MS "not done" with 360 backward compatibility

Marketing team blog starts up damage control efforts after company VP casts doubt on future of program.

Earlier this week, many Xbox 360 owners were concerned to hear Peter Moore downplaying the company's commitment to making the system backwardly compatible with more original Xbox titles.

"Nobody is concerned anymore about backward compatibility," Moore said in a Kikizo interview, adding, "More are coming...but at some point you just go 'there's enough,' or 'let's move on.'"

Now a posting on the blog of Microsoft Games' global marketing team is putting a happier face on Moore's comments and giving an update on the backward-compatibility team's progress. According to the post from team member John Porcaro, the team is testing another update for release in the next few weeks, and "it looks like they're hoping to add at least a dozen titles."

"But rest assured, we're not done yet," Porcaro continues. "We know for a fact that there are lots [emphasis theirs] of people who continue to care about backwards compatibility, including the 'Emulation Ninjas' who are working full time on the updates. And those of us posting on this blog. And, of course, many of you."

272 Comments

  • BigC43

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 5:48 am PT

    "Quote from rickstervt"
    "WHAT ABOUT NFL 2K5?"
    That would be awesome!!! I really hope that one does become BC as well as Phantom Dust, TimeSplitters Future Perfect, Burnout 3 and Star Wars: Republic Commando.

  • illphil

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 9:08 am PT

    Is doom 3 on the BC list yet?? besides halo ce, and 2 thats the only other game that i would really want to have compatible, and if its not on the list, the only question left is why? i have read that some of the new 360 games are using the doom 3 engine and yet the game that the engine is named after dosen't work. Secondly why is the company telling us what we want?

  • JunkTrap

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:46 am PT

    I hope they fix the compatibility issues with KOTOR I and II. That game suffers from massive slow downs and weird sound glitches.

  • princeofgames90

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 4:14 pm PT

    yes i was scared for a minut there

  • LiK

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 3:56 pm PT

    thank gawd it wasn't true, peter moore made a huge bomb withthose comments. i wanna play panzer dragoon and jsrf on the 360 if i want...

  • 1blackhearted1

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 3:15 pm PT

    I'd like to see Morrowind - it would be nice to play the game without it crashing all the time.

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 2:26 pm PT

    did m$ ever start on backward compatibility?

  • xx_patRIOT_xx

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 11:40 am PT

    what Microsoft should just do is just put their best selling...ala Doom 3 and others...on their BC list.

    because many of the BC games on their official list shouldn't be there..

    *points at Barbie* ~_~

  • lageasy311

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 11:15 am PT

    Good, I don't own a 360 but I kinda felt sorry for you guys b/c BC is pretty important, this is good news and will no longer hinder (the small portion that it was going to that is) 360 sales.

    editors note: I meant that the few people who were on the fence about buying 360 b/c of no more BC will now buy it, so nobody take that wrong.

  • terrabreak13

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 11:14 am PT

    sanstupid said "People! People! Stop listening to the heads of these companies.
    Bill Gates, Moore, Harrison; which one of these guys knows how to program or who made what or knows what goes where?
    They're just mouths with pockets.
    Have you ever seen and interview wityh J Allard or Peter Moore or Phil Harrison? .."

    J Allard can actually program look up his resume. And for the last time BC is just a bonus. If it was the main thing there wouldn't be any need for new consoles so stop b*tching!

  • sasuke55

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 10:12 am PT

    Thats's cool I know alot of people are ready for some Unreal tourney, also I dont think they will do BC Madden 06 especially this late because 07 it to Months away. And it would defeat the purpose of a 360 vers of Madden 06.

  • brerrabbit23

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 9:30 am PT

    peter moore = jerk

  • Astrodude_5

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 9:19 am PT

    Thanks Bossjimbob!

    MS doesn't own the Xbox 1 chip anymore so you have to emulate them. PS2 is BC because they have a PS1 chip inside it. Like a DS. It's got a GBA inside basically, and a PS2 has a PS1 inside it!

    You can't compare apples (Microsoft) to oranges ($ony).

    P.S. I like apples more than oranges.

  • Maquis_UK

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 8:42 am PT

    M$ NEVER looks after the people who won't upgrade. ask any Win 95 or 98 user. M$ pwn themselves and their fans. I predict at most two more consoles for m$ before their 'fans' get savvy to this.

  • Seraphim_24

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 8:37 am PT

    I may have already commented, but to the BC detractors here's my argument in favor of BC. 1) I have a lot of original Xbox games I have not started or fisnished. The 360 upscales these games a bit making me less interested in playing them on the old system. I'd rather have the upgraded visuals no matter how marginal it is. 2) The original Xbox is taking up shelf space that I need for other things right now. 3) I promised the original Xbox to my little sister under the premise that the 360 would play all my old games. It has been a promise I have not been able to keep yet and my little sister is getting impatient. There are many-a-households with similar situations. These are all valid reasons for wanting full backward compatability, and just because its a feature you are not interested in doesn't mean that its unimportant. Furthermore, working on BC isn't going to affect the development cycle of your precious Halo. After all I keep saying if hackers and code crackers can get an Xbox game running on the PC in no time flat than M$ should be able to do the same for the PC-like 360. If not, then maybe they should hire some of the hackers out there creating roms and emulators instead of having them arrested because obviously some of those hackers are more competant than the guys working on emulation for M$.

  • Sheiko

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 8:07 am PT

    Good news but still silly to hear it from one of the grunts and not the lead man himself.

  • StuartWest71

    Posted Jun 5, 2006 4:28 am PT

    I have been very frustrated by the lack of backward compatibility. Having invested a tidy sum in Xbox games, many popular multi-player titles such as Mashed, Links 2004 and Tiger Woods 2004 refuse to run on the Xbox 360.

    This means I must include the Xbox in my setup, and I cannot sell my old console.

    A number of nephews and nieces enjoy playing these games, and they are less fussy about graphics, and enjoy simple game play. For all its fancy graphical effects the Xbox 360 version of Tiger Woods has fewer courses, and appears to be much more difficult for youngsters to play.

    The way I look at it, millions of users are willing to pay Xbox live arcade good money for very simple games, so why would you lose all interest in your Xbox collection simply because they are not pushing the Xbox 360 to its limits.

    I am pleased that efforts to continue supporting older titles still continues.

  • GabrielNHBnyc

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 10:37 pm PT

    From a buisness consumer aspect. Your selling freedom. No one wants to see their huge gaming inestments gone with a next generatiom, My mother hated when I sold my old games to upgrade. But gaming quality is different today. So many nintentdo games came back for a reason. People will be more comfortable upgrading when they know all their old software will work. 360's would not have sold out if they did not promise backward compatibility. Now they were trying to downplay it and run away from it because it was hard work. Microsoft could get less than nun's symptathy from me. Work hard and demand the public what you promised. You said your goal was to get all the xbox library working on the 360 eventually. Well it will if you keep working on it, and then you will have nothing to worry about.

  • AzN_K3V1N

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 8:33 pm PT

    at least they emulated many of the original xbox games

  • jcajberger

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 7:26 pm PT

    How about Psychonauts??? Can we get us some Psychonauts backwards capability? Is that too much to ask.... Gosh! (Seriously, they need to make Psychonauts backwards compatable....Then I will be satisfied.)

  • Dinghy_Dog

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 11:36 am PT

    Silent Hill 4 freakin needs to work!!!!

  • elpuertorican

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 11:13 am PT

    Great! hope they make Star Wars Battlefront 1 compatible

  • dragonal0014

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 11:00 am PT

    I don't want my xbox360 to play old xbox games I've already beaten. I'm like zombie dog, I want to be able to play the new xbox 1 games that i haven't played yet. Plus MS is wasting time with BC on some games!! WHO WANTS TO PLAY BARBIE HORSE ADVENTURE!?! And why is Tony Hawks AW back wards compatible when the make it for 360? You would think they would want to make new xbox 1 games BC because that would boost profits and keep xbox 1 around a little longer.

  • JoshGuyAtPlace

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 10:46 am PT

    Yuck Foo that is a load of bullsh*t

  • soulknight63133

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 9:16 am PT

    savage161, why sell your Xbox if you still have some of the old games you like to play? Especially if you don't know if all of them will become BC or not.

  • savage161

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 6:42 am PT

    i sold my xbox 12 months ago and i got the 360 3 months ago and since i got my 360 i have got 17 xbox games and i find each one enjoyable and thats why i want bc to continue and if anyone says canceil bc and just buy a xbox for $30, $40 Well actually im from Australia and the xbox still sells for $150 us dollars so what is the point of buying the xbox and wasting your money if you only want a few games.

  • zombie_dog

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 6:32 am PT

    I have had my 360 for about 2 months now and have a few 360 games and bought a few old ones like fable as ive always wanted to play them, i was excited at the news of dreamfall coming out but dissapointed to find it dont work on the 360 even thoughtthis is a new game and you would think that they would make the new original xbox games compatible for the 360, just seems silly toi me as i dont wanna buy an old xbox just to play one original game even though its new.

  • unreal6666

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 6:27 am PT

    Peter Moore IN wikipedia= Idiot.

  • savage161

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 6:17 am PT

    Why would'nt there be more bc games becuase there is not alot of good 360 games out at the moment and with some games that are on the xbox they hold up well and they are still fun and extremley cheap and people wont be buying $60 games all the time instead they will buy a cheap game and still get a enjoyable experience with the price tag and if they cant find anything else on the 360 they can get a old xbox game and play a game which has everything that a 360 games has but a bit less graphics.

    At the moment im not going to buy another 360 game until a game i like comes out and not just for the sake of just owning a 360 game.

    At this time the only really good games for the 360 are Oblivion, GRAW, Cod2, Fnr3 and maybe Pgr3 the others have a bit better graphics with the same content and the ones that have great graphics are lacking depth in them anyways.

    I also like

    Football Manager 2006 aka World Wide Soccer Manager 2006 for pc
    And Top Spin 2 is alright

  • cyprus646

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 5:56 am PT

    Public Relations... Moores clean up crew when he screws up you got to love them.

  • CAPTAIN-N_basic

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 5:56 am PT

    I think peter moore is mad, I mean the system to be true backward compatibility must run every game, well at leats 80% of titles. Only 2 games ran from previous xbox from collection, what a waste of time. Sony and Nintendo wont make that mistake I can tell you that.

  • condemned100

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 3:03 am PT

    i would love to see all the old xbox games on the xbox 360

  • condemned100

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 2:59 am PT

    i would love to see all the old xbox games on xbox 360

  • alishareef

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 1:24 am PT

    I want Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and The Two Thrones to be on the BC list. Also Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and Republic Commando.

  • EugeneE3RD

    Posted Jun 4, 2006 12:50 am PT

    "WTF!? why does people want old games ...if you ask me I think MS should not try so hard to make old games compatible if you want to play Xbox games just buy an Xbox for 30 bucks >.> besides how many orginal good games does MS have, maybe 5?come on just think about it!!"

    Many people want BC & I'm one of them who support it. It adds more games to the 360 which can be played. Where did you get the number 5 from? The XBOX has many great 3rd party games which are BC such as Deus EX: Invisible War, PSI-Ops, Second Sight, et al.

    To the people complaing about BC, if you don't like the feature then don't use it. Nobody is forcing you to play XBOX games on the 360. And yes, I do play XBOX game on my 360 along with 360 games.

    The comment from Peter Moore doesn't suprise since he once worked for Sega. Sega makes great games but they have a ****ty marketing department.

  • CWHS2006

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 11:21 pm PT

    I WANT TOCA RACE DRIVER 3

  • tr00pa_26

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 11:08 pm PT

    ahhhhhh PS3 is better

  • FOHAMMER

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 10:05 pm PT

    jc_nieves

    You can't add poly's to a game just because the hardware is better. The actual software on the disk must be redone for that. The best you can get if upscaled resolution and a small amount of AA. Framerate increase can come from alot of things. Heck bad code can cripple any processor even a 2 teraflop one.

  • jc_nieves

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 9:25 pm PT

    I'm really concerned about the REAL working titles, because I'm starting to buy old xbox games to play on my 360, but none of them work 100%, for example, Need for Speed UW2, split screen doesnt work, and video playback just doesnt work at all!
    So why did they put these games on the BC list if they are not playable at all?
    That makes me think that I should be looking at new games and give up on trying to play very good old games. And I dont see any better graphics, that's a shame that they dont use the 360 capabilities to make the games look better with the 360 hardware instead of making look the same with emulation.

  • Thesilverpimp

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 9:10 pm PT

    not yet 360, not yet, yuo havent prved yourself to me yet... when all has been fufilled, onluy then will you be able tp create a hole in my wallet.

  • marcusray316

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 5:12 pm PT

    FOX NEWS IS FAIR AND BALANCED, sanstupid.

  • jrett

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 2:49 pm PT

    Well, I guess this shows that MS is trying to do what it thinks the consumers want. It is very obvious that x360 owners want BC as indicated by these posts, so now they are continuing it.
    I wanted to say one other thing to the people who don't care about BC. If you had a library of 50 or so xbox1 games, you probably would like to be able to play them, otherwise, what's the point of having them. Sure you could choose to maintain an original xbox console along with your x360, but you wouldn't have to if the games worked on the new console.

  • thekey

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 12:48 pm PT

    I think yesterdays news about the 360 backwards compatibility was a fraud set up by M$'s rival. (Or people who don't support the 360 LOL!!!)

  • thekey

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 12:40 pm PT

    YEAH!!! M$ Get yo money and ride, YEAH!!!

  • SavoyPrime

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 12:33 pm PT

    They better do some damage control.

  • jthechosenone

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 12:11 pm PT

    buffy the vampire slayer should be made compatable to 360 from the original xbox. and the next system they make better have all of them.

  • tremlesshalo

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 11:52 am PT

    OH yeah? what about Hitman2:SA, Freedom Fighters, and Counter Strike?

  • organic_oreo

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 11:18 am PT

    I would like the "forgotten" games to be BC too. Such as Psi-Ops and Project: Snowblind, Oh, and DOOM 3 too. ^_^

  • omegamustard

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 11:18 am PT

    i want Conker Live and Reloaded, and Hunter

  • starfoxmcleoud

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 11:12 am PT

    Backwards compatability is cool and everything...but true gamers wouldn't give up their older system for something new. If you got a current-gen console at launch...i'm talking about midnight, would you really want to give away one of the first consoles released to the market? Besides, playing the game on it's original console is much more nostalgic and fun than playing a ps1 game on the big, flashy ps3.

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