Will next gen systems be backwards compatible?

I saw a thread like this on NeoGAF, and it got me thinking:

This generation is winding up, and the next one is almost here. More than ever before, the question of backwards compatibility becomes of paramount importance. Why, you ask? Because of all the digital purchases we made this generation. All those XBLA games, all those PSN games, those WiiWare and Virtual Console games, all of that money will have been spent in vain if you can't play your games on the next generation systems. And you won't be able to unless they are fully backwards compatible.

Nintendo is set as far as backwards compatibility is concerned: the Wii U is fully backwards compatible with all Wii games, controllers, and accessories, along with WiiWare and Wii Virtual Console games, which will not only be continued to be sold on the eShop, but also be fully transferrable to the Wii U from your Wii.

Microsoft looks pretty good in this regard. Although we have nothing to go by but rumors, speculation indicates that Microsoft is using an evolution of their current system architecture in their next system, which means that they will probably be able to run all existing Xbox 360, XBLA, and Games on Demand games on their next system natively. Support for the first generation Xbox may either be dropped entirely, or be brought over from the Xbox 360 as it is- i.e., partial support via emulation.

Sony looks to be in a world of hurt. The PS4 is rumored to not be using the Cell architecture, and be using something much easier to program for. That sounds good, right? It is. But the problem is, unless all Cell components are included in the PS4 (which would be prohobitively expensive, and after this generation, Sony definitely doesn't want that), the PS4 won't be able to run PS3 retail or PSN games at all; Cell emulation is technically infeasible. Whereas full support for PS1 and PS2 is almost definitely certain, no support for PS3 titles means that customers from PS3 who upgrade to PS4 will almost certainly be locked out of their PS3 purchases (PSOne and PS2 CIassics, however, will almost certainly work).

That's just what I think, however. What do you all think? What are the odds that the next generation systems will be backwards compatible?

Wii U yes, since it's supposedly based on enhanced Wii CPU tech (as well as AMD graphics).

For the next MS and Sony system it depends if they use similar architecture (i.e. Power PC + AMD or Cell + Nvidia).

I think it's likely that Sony will drop the Cell tech, hence cutting BC support (but it could still be done via software emulation if the system's powerful enough - it would have to be atleast 10 times stronger than PS3 to emulate it but I suspect re-releases).

I don't see why they wouldn't be.

Nope, they'll want consumers to buy native 1080p versions of games from this generation for their next gen console.

if u want backward compatibility. get PC. Problem solvedSNIPER4321

I don't see why they wouldn't be.

MikeMoose

Nope, they'll want consumers to buy native 1080p versions of games from this generation for their next gen console.

Vesica_Prime

if u want backward compatibility. get PC. Problem solvedSNIPER4321

Wii u and 360 are pretty much covered they will be fully BC....ps4? not likely.

After having system failures over the many years, I've decided if I am going to "wear out my machine", I better use the software it was designed for.

BC is nice, but I'm probably never going to use it as I have my Wii. My Wii U will be for Wii U games, same for my 720 and PS4.

For me it's too early to speculate on 720 and PS4 as we just know too little, but in a worse case scenario I think both machines will play DD games. If the concern is regarding mostly Sony, well your worst fears may come true...or not. Who can say.

It's not my worst fear though, I'm at that point where as a collector I want to maintain these machines as long as possible, avoiding wear and tear which includes playing the old games on it when I have a perfectly good cIassic machine capable of that.

Without Crazy Ken at the helm, I think we are going to a more fiscally reasonable machine come from Sony next gen.

Plus, I don't think Sony is in a world of hurt with their Gaikai purchase, which could easily tackle the BC problems... ;)

Regarding BC, to each their own. I certainly like the idea of BC, I have no problems with it, it's pretty neat...but with my lifestyIe it's just not something I use to often. It's nice that first year when there isn't much software, but after thinking about wear and tear and console longevity, it's something I want to avoid, like leaving my consoles on for hours and not using them, etc.

It should be in, but doesn't matter to me too much.

I still have my PS1, PS2, PS3

Xbox and the 360.

But it would be nice for the Wii-U, as I don't have any previous Nintendo systems.

There already is a next-gen system that has 99.9% backward compatability:

All hail to the glorious PC gaming master race!

There already is a next-gen system that has 99.9% backward compatability:

All hail to the glorious PC gaming master race!

Timstuff

*saluted

Yeah, I think Charizard is right. I think that having as large a library of games available to your customers as possible is desirable, and BC achieves this easily.

I think that if I couldn't play my XBLA/PSN titles on the successor, that I would be quite gutted. I would feel cheated out of my purchases. I probably would cease to use such a service.

I think Sony is in the toughest position because of the CELL, they're have to write x86 versions or something, but use the levels artwork and what not on the retail disc. Ron posted a story a while back indicating the PS3 was using "AMD's "Liverpool" GCN APU with discrete AMD GCN based GpGPU. They are expecting PS4 to be equiped with Radeon HD 7970 type discrete GPU." Very different to the CELL.

We know the Wii U is backwards compatible, I think MS with the 360² will aim for 100% of XBLA and Games on Demand titles to achieve compatibility, otherwise consumers invested in XBL might lose confidence - I think they would want 100% BC with all Xbox 360 disc based titles too. The Yukon architecture we saw included the gear for hardware BC. As for Sony, I don't think they'll bother, probably more trouble than it is worth, maybe release the x86 binaries for $2 each. But if the Liverpool specs are to be believed, it sounds like an incredibly powerful console.

Gaikai will make the PS4 backwards compatible

Davekeeh

Oh yeah. I forgot about that. PS1 games, no problem, PS2 games, not too hard, but PS3 games will need to stream at 720p won't they? When will the internet be fast enough for the inhabitants of the state capital of Wyoming to enjoy PS3 games on their PS4?

Wii U and MS Next console will. PS4 will have problems, but I think that's why they bought the streaming service Gaikai.

You're probably going to have to play PS3 titles through that, but what about all the PSN titles designed for the cell as well. I don't know how Sony are going to solve this if they choose a completely different cpu.

BC with which gen?

PS4 is probably going to have PS1/PS2 BC. Same with Xbox - Xbox 1 BC should be there, 360, not so sure - depends on architecture.

[QUOTE="Davekeeh"]

Gaikai will make the PS4 backwards compatible

psymon100

Oh yeah. I forgot about that. PS1 games, no problem, PS2 games, not too hard, but PS3 games will need to stream at 720p won't they? When will the internet be fast enough for the inhabitants of the state capital of Wyoming to enjoy PS3 games on their PS4?

I doubt that. BC means that you can use your disks to play the game. Gaikai might offer PS1/2/3 games but they will sell them.

Xbox almost certainly will be and my bet is the WIIU will be as well, PS4 probably won't be unless they use the Cell again but I doubt even Sony are stupid enough to do that.

Ah you're right Kizzo. Cloud is not BC. It can achieve the same result, but it has to run the discs to be BC, quite right.

I really hope so.

Nintendo has already confirmed BC with all Wii games on Wii U and the VC covers most of the games from their other platforms.

I expect both Microsoft and Sony to support BC but probably through digital versions of their games as opposed to being able to play the discs directly in the system, although that's probably still possible in some cases too.

There already is a next-gen system that has 99.9% backward compatability:

All hail to the glorious PC gaming master race!

Timstuff

Damn, that's a nice case!

On topic, no, I don't think so. Why would they be?

This model witn no BC proved succesful, there were no major backlashes, there's also plenty of interest for HD collections...

If PS4/720 had BC, console vendors would basically be doing themselves a disservice, removing a source of revenue (HD collections), and potentially hurting sales of new games (if slightly)...

I think things will stay where they are, as for XBLA and PSN games, I'd say most of them will never be playable on next gen systems, aside from a select few that get ported due to popularity...

I hope not. Paying an extra 50$ to play last gen games isn't the reason i purchase NEXT gen.silversix_

A console has to be 3 times faster then the last console its trying to emulate... so i guess not.

I saw a thread like this on NeoGAF, and it got me thinking:

This generation is winding up, and the next one is almost here. More than ever before, the question of backwards compatibility becomes of paramount importance. Why, you ask? Because of all the digital purchases we made this generation. All those XBLA games, all those PSN games, those WiiWare and Virtual Console games, all of that money will have been spent in vain if you can't play your games on the next generation systems. And you won't be able to unless they are fully backwards compatible.

Microsoft looks pretty good in this regard. Although we have nothing to go by but rumors, speculation indicates that Microsoft is using an evolution of their current system architecture in their next system,

Sony looks to be in a world of hurt. The PS4 is rumored to not be using the Cell architecture, and be using something much easier to program for. That sounds good, right? It is. But the problem is, unless all Cell components are included in the PS4 (which would be prohobitively expensive, and after this generation, Sony definitely doesn't want that), the PS4 won't be able to run PS3 retail or PSN games at all; Cell emulation is technically infeasible. Whereas full support for PS1 and PS2 is almost definitely certain, no support for PS3 titles means that customers from PS3 who upgrade to PS4 will almost certainly be locked out of their PS3 purchases (PSOne and PS2 CIassics, however, will almost certainly work).

That's just what I think, however. What do you all think? What are the odds that the next generation systems will be backwards compatible?

charizard1605

They better be!

I saw a thread like this on NeoGAF, and it got me thinking:

This generation is winding up, and the next one is almost here. More than ever before, the question of backwards compatibility becomes of paramount importance. Why, you ask? Because of all the digital purchases we made this generation. All those XBLA games, all those PSN games, those WiiWare and Virtual Console games, all of that money will have been spent in vain if you can't play your games on the next generation systems. And you won't be able to unless they are fully backwards compatible.

Nintendo is set as far as backwards compatibility is concerned: the Wii U is fully backwards compatible with all Wii games, controllers, and accessories, along with WiiWare and Wii Virtual Console games, which will not only be continued to be sold on the eShop, but also be fully transferrable to the Wii U from your Wii.

Microsoft looks pretty good in this regard. Although we have nothing to go by but rumors, speculation indicates that Microsoft is using an evolution of their current system architecture in their next system, which means that they will probably be able to run all existing Xbox 360, XBLA, and Games on Demand games on their next system natively. Support for the first generation Xbox may either be dropped entirely, or be brought over from the Xbox 360 as it is- i.e., partial support via emulation.

Sony looks to be in a world of hurt. The PS4 is rumored to not be using the Cell architecture, and be using something much easier to program for. That sounds good, right? It is. But the problem is, unless all Cell components are included in the PS4 (which would be prohobitively expensive, and after this generation, Sony definitely doesn't want that), the PS4 won't be able to run PS3 retail or PSN games at all; Cell emulation is technically infeasible. Whereas full support for PS1 and PS2 is almost definitely certain, no support for PS3 titles means that customers from PS3 who upgrade to PS4 will almost certainly be locked out of their PS3 purchases (PSOne and PS2 CIassics, however, will almost certainly work).

That's just what I think, however. What do you all think? What are the odds that the next generation systems will be backwards compatible?

charizard1605

From http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405922,00.asp

Xbox 720 "Yukon" has PPE X3 for legacy support.

After taking over Transitive corporate entity, IBM has killed off PPC-to-X86 translation technology (tech behind Apple's Rosetta PPC-to-X86). SPU's instruction set is based on PPC VMX's instruction set.

For Sony PS4, customers could download X86 version to run the artwork assets e.g. to run Uncharted 2's assets, X86 program version would needed to be downloaded and saved on hard disk. The program's size would be tiny in comparison to the artwork assets. Artwork assets would be recycled from blu-ray discs. There's an opportunity for Sony to provide "Full HD 1080p" version like Demon's Souls PC (via resolution+shader intercept mod) i.e. Demon's Souls PC basically runs console artwork assets with X86 program loader.

Imagine 'Uncharted 3' (or any Sony exclusives for that matter) in "Full HD 1080p" with high definition shaders and boosted AA/AF.

[QUOTE="silversix_"]I hope not. Paying an extra 50$ to play last gen games isn't the reason i purchase NEXT gen.ArisShadows

[QUOTE="charizard1605"]

I saw a thread like this on NeoGAF, and it got me thinking:

This generation is winding up, and the next one is almost here. More than ever before, the question of backwards compatibility becomes of paramount importance. Why, you ask? Because of all the digital purchases we made this generation. All those XBLA games, all those PSN games, those WiiWare and Virtual Console games, all of that money will have been spent in vain if you can't play your games on the next generation systems. And you won't be able to unless they are fully backwards compatible.

Microsoft looks pretty good in this regard. Although we have nothing to go by but rumors, speculation indicates that Microsoft is using an evolution of their current system architecture in their next system,

Sony looks to be in a world of hurt. The PS4 is rumored to not be using the Cell architecture, and be using something much easier to program for. That sounds good, right? It is. But the problem is, unless all Cell components are included in the PS4 (which would be prohobitively expensive, and after this generation, Sony definitely doesn't want that), the PS4 won't be able to run PS3 retail or PSN games at all; Cell emulation is technically infeasible. Whereas full support for PS1 and PS2 is almost definitely certain, no support for PS3 titles means that customers from PS3 who upgrade to PS4 will almost certainly be locked out of their PS3 purchases (PSOne and PS2 CIassics, however, will almost certainly work).

That's just what I think, however. What do you all think? What are the odds that the next generation systems will be backwards compatible?

[QUOTE="charizard1605"]

I saw a thread like this on NeoGAF, and it got me thinking:

This generation is winding up, and the next one is almost here. More than ever before, the question of backwards compatibility becomes of paramount importance. Why, you ask? Because of all the digital purchases we made this generation. All those XBLA games, all those PSN games, those WiiWare and Virtual Console games, all of that money will have been spent in vain if you can't play your games on the next generation systems. And you won't be able to unless they are fully backwards compatible.

Microsoft looks pretty good in this regard. Although we have nothing to go by but rumors, speculation indicates that Microsoft is using an evolution of their current system architecture in their next system,

Sony looks to be in a world of hurt. The PS4 is rumored to not be using the Cell architecture, and be using something much easier to program for. That sounds good, right? It is. But the problem is, unless all Cell components are included in the PS4 (which would be prohobitively expensive, and after this generation, Sony definitely doesn't want that), the PS4 won't be able to run PS3 retail or PSN games at all; Cell emulation is technically infeasible. Whereas full support for PS1 and PS2 is almost definitely certain, no support for PS3 titles means that customers from PS3 who upgrade to PS4 will almost certainly be locked out of their PS3 purchases (PSOne and PS2 CIassics, however, will almost certainly work).

That's just what I think, however. What do you all think? What are the odds that the next generation systems will be backwards compatible?

jeff_rigby

One the main point of AMD GCN is it's X86-64 compatibility. Some Toshiba laptop X86 PCs already has PPE-less quad SPE setup.

6 SPEs would be required for backwards compatibility. 3 PPE cores would fit 6 SPEs i.e. Sony could do "Yukon" for PS4 i.e. in place of 3X PPEs, you have 6 SPEs. The single PPE core can be just-in-time emulated by AMD Steamroller CPU cores i.e. the target would be PowerPC 970@1.6Ghz equivalent power.

PS; PPE @3.2GHz ~= PowerPC 970 @ 1.6Ghz.

The problem with this approach is wasting the transistor space instead of allocating the best GPU for a games console.

[QUOTE="charizard1605"]

I saw a thread like this on NeoGAF, and it got me thinking:

This generation is winding up, and the next one is almost here. More than ever before, the question of backwards compatibility becomes of paramount importance. Why, you ask? Because of all the digital purchases we made this generation. All those XBLA games, all those PSN games, those WiiWare and Virtual Console games, all of that money will have been spent in vain if you can't play your games on the next generation systems. And you won't be able to unless they are fully backwards compatible.

Microsoft looks pretty good in this regard. Although we have nothing to go by but rumors, speculation indicates that Microsoft is using an evolution of their current system architecture in their next system,

Sony looks to be in a world of hurt. The PS4 is rumored to not be using the Cell architecture, and be using something much easier to program for. That sounds good, right? It is. But the problem is, unless all Cell components are included in the PS4 (which would be prohobitively expensive, and after this generation, Sony definitely doesn't want that), the PS4 won't be able to run PS3 retail or PSN games at all; Cell emulation is technically infeasible. Whereas full support for PS1 and PS2 is almost definitely certain, no support for PS3 titles means that customers from PS3 who upgrade to PS4 will almost certainly be locked out of their PS3 purchases (PSOne and PS2 CIassics, however, will almost certainly work).

That's just what I think, however. What do you all think? What are the odds that the next generation systems will be backwards compatible?

jeff_rigby

Emulating RSX's commands (via LibGCM based PS3 games) would be a different senerio than Direct3D layer in Xbox 360.

The successful emulation Wii's GPU is mainly due to performance gap between the Wii's primitive GPU vs modern CPU and GPU setup i.e. NVIDIA RSX is not Wii GPU.

Programs directly running on LibGCM ~= NVIDIA Geforce 7 instruction set. There's no direct upgrade for Geforce 7 instruction set i.e. it's different from Geforce 8.

In terms of chip topology, AMD Liverpool APU or AMD Kaveri APU would be similar to AMD Trinity.

AMD Trinity APU's die shot.

On AMD Kaveri APU, replace the old Cayman/NI type 6 CU engines with 8 GCN/SI CUs (Radeon HD 7750 level GPU), 30 percent smaller X86 Steamroller cores (uses ATI's logic gate layout methods), move to 28nm process technology.

AMD Liverpool APU is just extended AMD Kaveri APU i.e. add extra 8 GCN CUs with a total of 16 GCN CUs (Radeon HD 7850 level GPU). For console specfics, replace DDR3 with GDDR5 memory controllers and reduce PCI-e lane support.

For reference, this is AMD Radeon HD 7970's die shot with 32 CUs.

More info from http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=59176&page=121

It's estimated 7750/7770's CU is 5 percent smaller than 7950/7970's CU.

Wii u is backwards compatible 1 down 2 to go

I guess im one of the few who could care less about BC.

When I buy a next gen console, I want to play next gen games... not games that I already played to death the previous generation.

If PS4 really isn't able to run PS3 games, my guess is Sony is going to continue supporting the PS3 even after its successor comes out (which would also shed some light on why they decided to make the PS3 Super Slim).

...Although we have nothing to go by but rumors, speculation indicates...charizard1605

Sony can offer ps3 games as HD collections and resell them. lol.

It's very possible, I do not know about the others, but Sony has Gaiki now and with cloud storage you can easily upload your save data from your PS3 onto cloud and then download or just play the PS3 games on PS4. Quite easy to do.

I say yes. Wii U is BC, probably the same with 720 and well PS4 is a mystery.