I played on a PS4 gets remastered on the PS5 with better graphics that looks sharper on my 4K TV. I wouldn't mind selling my PS4 games just for that reason alone because I enjoy good graphics on my games, contrary to many gamers I've seen. Aside from graphics update, there might also be other improvements like bug fixes or better UI.

Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule for me because... look what happened to Spider-Man PS5, replacing John Bubniak with Ben Jordan. I don't want another actor. It feels strange because the point of replaying the same game would be to have that familiar experience again for nostalgia's sake. What kind of nostalgia would I have with a different actor? Plus, Ben's expressions are kinda more boring than John's emotive animation.

And then you have Nintendo... Good luck playing your 3DS games on the Switch. But even counting its handheld consoles, I'd much rather play a DS game over a Gameboy game because, again, betters graphics, even if not by much. Really helps that Gamefreak remakes their older Pokémon games, giving me more reasons to sell my older games... except maybe the notorious Diamond/Pearl remake. I don't particularly like the chibi graphic change of that one, but that's just me.

[killamch89]

Reverse compatibility is a great thing because you can still enjoy your older games on the newer console without having to have multiple consoles. Some people just don't have the space to store multiple consoles along with physical copies of games so it saves them a lot of space. 

[Ravenfreak]

Backwards compatibility is a huge deal to me. Perhaps it really shouldn't be since I own a lot of older consoles, but it's nice to be able to pop in an original Xbox game that's compatible on the Xbox One and be able to play it. That's one of the reasons why I went with a Xbox 360 in 2010 over the PS3. I was able to play many different original Xbox titles that I never got to play since I had a PS2 and Gamecube when I was growing up and never an original Xbox.

[The Blackangel]

The PS3 had backwards compatibility as well. The launch systems could play PS1 and PS2 games. But when running a PS2 game the system tended to overheat, so tehy released a second PS3 which was only backward compatible with PS1 games.

[killamch89]

On 4/9/2023 at 11:37 AM, The Blackangel said:

The PS3 had backwards compatibility as well. The launch systems could play PS1 and PS2 games. But when running a PS2 game the system tended to overheat, so tehy released a second PS3 which was only backward compatible with PS1 games.

Hmmm...I used to play Need For Speed Carbon on the PS3 even though it was a PS2 game and I never really experienced those issues. The part that baffles me is why they never tried to fix the overheating issues with PS2 games instead of releasing another PS3 that was somewhat of a downgrade.

[Shortie]

I myself think it is awesome that we are able to play older games on the newer consoles. Unfortunately, Xbox did stop adding to their backwards compatibility list a little while ago and I would have loved to see more come to that list but it looks like we will not be seeing many of them now. 

I think it would make more sense to allow all games to be backwards compatible on each console so that people have that opportunity to keep going back to older games without having to keep older consoles. Some people do keep older consoles as part of a collection which is understandable but even I feel they would appreciate not having to set it up each time they wanted to play an older game. 

[Lens]

I don't know why I'm so fond of the reverse compatibility because it truly promotes game preservation and reduces waste. It's absolutely disappointing to see some gamers abandon the classic libraries. 

 

[Button]

What I like about reverse compatibility is how it actually bridges generational gaps. It slows the new gamers to actually discover the classics.