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[Dr Bass]

There has been a lot of talk on this board about how Sony is doing such a bad job with backwards compatibility, and how games are being lost with time as a result. This is, IMO of course, a travesty akin to losing great movies like The Godfather, or Vertigo because their original formats are no longer supported. Thankfully that doesn't occur in the movie or music industry, but it shouldn't occur with games either.

Some recent classics that have come up on this board include Vagrant Story, Valkyrie Profile, and basically a lot of other early days PS1 and PS2 games that are just basically gone now. No original Metal Gear. No Suikoden. The list goes on and on.

Microsoft is clearly doing the right thing in this area, and the industry and gamers will be better off long term if they keep it up.

As a result I think Square Enix, Capcom, Konami, etc. etc. should partner up with MS to release their libraries of classics on the Xbox platform, so that we can preserve these titles for decades to come. If MS continues to put in the kind of effort on Xbox where it can work similarly to the PC in terms of history preservation, I think that would just be such an amazing thing. People who play and buy multi plat, should basically be doing so on the Xbox just so that they know they will be able to play these games down the road (assuming MS keeps this commitment).

I would love to be able to fire up my XSX one day and play Chrono Trigger, or Final Fantasy 6 if I want. Then maybe follow it up with some of the games I mentioned above. Or perhaps Panzer Dragoon Saga? Nah, I'll play the arcade perfect Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. Wait, I'm in the mood for the old Double Dragon II Arcade game. Or maybe some SNK games. And so on ...

And then beyond that, what if I XSX could run old Windows games in a virtual machine ....

Microsoft right now is the best hope for preservation of gaming history and I hope they push harder in this area.

 

[Aion002]

There has been a lot of talk on this board about how Sony is doing such a bad job with backwards compatibility, and how games are being lost with time as a result. This is, IMO of course, a travesty akin to losing great movies like The Godfather, or Vertigo because their original formats are no longer supported. Thankfully that doesn't occur in the movie or music industry, but it shouldn't occur with games either.

Some recent classics that have come up on this board include Vagrant Story, Valkyrie Profile, and basically a lot of other early days PS1 and PS2 games that are just basically gone now. No original Metal Gear. No Suikoden. The list goes on and on.

Microsoft is clearly doing the right thing in this area, and the industry and gamers will be better off long term if they keep it up.

As a result I think Square Enix, Capcom, Konami, etc. etc. should partner up with MS to release their libraries of classics on the Xbox platform, so that we can preserve these titles for decades to come. If MS continues to put in the kind of effort on Xbox where it can work similarly to the PC in terms of history preservation, I think that would just be such an amazing thing. People who play and buy multi plat, should basically be doing so on the Xbox just so that they know they will be able to play these games down the road (assuming MS keeps this commitment).

I would love to be able to fire up my XSX one day and play Chrono Trigger, or Final Fantasy 6 if I want. Then maybe follow it up with some of the games I mentioned above. Or perhaps Panzer Dragoon Saga? Nah, I'll play the arcade perfect Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. Wait, I'm in the mood for the old Double Dragon II Arcade game. Or maybe some SNK games. And so on ...

And then beyond that, what if I XSX could run old Windows games in a virtual machine ....

Microsoft right now is the best hope for preservation of gaming history and I hope they push harder in this area.

Why?

Is Pc going to disappear?

I can play all my genesis, ps1, ps2 and psp games on my pc.

 

[Zannegan]

1. If they're not making money off of it, they don't care.
2. PC is a much more distributed platform, so it would be a better, safer place to put games if you want to preserve them. Just because MS is doing a fantastic job with BC right now, that doesn't make them the basket you want to put all your eggs into, IMO.

 

[Dr Bass]

Why?

Is Pc going to disappear?

I can play all my genesis, ps1, ps2 and psp games on my pc.

Regular consumers do not download or mess with emulators and illegal ROMs. That's computer nerd territory. Again, that's not a legal way to archive this stuff.

 

[Dr Bass]

1. If they're not making money off of it, they don't care.
2. PC is a much more distributed platform, so it would be a better, safer place to put games if you want to preserve them. MS doing a fantastic job with BC right now, doesn't make them the basket you want to put all your eggs into, IMO.

Which is exactly why I said (assuming they continue their commitment).

 

[jshackles]

Like Aion002 said, PC is always going to be the go-to for preservation, simply because it's open architecture and there's a demand for it. Pirates will always win, because they don't need to ask permission from rights holders. More and more older video games from previous generations are becoming abandonware, and Microsoft nor anyone else can legally sell it.

That being said, it still boggles my mind that every not-defunct publisher from the 6th and 7th generation hasn't pushed to have their entire back catalog of OG Xbox and Xbox 360 games available on the current Xbox storefront. It's like leaving money on the table at this point.

 

[Zannegan]

Which is exactly why I said (assuming they continue their commitment).

Sure, but I still don't see how that's better for preservation than a more open platform like PC, and I'm not talking pirating bay here either. What about services like GOG and of course Steam? Having games ported there would do a lot more to secure the games' legacies than a closed platform like Xbox.

 

[ManaByte]

What about services like GOG and of course Steam? Having games ported there would do a lot more to secure the games' legacies than a closed platform like Xbox.

GoG and Steam are closed platforms as well.

 

[jshackles]

GoG and Steam are closed platforms as well.

There's an argument to be made that if at least the games were ported to PC and released on GOG (which has no DRM whatsoever) then the games could literally be preserved forever because they would not require any goofy storefront license checks or external validation.

 

[Kilau]

Cost and licensing issues for some games would be prohibitive I imagine.

Plus, don’t want to eat into any potential sales of a remaster down the line lol.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

I with you 100% OP!

 

[assurdum]

Microsoft right now is the best hope for preservation of gaming history

So the best hope for preservation it's give all the license to MS? It worked well for the OS the last time. No way MS will try to monopolize the games software too. Sure.

 

[Dr Bass]

Sure, but I still don't see how that's better for preservation than a more open platform like PC, and I'm not talking pirating bay here either. What about services like GOG and of course Steam? Having games ported there would do a lot more to secure the games' legacies than a closed platform like Xbox.

I'd love that too. But are companies going to put their old console games there? If so, awesome! The more the merrier IMO.

I just think in the console space MS is currently uniquely poised as well as actively trying to support this. I am just saying I would like to see third parties engage in this more. Why not? I'll use the Suikoden series again. What if you could buy Suikoden 1-5 for 5 or 10 bucks each, and they just live forever in the Xbox store that way? Konami wouldn't want to be able to sell these games "forever"?

Just my 2 cents.

 

[jshackles]

Plus, don’t want to eat into any potential sales of a remaster down the line lol.

$30 "remaster" or Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance says hello. This should have just been a regular OG BC game, but I guess at least we got widescreen support so yay? I imagine they'll do this for the second game as well, when it just as easily could be released as a BC game.

Kind of a shame, really.

 

[assurdum]

I'd love that too. But are companies going to put their old console games there? If so, awesome! The more the merrier IMO.

I just think in the console space MS is currently uniquely poised as well as actively trying to support this. I am just saying I would like to see third parties engage in this more. Why not? I'll use the Suikoden series again. What if you could buy Suikoden 1-5 for 5 or 10 bucks each, and they just live forever in the Xbox store that way? Konami wouldn't want to be able to sell these games "forever"?

Just my 2 cents.

The level of trust you have in MS it's admirable if I can say.

 

[Rentahamster]

As a result I think Square Enix, Capcom, Konami, etc. etc. should partner up with MS to release their libraries of classics on the Xbox platform, so that we can preserve these titles for decades to come.

If preservation is the most important goal, then they should release it on the most open and most backwards compatible platform, which is PC.

 

[Fbh]

Yeah, because the solution to not liking what Sony is doing right now in regards to preservation on their closed ecosystem is betting it all on another closed ecosystem that is doing things better at the moment.

If you really care about preservation you should be wanting everyone to release their catalogue on an open platform like PC, ideally Linux

 

[ACESHIGH]

Consoles

Preservation

Choose one

Third parties should put all games on PC to secure preservation. Then and only then consoles.

 

[GHG]

Why?

Is Pc going to disappear?

I can play all my genesis, ps1, ps2 and psp games on my pc.

And were done here.

If you care about preservation you shouldn't be exclusively gaming on console.

 

[Aion002]

Regular consumers do not download or mess with emulators and illegal ROMs. That's computer nerd territory. Again, that's not a legal way to archive this stuff.

What is this? A nineties comment?

We are in 2021... Even the play store has emulators to play old console games on most android devices, anyone interested can use emulators and roms...

Now the legality... Well...

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I'm seeding a giant torrent of PS2 JRPGs for the DOZENS of people who care.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Like Aion002 said, PC is always going to be the go-to for preservation, simply because it's open architecture and there's a demand for it. Pirates will always win, because they don't need to ask permission from rights holders. More and more older video games from previous generations are becoming abandonware, and Microsoft nor anyone else can legally sell it.

That being said, it still boggles my mind that every not-defunct publisher from the 6th and 7th generation hasn't pushed to have their entire back catalog of OG Xbox and Xbox 360 games available on the current Xbox storefront. It's like leaving money on the table at this point.

One of the reasons is definitely due to publishers and devs knowing those old games are cheap and have little (if any mtx). They'd rather have modern gamers be funneled to their latest games which have mtx and dlc.

Sell gamers old era games for $10 and you'll surely get some gamers just milking that and never touch modern games ever again.

The counter to this is Steam and GOG have PC oldies, yet devs dont care and sell old 1990s and 2020s games beside each other and it seems like a win win.

There's something up their asses making them stonewall putting up older games in the console market, whereas the PC market they love doing it.

 

[The Pleasure]

Who is the captain planet pf gamepass? So many voosts so little time.

 

[TheGrat1]

You say this like Xbox servers are guaranteed to last forever. They are not.

 

[Topher]

Regular consumers do not download or mess with emulators and illegal ROMs. That's computer nerd territory. Again, that's not a legal way to archive this stuff.

Sorry, but you are talking about game preservation in one instance and what consumers will pay for in the next. Corporations only care about the latter.

If game preservation were a profitable industry then they would all be doing it. But it isn't, so PC is you best bet.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

1 - PC exists for this, and there is no lock in (or it's flexible enough to let you bypass it)
2 - No, you can't even use the console without internet (first use anyway)
3 - No need to beg for ports on PC, you can emulate a lot of old hardware, get a similar USB controller and get going

Even what they call the backwards compatibility feature, it doesn't even work if you can't download the binary for one of the few games that works with it.

Plus, the DRM scheme on this console is too restrictive, I mean you can't even count on using a console from an unopened box if MS ever decides to pull the plug (or remove support for activating "old" consoles), it's probably worse than any other console for this specific use.

But sure, all games should be published on as many platforms as possible.

 

[Shrap]

If you seriously think Microsoft is going to preserve all of these games indefinitely while they are pushing a subscription service model on hardware that will be obsolete soon then you are delusional.

PC is the only place you'll be able to preserve games long term.

 

[GhostOfTsu]

Don't be fooled by the fake outrage on the internet for PS1 games. There is no demand for that on the PS5. After 5 minutes everybody will turn that shit off. Play on emulators on your phone or PC.

PS3 on PSNow and PS4 BC is good enough, the rest is just a bullet point people use for warring.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

"Legal"

 

[Elbow Identity Shallow]

Those games aren't going anywhere, they won't be any better preserved on any console than they are at the moment. I still happily play my older games, unfortunately the vast majority of the gaming planet has absoluetly no interest in games that aren't new or labelled remastered.
You can't really compare games to films or books. Well, you can but it doesn't really make any sense to do so.
I remember ages ago when they talked aboutbackwards compatability on the PlayStation Blog I think it was, they said that with many of the more popular games it could take two years or more to sort outthings like publishing, even if they could find the owers of these games. That's two years of funding most just aren't willing to fund.

 

[Klayzer]

Don't be fooled by the fake outrage on the internet for PS1 games. There is no demand for that on the PS5. After 5 minutes everybody will turn that shit off. Play on emulators on your phone or PC.

PS3 on PSNow and PS4 BC is good enough, the rest is just a bullet point people use for warring.

So much this.

 

[Clintizzle]

Capitalism says this not a good idea.