Is Scorpio a good opportunity to go fully backward compatible?

With the Xbox 360 and now the Xbox One, Microsoft's backward compatibility efforts have been entirely software based with no native support from the hardware itself, it's emulation more or less which requires coding and licensing approval, a hardware option would nullify licensing requirements.

With Scorpio do you think that Microsoft is going to engineer the console to be generation-less, essentially play absolutely every Xbox game from the original all the way up until itself natively on the hardware?

With a console like this coming up and them trying to make Xbox this unified platform, that would be the ultimate opportunity for them to close the gap for everything. Can you imagine if they did this and brought back Live support for the original Xbox through this system.

I see so many opportunities with something like this, I hope they capitalize on the chance they have here.

if scorpio doesn't have es-ram I doubt it can even emulate xbox one games.

That was unique part that devs coded a lot of effort into for the xb1 games that the scorpio might not have.

I'm sure it's being engineered in a way to parse the code that would hit the eSRAM through the GDDR5, I see no issues popping up because of that.

Sony made the mistake with PS3 BC thus increasing the price for it, (not counting the Blu-Ray) but when the slims PS3 release, the BC was taking off to make it more affordable back then. If the Scorpio does come with BC, can we expect yet another outrageous price?

It's already being marketed as an enthusiast device, the price restriction and console price logic kind of goes out the window with that.

That's something I'd definitely love to see, but I doubt it. They might eventually port over the OG Xbox's games like they are now with 360 however.

lol at lems talking about a console a year and a half away. You guys really have nothing to look forward to.

@NathanDrakeSwag: Scorpio had some Cows on DC when it was announced. lol at Cows worrying about a console releasing in a year and a half.

OT: I doubt we'll see any hardware BC, but i'd love some OG/360 BC goodness.

Remember when DX12 was going to save the Xbox One?

and teh magic cloud.

As long as it's not really expensive for a gaming console, I'm cool with that. I prefer to stick with the remasters thing though.

I think remastering games nowadays is better then just adding BC if you ask me.

Emulating both the original Xbox and the 360 on the Scorpio is absolutely possible and with better performance, too.

MS has already solved the toughest PowerPC to x86 dynamic recompilation on the X1. What remains to be done is x86 self-virtualization through a hypervisor on top of AMD-V, which should be straight-forward on any modern AMD CPU.

ESRAM/EDRAM on the GPU is just a reserved memory space used as a special render target that can be extended, paged, bank-switched or substituted by HBM without the application knowing any difference as long as bandwidth and latency meet the minimum specifications.

...just speaking from experience as a MAME dev.

True BC, no. To give true BC they'd have to include an nvidia GPU and amd GPU, which there is like 0 chance they would do. Emulation? Possibly, but don't count on it being any better than 360's Xbox emulation.

True backward compatibility would be awesome. Doubt they will do it though.

Not going to happen. Micrsoft is at their wit's end and this is a final attempt at console hardware for them, so they aren't going to allow you to play all their games on any one system. Xbox One's original attempt at bc was just a desperation move during a time when PS4 was devastating the Xbox brand.

I'd just prefer some of my most cherished OG Xbox games got a re-release of some kind.

As always I admit to being pretty much tech dumb. I understand there are many on the boards that are somewhat savvy in tech. But I remember back in 2014 people here telling me that it would be next to impossible to bring 360 BC to X1. Yet the games play, the list grows and people keep giving thanks on the uservoice forums.

What I am saying is, I'm willing to bet my money on the engineers these companies employ or will employ over some gamers on SW.

And LOL at the "true BC" bullshit. Does the game play? I don't give a turdball how it was accomplished.

Second "And LOL" @NathanDrakeSwag The butthurt over the PS keannu being pulled from E3 and the reveal of Scorpio was so real, and you were very much a part of it (would you like to see bookmarked threads and your salty posts?) that a sticky had to be made. Even the mod said it was because the DC threads filling the SW front page HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

<b>lulz xbox aint got no games thats why they need bc sony won another gen SWAG</b>

Why would it emulate X1 games? It's a freaking X1 isn't it?

Yeah why is MS bringing out the scorpio? They already have infinite power! lol

@cainetao11: Let's ask ourselves this, do we really and I mean really need BC? I for one never care for both PS4/Xbox One to not included BC day one. I always just keep my old consoles to play last-gen games or I can do that with my PC for that matter. I would just prefer the old remastering games fashion way. If MS can do it with no hassles, I'm cool with that but I just think remastering games is just a better solution.

ITT: super jelly fearful butthurt meltdown cows

Uncompromising BC is a pipe dream, for now. But TBH, I don't care enough to go back and replay ALL of my games. I suppose it might be useful for some archeological purpose, but I agree with Don Mattrick on this one (and only this one).

Probably not. I guess I just took BC for granted in previous gens.

@davillain-: Remasters take resources that could otherwise be used to develop whole new games. I supposed most people were fed up with re-releases this gen, but apparently not.

The most interesting coup, given enough horsepower, is Dreamcast BC. Peter Moore will be pleased:)

He should have been a fan of the 2006, $500-$600, 3 generations of BC, launch PS3, but the Xbox collections and lack of PS collections on display in previous pics reveal otherwise, and reveal a hypocritical mindset on the importance of BC!, a mindset that will evaporate next gen if the Xbox brand goes a different route.

To answer, no it's not a good opportunity to poor more resources into a niche market.

In the incredibly unlikely chance that this happens (it won't), cool for the minority that would care, but the primary selling point of the Xbone Scorpio is 4K TV owners.

BC is more a talking point on differences of the consoles (mostly from fanboys and fakeboys) than an actual vital selling point as made clearly apparent by the wonderful BC capable Wii U poor sales, and the inadequate BC available on the highly successful 40+ million selling popular PS4.

There are no potent indicators there for M$ to pursue this BC route further and spend more time and resources on a feature that isn't moving consoles.

Of course it is, but that doesn't always happen... That's why having BC is a huge bonus for me.

@NathanDrakeSwag: "just wait"

It's going to be able to play every Xbox One game, since it is still an Xbox One. You were seriously expecting Scorpio to only play new games?

So now lems are saying **** the X1, and are bragging about the console that over a year and several months away.

What's that saying that lems used, "I'm playing great games right now."

Even lems can't pretend to care about the lackluster lineup MS showed at E3 and they are the same group that hyped up Ryse and some of them to this day still pretend its a good game.

Scorpio's "more than 320 GB/s" is higher than XBO's ESRAM memory bandwidth.

XBO's GPU read and writes to 256 bit DDR3 2133 Mhz (peak 68 GB/s) and 1024 bit SDR ESRAM(peak 204 GB/s).

Scorpio's GPU read and writes to 384 bit GDDR5-6700 (peak 321 GB/s).

Programmers access XBO's ESRAM via APIs which can be intercepted and re-mapped.

Microsoft made sure Scorpio is a super-set of the original Xbox One.

Both AMD's CPUs and recent GPUs has hardware assist virtualization extensions. Read http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amd-reveals-worlds-2016feb01.aspx

In the virtualization ecosystem, key components like the CPU, network controller and storage devices are being virtualized in hardware to deliver optimal user experiences, but prior to today the GPU was not hardware virtualized. AMD MxGPU technology, for the first time, brings the modern virtualization industry standard to the GPU hardware.

@ronvalencia:

Fascinating. I didn't know about the FirePro S7150, and yet the X1 or the Scorpio may not be able to virtualize the 360's Xenos through AMD's MxGPU because of the custom pixel-processing logics in its EDRAM.

The current 360 BC should mostly be API call intercepts though it's still one hell of a feat. I wouldn't be surprised if MS use the likes of MxGPU for future cloud-assisted games.

Back to TC's concern about BC licensing: I think the technicality lies not in hardware compliance but putting modified third-party games on XBL. We've had legal Apple/IBM clones and Win32 API on Unix all along. The first and almost perfect PS1 emulator Virtual Game Station (written by people I worked with) was also legal. Sony lost the lawsuit against Connectix and had to buy them out BTW.

Not a chance. The cost to run 360 games properly wouldn't be worth it to them, since they'd need the whole 360 S apu in there. And og Xbox emulation wouldn't entice many people, though it would be cool to me though. Honestly I'd buy it if it was a one stop Xbox.

If they did all that it'd probably cost $600 like the ps3

http://wccftech.com/amd-firepro-s7150-s7150-x2/

FirePro S7150 are Tonga XT (GCN version 1.2) based cards with pro-level driver support. AMD enables VT GPU features on pro level drivers and cards.

Xbox 360 games with GPU microcode shader programs needs to be JIT-re-complied, which should be easier than CPU emulation.

Faster CPU on Scorpio helps with emulation performance.

What was that cow? My lack of PlayStation what?

@dynamitecop: That's a rather disappointing display, lem. ;)

That PS1 stack should be at least three+ stacks, the PS2 stack should be quadruple+, and the PS4 stack is downright shameful.

Also, this thread got more fun, m i rite?

Don't worry, be happy. I can't even fit my games all in one large room (currently in four rooms). You're doing a-ok for yourself.

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My main point still stands which is the lack of incentive for Phil and Co to pursue the BC route, although admittedly it would be nice if they did (for bragging rights, not personal use); I just don't see it happening in all honesty.

You have no concept of what you're saying, that's over 250 physical games... Also you seem to have forgotten I buy games for roughly 20 different systems, and also I have over 900 games for my PC alone which is reason for the PlayStation 4 library being what it is, nearly everything for it is multi-platform...

This gen and last gen have been almost a redundancy for the PC given how little exclusives actually exist.

For someone who owns a gaming PC, how exactly is that PS4 stack shameful? Where the hell do you find the games? I sure as hell can't find 20+ worthy exclusives, I have hard time reaching to 10

The x1 and scorpio are BC (with each other) and going forward I should hope this would be standard like on pc. The only reason it won't is the market for re-masters is growing on console. For example Skyrim on 360 does Not work on x1 but they will sell a remaster. Diablo 3/GTA/Dragon Age/Halo ect ect all have 360 versions and X1 versions of the same game.

This is pure milkage and will likely continue.

Lets ask ourselves another question: Are video games really, I mean really a need at all? My life would continue without playing another game. So now that we know NONE of this is a need, lets talk about cool features because if consoles have done one thing other than play games since that Pong console my brothers had in the 1970s, its add features.

I for one do not keep all my old consoles. A) I live in NY and do not have unlimited space. B) I don't want to lug this shit around whenever I move to another apartment. C) I like having a machine in the wall unit that can play at least a gen back. Unfortunately I couldn't do that with my PS4 without trying out PSnow (for the record it streams better to my Vita then my PS4). I didn't have another shelf for my PS3 under the TV, only room for X1 and PS4.

I don't prefer the remastering of old games. Its a waste of market space, resources that could go to new games and a rip off because these companies used to let us play these games for free on something called BC. When PS3 dropped BC and GoW collection was announced I knew this was going to be a cash grab. But going from Standard Def to HD I could at least understand. None of last gen's games played through BC are eyesores to me at least, but I am not a graphics whore. Nothing I see graphically anymore makes me go "WOW". Its 2016. I expect games graphics to improve at this point. I haven't and will continue to not buy a remaster with my money. Screw that rip off.

Why yes, yes it is.

Also, SW at it again with the.. We don't need options thingy lol. :P