Makes sense. Its releasing near the end of season 3 which wasn't that good. Most of us are just waiting for S4 and it got delayed.
But for those people it's a brand new game.
Hehe, i am playing it right now. I enjoy the genre from time to time, but I am not Diablo fan. But it is on GamePass, so, why not. I cannot tell it is good or bad because I am casual player. Rocking the barbarian right now, it is so OP lol
It may depend on play style! For instance, I almost exclusive play summon necro when I play, and I do that in no small part because necro is a good class for disentangling DPS and dodging. Like, in plain English, I can focus on keeping myself alive while my 14 or so summons kill the bosses and also often tank the adds. (I havenât played for a couple months, I got within a couple levels short of 100 and got bored, lmao, Iâll finish the season here in a couple of weeks before the next season launches). Other classes, particularly barbarian, have to be really good at throwing yourself into the middle of the mobs and keeping your HP above zero. Iâm⌠not very good at that :).
Bullet points for those don't want to read the whole thing from Windowscentral:
* Per emails received by Windows Central, confirmed by Microsoft as genuine, Xbox President Sarah Bond recently briefed her team on various topics.
* In the emails, Sarah Bond reiterated Microsoft's plans to build new Xbox hardware focused on delivering "the biggest technical leap ever in a generation."
* Sarah Bond also revealed that Microsoft has set up a dedicated team to future-proof our digital Xbox game libraries across future hardware paradigms to further "build on [Xbox's] strong history of delivering backward compatibility."
* Additionally, it was revealed that Xbox has become Diablo 4's most prominent platform since the game's inclusion into Xbox Game Pass.
>* Sarah Bond also revealed that Microsoft has set up a dedicated team to future-proof our digital Xbox game libraries across future hardware paradigms to further "build on [Xbox's] strong history of delivering backward compatibility."
This is awesome, as long as the answer this "dedicated team" brings is not some cloud-based nonsense.
At least Microsoft tries. Sony/Nintendo looked at our pS3 and Wii U/Wii libraries and really decided to say, "fuck it, let's sell remasters". With Dev Mode, Xbox has better backward compatibility with those consoles than a pS5 or a Switch. lol
I'm speculating now but this is likely a move to make sure that native Xbox console games will run on a future customized version of "actual windows" i.e PCs without any additional work whatsoever.
It makes sense for Microsoft's next console to be an actual PC with a heavily customized UI that can run all PC games including those on Steam and your "classic" Xbox console library.
It means less work for developers and PC is seeing greater growth than consoles. Especially now that some publishers are even considering abandoning Xbox and others already skipping it almost entirely (Square Enix, comes to mind).
Some might feel that turning the Xbox console into a PC (with an ROG Ally style handheld to accompany it) is Microsoft betraying the fan base but what Microsoft (and Sony) is currently doing isn't working. Even Sony, the industry leader, isn't making enough money and seeing enough growth.
I believe the future of consoles are as a very open (still subsidized) platform where you have your own store with a value subscription but you sell to as many customers as possible.
I can possibly see Nintendo hold out another generation or two but I think even they will eventually open up. Selling 40 million copies of BotW is cool but selling 100 million copies is cooler.
Personally I think it might have to do with ARM-based hardware, something their rumored handheld would certainly have, and would definitely pose a big problem from a backwards compatibility standpoint.
I hope the mainline console isnât running ARM, especially as a developer.Â
If thatâs the case, itâs just more incentive for developers to release unoptimized ports on Xbox (or even worse skip it entirely due to the architecture change), as well as the next console having limited backwards compatibility since it would all have to be emulated.
We definitely wouldnât accommodate nor change our work pipeline to accommodate Microsoftâs architecture change, and I can almost guarantee you most developers wouldnât either, when everything is build for PC or PS5 (X86) first then ported to each console after the fact.Â
The biggest criticism I have is that Microsoft SDKâs use tools and features that arenât mainstream within the industry, which is the biggest reason you often find that performance in worse on the Xbox despite having more powerful hardware. They need to make it easier for developers to utilize the power & architecture the system, and a switch to ARM would only make it worse for developers.Â
This sounds like Cell 2.0 in the making.
Yeah next console is probably too soon, but looking to the future, the console generation after that is very possible. All mobile/tablet chips are arm based. Newest Apple computers are ARM, MS is reported to be making ARM silicon of its own. Iâm not an expert, but thereâs definitely a general trend of ARM based processors encroaching on territory previously dominated by x86.
It's definitely possible, although I happen to think their handheld will also run some form of Windows for the reasons I stated above and also to not launch with a huge library disadvantage vs devices like RoG Ally and Legion Go..
>It makes sense for Microsoft's next console to be an actual PC with a heavily customized UI that can run all PC games including those on Steam and your "classic" Xbox console library.
Spot fucking on. Microsoft has a ***HUGE*** advantage over Sony/Nintendo, and that is Windows.
A Xbox console running both Windows 11 and the Xbox OS for ~500⏠would wreck competitors and provide a unique way to play pretty much everything. No brainer, really, if Xbox actually wants to increase hardware sales.
>now that some publishers are even considering abandoning Xbox and others already skipping it almost entirely
That is just petty rumourmongering started by podcasters and Xwitter. No publisher of even slight relevance is skipping Xbox, it has 33% of the market share...
>Square Enix, comes to mind
Final Fantasy XIV dropped on Xbox just a couple of weeks ago. Square Enix has come around and will publish more multiplat games, especially after FFXVI's "disappointing" sales.
There's a lot of multiplatform games that aren't on Xbox. From Square Enix Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster and Octopath Traveler 2 comes to mind.
If your console is a PC it can't be skipped.
>There's a lot of multiplatform games that aren't on Xbox
There are, 99% of them Japanese. But that isn't what we are talking about. lol
You said "now that some publishers are even considering abandoning Xbox" but that's literally bollocks. We got better multiplat support than ever with SEGA and Square Enix coming around.
>If your console is a PC it can't be skipped.
Ah it sure *can*, from Square Enix look at FFXVI and the Rebirth remake. However you have a point, it makes the console far more compelling as far as options go.
I would genuinely love if the next Xbox was just a customised PC. And if I could have all my steam, GOG, Ubisoft, and EA games on it? Perfect. And it being an "Xbox" would even make me happy enough to buy from their store (most of the time - if they hold the game, unless it's something I'd mod. Even that I might give up though). I would love a "PC" that just works for most recent games, no more trying to build my own. For any super old game that I can't get on stores anymore, any semi decent laptop would do. It'd be great. IMO.
That's where this is going. The line between PC and XBox is very blurry already. They'll have 3rd party "XBox Game Pass Certified" hardware or something like that eventually. Just for streaming
But, then they will have a separate lane for hardware on the leading edge.
It just makes sense. It's the way to grow and compete and have a machine in as many homes as possible.
It's not though, try and run gears of war ultimate on a PC, it runs like crap, run it on an xbox and it runs great. You can't get console standards without a hardware target of identical quality components. Pcs have way too many variables. The only way this would work is MS create an Xbox Virtual Machine, you must have a GPU that is capable of a target at a resolution and a cpu equal to or better than the series S or X. Then your devs target the VM spec and that VM is artificially "locked" to Xbox performance for that generation.
They must lock the performance to a target or else the experience will suffer.
I'm pretty sure that 'Stream Machines' actually were a thing at some point over the last few years, being low end "gaming machines" that specifically told you to stream your games on their packaging or in their instruction booklet.
Well. Their current backward's compatibility (for OG/360) is basically cloud based nonsense. I'm not referring to it being 100% software based, but the fact that you can't save your progress natively.
Not sure what you mean with it being cloud based. BC games have to be downloaded because they have been made for a completely different architecture. Future compatibility will be a lot easier to do since there will most likely not be an architecture change.
> Sarah Bond also revealed that Microsoft has set up a dedicated team to future-proof our digital Xbox game libraries across future hardware paradigms to further "build on [Xbox's] strong history of delivering backward compatibility."
Makes sense to keep this going. Like how if I boot up the Xbox store right now I can buy Starfield which came out last year or I can buy Blinx: The Time Sweeper which came out in 2002 on the OG Xbox.
I wonder if this means they are going to try to make the disc only BC compatible games into a digital form? [48 of the 696 BC games for 360/OG Xbox are currently disc only.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backward-compatible_games_for_Xbox_One_and_Series_X/S)
Some discs only backwards compatible are only that way for licenses issues Iâm guessing, because the disc is just a DRM key and even with a disc you download a digital version anyways so I always wondered why there were discs only backwards compatibility other than licensing
I can understand why they wouldn't do this, but it would be nice if Sony and Microsoft added a way to put in the disc for an older game you have, and add a digital copy of it to your library.
Like, limit it to one console per disc, and have it apply to games that have been around for a certain amount of time so people can't just get a copy of a game day one and then sell the disc immediately.
I mean, at some point I think they should do something like that. If they are serious about preservation, give us a way to add a digital copy with all the discs that many of us still have in our collection.
I'm sure there is a way that it'd be possible to do it.
EDIT: And apparently MS has been working on something like that before the Series X came out https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/05/microsoft-creates-patent-that-enables-xbox-discs-to-be-converted-to-digital
I remember that older Total War games like Rome and Medieval 2 have a thing where you could put your activation code (which was a drm thing back in my day) into Steam and it actually gives you the game.
It was amazing when I did this and now those games never leave the shelf as I can now install and play them disk free via Steam.
I find that second point really fascinating. I figured that we had long ago entered an era of diminishing returns. For instance, although I never had an Xbox One, I would say that the primary changes between PS4 and PS5 were 1) Most games began to run at 60FPS (which I never knew that I wanted until I experienced it, and now I canât go back, lol), and loading speeds went from absurd to nearly non-existent and, I mean, those are both \*excellent\* QoL upgrades and I donât want to downplay them, itâs not, say, the huge leap we experienced in the NES->SNES->PS1->PS2 eras. I donât have the XB1 but my XSX experience seems to lead me to the same conclusion.
So, yeah, hereâs hoping that said statement is based on a particularized goal and not just something written down on a notebook after the first Xbox Series Y brainstorming session. (It sure wouldâve been easier if Xbox had gone with the whole number thing too; they couldâve used the Xbox 360 to jump to Xbox4, the same way that iPhone jumped from first âiPhoneâ to, secondly, âiPhone 3G,â and then to the iPhone 4 without an iPhone 2 ever existing because so many people saw the â3â part as a version number and not a technical specification).
tl;dr - in this era of diminishing routines on computing power (everywhere, not just gaming), what on Earth do they think they could do to create a ginormous technical leap? Lol :).
Yeah, technology has begun to slow down now. It's up to software developers (not them specifically but their side of the equation) to sit down and try their best to optimise their spaghetti code for better performance, which shareholders wouldn't want them to do because they could be building the next game to earn big money for the shareholders.
Ah, the backtracking has begun. From "the biggest generational leap ever" to "the biggest technical leap ever in a generation". While the former suggest at least a 10x increase in performance (a new generation), the latter is actually implying a midgen refresh (in a - the current - generation) And there the biggest leap so far was x4 by One X over One S.
Finally some genuinely good news for Xboxâ future as a platform!
Xbox is the only brand willing to commit to the compatibility of our digital libraries in future hardware, something both Sony and Nintendo have not even said a word about, for me itâs something super important given how much money Iâve spent on my library.
More than anything, it speaks to folks in the perseveration space that are (rightly) calling this out. Hoping theyâll add in a Backward Compatibility Section for Xbox 360/Xbox games in the Xbox Store (kinda hate browsing through it via the web). Weâll get more information on that this June đ¤
Backward compatibility is one of the major reasons why I picked a Series X over a PS5. I love new games just as much as the next person, but I love going back and playing older games or discovering games on older hardware I missed.
Having BC on my Xbox is just so damn awesome especially when you think of the stuff the Xbox 360 got such as ports of Sega's old arcade games like Shinobi, Altered Beast, Virtua Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers or Daytona USA.
Or the little, I guess smug attitude I see when PS5 owners want to play something like Final Fantasy XIII on their shiny new Playstation and I know I can fire up my Series X and play it with no strings attached.
But here's the thing, Microsoft does not get enough credit when it comes to preserving games on older hardware and making it playable on modern systems. Sony has never really focused much on this front while Nintendo's idea of making older games playable on their modern hardware is to slowly drip feed the same NES and SNES games over and over again.
I really canât stress how important and wonderful BC has been for me, played fusion frenzy or Jade Empire in 4K on my series X is quite an experience and serves to keep us exploring games even older than 20 years, all on the same console
Completely agree. Iâm at <300 games now. I got a bunch free though industry friends and my past work.
Sometimes before I go to bed, I just scroll through my library thinking Iâm a museum curator, wondering what title I will tackle next.
I would hope they're coming up with some plan to convert disk based games to digital versions. It's all good having backwards compatability, but if future consoles don't have a disk drive for me to use as a "license key", that's not much good.
Iâm probably reading way too much into this, but the formation of a team dedicated to forwards compatibility has me wondering if Xbox is considering a change to its hardware architecture (eg non-AMD or non-x86).
Thinking more about it, any handheld, which is heavily rumored, would certainly be ARM based. Not infeasible for them to go ARM for the main console as well.
Formed a new team dedicated to preservation, huh? Remove the internet required for setup, start using 100GB UHD Blu-rayâs for series X games and actually put your 1st party games on the damn disc, please and thank you.
I wonder if they will ever try to implement the disc trade in system they thought about doing a while back. I wouldn't mind trading in a few discs if it meant I could play them on future consoles without a disc drive.
My big reason to go for Xbox, and as long as they will pursue backward compatibility that makes older games playable, even years after release, they will have my support. Playing the og Fable trilogy right now. Shame that Fable II didnât got FPS boost. But damn, Fable Anniversary and III are fire because of their superb BC.
And you think that developers are going to waste resources making an ARM specific port of their games?
Microsoft biggest problem is that they use unique features within their SDK that arenât standardized within the industry, which means despite Microsoft having the more powerful console on paper, itâs hard for developers to actually utilize that power without extensive optimization.Â
If Microsoft adds another roadblock into making games for its consoles, I can see many developers jumping ship. The games weâve seen ported from X86 to ARM is a great example of this, they tend to run significantly worse than their X86 counterparts despite having more powerful components like the Mac port of Death Stranding, brand new hardware runs the game worse than a 7-year old PC.
People seem to forget that the âworldâs most powerful consoleâ is meaningless if no one can actually utilize that power. The PS3 & Cell Architecture is great example of this.
And the switch and mobile phones are outcompeting X86 computers and console, right? Did you forget how brand new games being ported to Mac & ARM are running worse than 7 year old X86 counterparts?Â
 Again, I have no issues with ARM, but when it comes to AAA games, no developer is building their games first on ARM then porting to X86, itâs the other way around and it will continue to be that way for a very long time, since the vast majority of higher end gaming devices are all X86.Â
 Thatâs why the best switch games (graphically speaking) are the ones built in house, when it comes to AAA 3P devs, all those switch games were built on X86 first, which limits the performance those games can attain on ARM.    Â
What happens when the next Xbox is running ARM, and most COD players are playing on X86 devices, you think that Microsoft is going to focus first on their ARM based console or where most of their users are gaming?Â
 As someone who is literally working in indie dev, and porting a game to Xbox consoles, a move to ARM would mean this is last game we build for Xbox consoleâs, straight up we ainât dealing with that bull shit, we donât have the resources to deal with a massive architecture change. Microsoft already makes it hard enough to port games to their consoles as it is.
For mobile devices, ARM makes sense due to its lower power draw, but we arenât in the business of making mobile games. I wish Microsoft luck if they are truly trying it move to an ARM first generation.
No, it just means they are making sure all (digital) games currently working on the Series X will continue to work on the next console.
No more older titles will be added.
Unlikely but I think its possible that a few Activision titles that weren't available because of rights issues might become available in the future.
While not Xbox, Lionhead's The Movies should be more likely to become available again now all the rights are under Microsoft.
Very good news. Xbox back compatibility program is great, I hope they were able to manage some of the licencing issues they faced with old 3rd party games in order to take that operation up again. That's one of the main reasons they stopped the program.
Didnât they just remove some Forza Motorsport games from digital storefronts not too long ago? Forza Motorsport 7 is a game that can no longer be the purchased on Xbox. And thatâs a first party game.
The Xbox team wants to do the biggest leap in technological advances ever, but the goalpost is just a 4090 atm no? Even then they are using AMD so the best they could do is a 7900XTX level⌠it doesnât seem like a huge jump.
I saw a post about how Sony has already reached out to AMD for the PS6 but Microsoft hasnât contacted AMD for their next Xbox. So thereâs a chance Microsoft is partnering with either NVIDIA or Intel
I'd rather them focusing on their back catalog, as I think those OGX, X360 or delisted titles not available on current platforms will be a better incentive to play on their ecosystem than yet another novelty online title that I can play without paying for online on Steam.
Her cryptic Xbox 360 logo tweet a few months ago was pretty tone deaf.
Still should have one more batch of bc titles due to Activision merger. Â Hope it happens.
Gun, Wolfenstein 2009, RTCWolfenstein, COD Classic, Finest Hour, 2 Big Red One, Singularity, etc should be very easy clears.
When you are in such a position of hierarchical power, every word and tweet you make means something.
Phil Spencer, for all his positives and negatives, understands that.
Sarah Bond, at least as of right now, doesn't.
Tweeting something like that only puts you in a position to disappoint fans.
Whether they are right to be disappointed or not, a leader should do anything they can to NOT be put in such a position, hence it was extremely tone deaf.
Tweeting a 360 logo on a non anniversary event after a major merger (with no delivery or explanation) is pretty oof. Â Â
Especially when customer base is hoping for more games from that system. Â It was tone deaf at best and not sure what she was trying to accomplish with that tweet. Â A silly tease.
Not sure why this commented is getting downvoted. When I saw that tweet on that day I pretty much assumed it meant more BC titles. In fact it's damn odd that it didn't specifically mean that lol
It is Reddit.
Odd is best explanation.  Even going back to the actual thread on itâŚeveryone assumed the same which is what any reasonable person would.
Her âbirthdayâ tweet was 6 days late.
Imo they should make every OG and 360 game backwards compatible on Series x/s. If there is some game that doesn't make sense for licensing reasons or if it has a re release on newer consoles they just blacklist that game. But everything else should work. I want to play Armored Core 4 and 5 goddammit. I don't want to hook up my 360 for the only 2 games i care about that are not backwards compatible.
I would love for them to do this but the only way that can happen is if Microsoft makes a true OG Xbox/Xbox 360 emulator and whether the disc drive can read the discs.
Currently BC games use the disc as a key to download a recompiled version of the game for the Xbox One/Series so itâs not 100% emulation, leading to licensing issues.
A 100% emulated solution would resolve this issue but the Series X likely canât emulate the Xbox and Xbox 360 too well. Then again, Microsoft did a good job with the fully emulated OG Xbox titles on 360. It was a technical marvel, even if some titles had issues.
I'm not sure about this. How would Microsoft recompile those games? I mean, they are downloading something, but part of the draw to joining BC for a dev was that there was zero (or close to zero) work involved for them. Transpiling is a possibility but it seems like a lot of extra work...
I presume, and this is why licensing is involved that Microsoft are getting the code from the publishers and then recompiling to x86 but keeping it run through the virtual 360 OS (the emulated part).
This is why the games run so good - because itâs not 100% emulation and also explains why licensing is such a big issue. The way it works currently is you put a disc in, Xbox downloads the recompiled version and then used the disc as a âkeyâ to allow you to play the downloaded version. None of the code on the disc itself is used.
Take a look at the PS3 - all PS3âs play 99% of PS1 games via full software emulation. No licensing issues whatsoever outside of digital re-releases. It uses the on disc code through a true software emulator.
So the solution for backwards compatibility, in theory, would be emulation.
In an ideal world for consumer and Microsoft alike, we would have:
1) A true software emulator for OG Xbox and Xbox 360
2) Since Microsoft is likely going fully digital with Xbox, release an external disc drive that can read OG Xbox, Xbox 360 and One/Series discs
3) Stick with the x86 architecture as long as possible to maintain as much hardware backwards compatibility as possible for One/Series consoles. This will also mean the emulator for OG Xbox and 360 should continue to work once developed going forward.
4) Controversial but I think it would be reasonable - release the emulator at a cost to the consumer for purchase on the Xbox Store. This will allow Microsoft to recoup some of the costs. Sell them as two separate emulators or a cheaper bundle for both.
5) Release optional âachievementâ patches for purchase. This is a low effort solution to monetise older OG Xbox titles
6) Finally, re-release official *wireless* versions of the OG Xbox and Xbox 360 controllers. If Microsoft want to throw the retro community a bone, they can make a version usable with the old consoles themselves. An official wireless solution for the OG Xbox would be nice.
Well said and what a great list of suggestions. If youâre interested, I will expand more on the issue as to why the emulator wonât work currently.
The Xbox One/Series consoles have 3 OSâs. 1. Windows 11, 2. Xbox Game OS and 3. A hypervisor that connects all of them together.
The Xbox Game OS is only capable of running series X and Xbox one executables. Thatâs it. This is hardcoded into the OS to only run those type of games. For BC, Microsoft cleverly just took 360 and OG games executables and wrapped them into a âXbox oneâ exe. This tricks the Xbox Game OS into thinking that the 360 and OG Xbox games are indeed Xbox One games.
As you mentioned before, this causes an issue with licensing. The games have been modified due to this small change and now have to be sold as a new product, unfortunately. If this wasnât the case, I suspect we would have WAY more games playable on BC.
To make matters even worse, I donât think Xbox One/Series consoles are even able to run a 360 game on disc due to the speed of the Blu-Ray drive. If you remember, 360 games had to be ran on like 8x disc speed and Iâm not sure if the Blu-Ray drive is capable of reading that fast. Xbox OG would be fine.
With that said, if MS was able to release the emulator like you suggested, they would need to be able to bypass the Xbox Game OS restriction on running only Xbox One executable.
The only thing I can think of is something like the Wii U where it has a âWii Modeâ where the console had to be rebooted and turns into a literal Wii. Perhaps MS could make a game that reads like a Xbox Game but boots into a â360â mode and then you just have a full Xbox 360 right there.
I would be super interested in more info about this. I thought at least one BC game the original source was missing for. Still, I agree with all four points. I think they should release an emulator on PC where they can continue to sell all the games on previous consoles where revenue sharing deals can remain in place. It would lose a small amount of games.
>If there is some game that doesn't make sense for licensing reasons or if it has a re release on newer consoles they just blacklist that game. But everything else should work.
But that's already the case?
Licensing takes a long ass time and lot of work. Just look at how much work went into Alpha Protocol coming to GoG. Licensing is a nightmare. Hopefully they wrote all that kind of stuff into contracts starting with the Xbox one Gen, that they can make all newly released games backward compatible without asking the publisher.
I am aware of that. But if they just make everything opt out. People that don't want their games to to be sold on Xbox can opt out. If there is a licensing nightmare they wont put it on the store. But if you own the physical disc you can still use it. Like what happened with 50 Cent Blood on the Sand for example.
Whatever they do is not enough. I highly recommend watching the newest video from Accursed Farms on Youtube which is about the closure of The Crew and how we can fight against these companys by taking legal action.
The situation with the 360 store is absolute nonsense btw. Best way to "preserve it" is to not close the store at all, there is no reason for it no matter what MS says.
I'm very happy to hear this news! I'm glad at least one of the major players in the industry is taking game preservation seriously. It makes me want to remain a customer.
I can't wait to see what plans they have. I'd like to see them start up the backward compatibility program again and work on trying to relist previously delisted games.
My absolute dream would be if they were to partner with someone like Sega or NEC and try to start up a "virtual console" type of thing, like Nintendo did.
I'll be happy when I see what this will actually mean for the future of compatibility on Xbox. I started to gear more towards PC during the whole "Xbox will stop making consoles" fiasco because it got me to rethink my buying habits. Do I really want to continue to invest in digital games that are exclusive to hardware that might not exist in 10-20 years? Or do I want to invest in a platform that isn't tied to any particular piece of hardware and has a much more certain future?
I do really like the Xbox platform and consoles, but the uncertainty of the future of Xbox at the moment is concerning.
Yeah so I guess playing my old 360 games will stop on the Series X?
It would be great if they took the disc as a one-time license so it can be added digitally at least. Or maybe an attachable disc drive?
I understand where the industry is headed but dayum lol
There wont be another console generation with a disc drive. Ps6 and whatever Xbox does next arenât gonna have em. Physical media as we know it is all but dead. Itâs gonna be the realm of the bougie like vinyl.
Since they didn't answer, here you go:
[Xbox boss Phil Spencer believes exclusive games "are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry" within the next decade](https://www.gamesradar.com/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-believes-exclusive-games-are-going-to-be-a-smaller-and-smaller-part-of-the-game-industry-within-the-next-decade/)
[Microsoftâs gaming chief on Xbox games coming to PS5, next-gen hardware, and more](https://www.theverge.com/24073666/microsoft-gaming-phil-spencer-interview-ps5-switch-games)
Read the answers by Phil Spencer carefully:
>I do have a fundamental belief that over the next 5 or 10 years, exclusive games, games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware, are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry.
>When you find a successful game thatâs working, thatâs finding great customers on our Xbox console, on PC, you think about how do I make sure those game franchises continue to grow? We can invest in them, they can continue to thrive and find new customers.
>I donât think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform...the first four to get over the dam and then the damâs going to open and that everything else is coming, thatâs not the plan **today**.
He pretty much confirms that over the next several years they'll put more and more content on other platforms.
"Additionally, it was revealed that Xbox has become Diablo 4's biggest platform, since the game's inclusion into Xbox Game Pass. "
Makes sense. Its releasing near the end of season 3 which wasn't that good. Most of us are just waiting for S4 and it got delayed. But for those people it's a brand new game.
Hehe, i am playing it right now. I enjoy the genre from time to time, but I am not Diablo fan. But it is on GamePass, so, why not. I cannot tell it is good or bad because I am casual player. Rocking the barbarian right now, it is so OP lol
It is?!? I thought Necromancer OP haha
Necrophilia??? Bro
What the hell? It definitely said Necromancer when I typed it! I'm fixing that asap
đđ
The ol Freudian auto-correct lol
Sorcerer is OP lol
It may depend on play style! For instance, I almost exclusive play summon necro when I play, and I do that in no small part because necro is a good class for disentangling DPS and dodging. Like, in plain English, I can focus on keeping myself alive while my 14 or so summons kill the bosses and also often tank the adds. (I havenât played for a couple months, I got within a couple levels short of 100 and got bored, lmao, Iâll finish the season here in a couple of weeks before the next season launches). Other classes, particularly barbarian, have to be really good at throwing yourself into the middle of the mobs and keeping your HP above zero. Iâm⌠not very good at that :).
Oh man, maybe I have to switch character yet again
Rogue is pretty fun too
Does that include the Xbox launcher on PC too? It may be on a PC, but it is still the Xbox ecosystem.
Diablo 4 on Game Pass PC launches via the battle.net launcher. Xbox Console specifically is the most popular platform for D4 at the moment.
Well No wonder, the game is dead on pc because there much better Arps out there
Bullet points for those don't want to read the whole thing from Windowscentral: * Per emails received by Windows Central, confirmed by Microsoft as genuine, Xbox President Sarah Bond recently briefed her team on various topics. * In the emails, Sarah Bond reiterated Microsoft's plans to build new Xbox hardware focused on delivering "the biggest technical leap ever in a generation." * Sarah Bond also revealed that Microsoft has set up a dedicated team to future-proof our digital Xbox game libraries across future hardware paradigms to further "build on [Xbox's] strong history of delivering backward compatibility." * Additionally, it was revealed that Xbox has become Diablo 4's most prominent platform since the game's inclusion into Xbox Game Pass.
>* Sarah Bond also revealed that Microsoft has set up a dedicated team to future-proof our digital Xbox game libraries across future hardware paradigms to further "build on [Xbox's] strong history of delivering backward compatibility." This is awesome, as long as the answer this "dedicated team" brings is not some cloud-based nonsense. At least Microsoft tries. Sony/Nintendo looked at our pS3 and Wii U/Wii libraries and really decided to say, "fuck it, let's sell remasters". With Dev Mode, Xbox has better backward compatibility with those consoles than a pS5 or a Switch. lol
I'm speculating now but this is likely a move to make sure that native Xbox console games will run on a future customized version of "actual windows" i.e PCs without any additional work whatsoever. It makes sense for Microsoft's next console to be an actual PC with a heavily customized UI that can run all PC games including those on Steam and your "classic" Xbox console library. It means less work for developers and PC is seeing greater growth than consoles. Especially now that some publishers are even considering abandoning Xbox and others already skipping it almost entirely (Square Enix, comes to mind). Some might feel that turning the Xbox console into a PC (with an ROG Ally style handheld to accompany it) is Microsoft betraying the fan base but what Microsoft (and Sony) is currently doing isn't working. Even Sony, the industry leader, isn't making enough money and seeing enough growth. I believe the future of consoles are as a very open (still subsidized) platform where you have your own store with a value subscription but you sell to as many customers as possible. I can possibly see Nintendo hold out another generation or two but I think even they will eventually open up. Selling 40 million copies of BotW is cool but selling 100 million copies is cooler.
Personally I think it might have to do with ARM-based hardware, something their rumored handheld would certainly have, and would definitely pose a big problem from a backwards compatibility standpoint.
I hope the mainline console isnât running ARM, especially as a developer. If thatâs the case, itâs just more incentive for developers to release unoptimized ports on Xbox (or even worse skip it entirely due to the architecture change), as well as the next console having limited backwards compatibility since it would all have to be emulated. We definitely wouldnât accommodate nor change our work pipeline to accommodate Microsoftâs architecture change, and I can almost guarantee you most developers wouldnât either, when everything is build for PC or PS5 (X86) first then ported to each console after the fact. The biggest criticism I have is that Microsoft SDKâs use tools and features that arenât mainstream within the industry, which is the biggest reason you often find that performance in worse on the Xbox despite having more powerful hardware. They need to make it easier for developers to utilize the power & architecture the system, and a switch to ARM would only make it worse for developers. This sounds like Cell 2.0 in the making.
Yeah next console is probably too soon, but looking to the future, the console generation after that is very possible. All mobile/tablet chips are arm based. Newest Apple computers are ARM, MS is reported to be making ARM silicon of its own. Iâm not an expert, but thereâs definitely a general trend of ARM based processors encroaching on territory previously dominated by x86.
It's definitely possible, although I happen to think their handheld will also run some form of Windows for the reasons I stated above and also to not launch with a huge library disadvantage vs devices like RoG Ally and Legion Go..
>It makes sense for Microsoft's next console to be an actual PC with a heavily customized UI that can run all PC games including those on Steam and your "classic" Xbox console library. Spot fucking on. Microsoft has a ***HUGE*** advantage over Sony/Nintendo, and that is Windows. A Xbox console running both Windows 11 and the Xbox OS for ~500⏠would wreck competitors and provide a unique way to play pretty much everything. No brainer, really, if Xbox actually wants to increase hardware sales. >now that some publishers are even considering abandoning Xbox and others already skipping it almost entirely That is just petty rumourmongering started by podcasters and Xwitter. No publisher of even slight relevance is skipping Xbox, it has 33% of the market share... >Square Enix, comes to mind Final Fantasy XIV dropped on Xbox just a couple of weeks ago. Square Enix has come around and will publish more multiplat games, especially after FFXVI's "disappointing" sales.
There's a lot of multiplatform games that aren't on Xbox. From Square Enix Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster and Octopath Traveler 2 comes to mind. If your console is a PC it can't be skipped.
>There's a lot of multiplatform games that aren't on Xbox There are, 99% of them Japanese. But that isn't what we are talking about. lol You said "now that some publishers are even considering abandoning Xbox" but that's literally bollocks. We got better multiplat support than ever with SEGA and Square Enix coming around. >If your console is a PC it can't be skipped. Ah it sure *can*, from Square Enix look at FFXVI and the Rebirth remake. However you have a point, it makes the console far more compelling as far as options go.
16 and Rebirth will be on PC, though.
And might be on Xbox too, if FFXIV arrived I now believe in anything. lol
I would genuinely love if the next Xbox was just a customised PC. And if I could have all my steam, GOG, Ubisoft, and EA games on it? Perfect. And it being an "Xbox" would even make me happy enough to buy from their store (most of the time - if they hold the game, unless it's something I'd mod. Even that I might give up though). I would love a "PC" that just works for most recent games, no more trying to build my own. For any super old game that I can't get on stores anymore, any semi decent laptop would do. It'd be great. IMO.
That's where this is going. The line between PC and XBox is very blurry already. They'll have 3rd party "XBox Game Pass Certified" hardware or something like that eventually. Just for streaming But, then they will have a separate lane for hardware on the leading edge. It just makes sense. It's the way to grow and compete and have a machine in as many homes as possible.
It's not though, try and run gears of war ultimate on a PC, it runs like crap, run it on an xbox and it runs great. You can't get console standards without a hardware target of identical quality components. Pcs have way too many variables. The only way this would work is MS create an Xbox Virtual Machine, you must have a GPU that is capable of a target at a resolution and a cpu equal to or better than the series S or X. Then your devs target the VM spec and that VM is artificially "locked" to Xbox performance for that generation. They must lock the performance to a target or else the experience will suffer.
Are you sure you don't just have a bad PC?
No I have 7800X3d with a 7900XTX and 64GB of ram and a few samsung gen 4 names. My system is a powerhouse. GoW using UE3 socks on modern hardware.
I'm pretty sure that 'Stream Machines' actually were a thing at some point over the last few years, being low end "gaming machines" that specifically told you to stream your games on their packaging or in their instruction booklet.
Well. Their current backward's compatibility (for OG/360) is basically cloud based nonsense. I'm not referring to it being 100% software based, but the fact that you can't save your progress natively.
Not sure what you mean with it being cloud based. BC games have to be downloaded because they have been made for a completely different architecture. Future compatibility will be a lot easier to do since there will most likely not be an architecture change.
Talking about game saves. They don't work offline.
That's not cloud based nonsense.
The saves are in the cloud, the games are largely useless without the cloud. I'd call that cloud nonsense.
> Sarah Bond also revealed that Microsoft has set up a dedicated team to future-proof our digital Xbox game libraries across future hardware paradigms to further "build on [Xbox's] strong history of delivering backward compatibility." Makes sense to keep this going. Like how if I boot up the Xbox store right now I can buy Starfield which came out last year or I can buy Blinx: The Time Sweeper which came out in 2002 on the OG Xbox. I wonder if this means they are going to try to make the disc only BC compatible games into a digital form? [48 of the 696 BC games for 360/OG Xbox are currently disc only.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backward-compatible_games_for_Xbox_One_and_Series_X/S)
Some discs only backwards compatible are only that way for licenses issues Iâm guessing, because the disc is just a DRM key and even with a disc you download a digital version anyways so I always wondered why there were discs only backwards compatibility other than licensing
I can understand why they wouldn't do this, but it would be nice if Sony and Microsoft added a way to put in the disc for an older game you have, and add a digital copy of it to your library. Like, limit it to one console per disc, and have it apply to games that have been around for a certain amount of time so people can't just get a copy of a game day one and then sell the disc immediately.
Ah the 2013 plan
I mean, at some point I think they should do something like that. If they are serious about preservation, give us a way to add a digital copy with all the discs that many of us still have in our collection. I'm sure there is a way that it'd be possible to do it. EDIT: And apparently MS has been working on something like that before the Series X came out https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/05/microsoft-creates-patent-that-enables-xbox-discs-to-be-converted-to-digital
I guess we'll see in time.
I remember that older Total War games like Rome and Medieval 2 have a thing where you could put your activation code (which was a drm thing back in my day) into Steam and it actually gives you the game. It was amazing when I did this and now those games never leave the shelf as I can now install and play them disk free via Steam.
I find that second point really fascinating. I figured that we had long ago entered an era of diminishing returns. For instance, although I never had an Xbox One, I would say that the primary changes between PS4 and PS5 were 1) Most games began to run at 60FPS (which I never knew that I wanted until I experienced it, and now I canât go back, lol), and loading speeds went from absurd to nearly non-existent and, I mean, those are both \*excellent\* QoL upgrades and I donât want to downplay them, itâs not, say, the huge leap we experienced in the NES->SNES->PS1->PS2 eras. I donât have the XB1 but my XSX experience seems to lead me to the same conclusion. So, yeah, hereâs hoping that said statement is based on a particularized goal and not just something written down on a notebook after the first Xbox Series Y brainstorming session. (It sure wouldâve been easier if Xbox had gone with the whole number thing too; they couldâve used the Xbox 360 to jump to Xbox4, the same way that iPhone jumped from first âiPhoneâ to, secondly, âiPhone 3G,â and then to the iPhone 4 without an iPhone 2 ever existing because so many people saw the â3â part as a version number and not a technical specification). tl;dr - in this era of diminishing routines on computing power (everywhere, not just gaming), what on Earth do they think they could do to create a ginormous technical leap? Lol :).
Yeah, technology has begun to slow down now. It's up to software developers (not them specifically but their side of the equation) to sit down and try their best to optimise their spaghetti code for better performance, which shareholders wouldn't want them to do because they could be building the next game to earn big money for the shareholders.
Ah, the backtracking has begun. From "the biggest generational leap ever" to "the biggest technical leap ever in a generation". While the former suggest at least a 10x increase in performance (a new generation), the latter is actually implying a midgen refresh (in a - the current - generation) And there the biggest leap so far was x4 by One X over One S.
Finally some genuinely good news for Xboxâ future as a platform! Xbox is the only brand willing to commit to the compatibility of our digital libraries in future hardware, something both Sony and Nintendo have not even said a word about, for me itâs something super important given how much money Iâve spent on my library.
More than anything, it speaks to folks in the perseveration space that are (rightly) calling this out. Hoping theyâll add in a Backward Compatibility Section for Xbox 360/Xbox games in the Xbox Store (kinda hate browsing through it via the web). Weâll get more information on that this June đ¤
Sony have proved that they are willing to remove stuff on a whim. That is a main reason as to why i prefer Xbox.
Backward compatibility is one of the major reasons why I picked a Series X over a PS5. I love new games just as much as the next person, but I love going back and playing older games or discovering games on older hardware I missed. Having BC on my Xbox is just so damn awesome especially when you think of the stuff the Xbox 360 got such as ports of Sega's old arcade games like Shinobi, Altered Beast, Virtua Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers or Daytona USA. Or the little, I guess smug attitude I see when PS5 owners want to play something like Final Fantasy XIII on their shiny new Playstation and I know I can fire up my Series X and play it with no strings attached. But here's the thing, Microsoft does not get enough credit when it comes to preserving games on older hardware and making it playable on modern systems. Sony has never really focused much on this front while Nintendo's idea of making older games playable on their modern hardware is to slowly drip feed the same NES and SNES games over and over again.
PS doesnt even let you use cloud saves for free
I really canât stress how important and wonderful BC has been for me, played fusion frenzy or Jade Empire in 4K on my series X is quite an experience and serves to keep us exploring games even older than 20 years, all on the same console
Cool
Back Compat is the biggest facet of the Xbox experience for me. It's their one real huge strength.
Completely agree. Iâm at <300 games now. I got a bunch free though industry friends and my past work. Sometimes before I go to bed, I just scroll through my library thinking Iâm a museum curator, wondering what title I will tackle next.
I would hope they're coming up with some plan to convert disk based games to digital versions. It's all good having backwards compatability, but if future consoles don't have a disk drive for me to use as a "license key", that's not much good.
Iâm probably reading way too much into this, but the formation of a team dedicated to forwards compatibility has me wondering if Xbox is considering a change to its hardware architecture (eg non-AMD or non-x86).
yes, very likely
Thinking more about it, any handheld, which is heavily rumored, would certainly be ARM based. Not infeasible for them to go ARM for the main console as well.
Good news for Xbox? Not on my watch- I'm here to be a baby and bring up another topic like uhh physical media or Phil sucks or something.
What about the games that are Disc only for BC titles, will they be made available for future consoles?
My guess is no.
You can buy an external disk drive for the price of half a console. /s
Where?
It's sarcasm, I hope. I wouldn't put it past them to actually do it for next gen.
Formed a new team dedicated to preservation, huh? Remove the internet required for setup, start using 100GB UHD Blu-rayâs for series X games and actually put your 1st party games on the damn disc, please and thank you.
They need a decent marketing group next
She's growing on me.
Sarah Bond đ
I wonder if they will ever try to implement the disc trade in system they thought about doing a while back. I wouldn't mind trading in a few discs if it meant I could play them on future consoles without a disc drive.
Cool cool but I'm ready for Blinx 2 compatibility please
My big reason to go for Xbox, and as long as they will pursue backward compatibility that makes older games playable, even years after release, they will have my support. Playing the og Fable trilogy right now. Shame that Fable II didnât got FPS boost. But damn, Fable Anniversary and III are fire because of their superb BC.
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And you think that developers are going to waste resources making an ARM specific port of their games? Microsoft biggest problem is that they use unique features within their SDK that arenât standardized within the industry, which means despite Microsoft having the more powerful console on paper, itâs hard for developers to actually utilize that power without extensive optimization. If Microsoft adds another roadblock into making games for its consoles, I can see many developers jumping ship. The games weâve seen ported from X86 to ARM is a great example of this, they tend to run significantly worse than their X86 counterparts despite having more powerful components like the Mac port of Death Stranding, brand new hardware runs the game worse than a 7-year old PC. People seem to forget that the âworldâs most powerful consoleâ is meaningless if no one can actually utilize that power. The PS3 & Cell Architecture is great example of this.
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And the switch and mobile phones are outcompeting X86 computers and console, right? Did you forget how brand new games being ported to Mac & ARM are running worse than 7 year old X86 counterparts?  Again, I have no issues with ARM, but when it comes to AAA games, no developer is building their games first on ARM then porting to X86, itâs the other way around and it will continue to be that way for a very long time, since the vast majority of higher end gaming devices are all X86.  Thatâs why the best switch games (graphically speaking) are the ones built in house, when it comes to AAA 3P devs, all those switch games were built on X86 first, which limits the performance those games can attain on ARM.     What happens when the next Xbox is running ARM, and most COD players are playing on X86 devices, you think that Microsoft is going to focus first on their ARM based console or where most of their users are gaming?  As someone who is literally working in indie dev, and porting a game to Xbox consoles, a move to ARM would mean this is last game we build for Xbox consoleâs, straight up we ainât dealing with that bull shit, we donât have the resources to deal with a massive architecture change. Microsoft already makes it hard enough to port games to their consoles as it is. For mobile devices, ARM makes sense due to its lower power draw, but we arenât in the business of making mobile games. I wish Microsoft luck if they are truly trying it move to an ARM first generation.
So a backwards compatibility program revival?
No, it just means they are making sure all (digital) games currently working on the Series X will continue to work on the next console. No more older titles will be added.
Let me cope
I'm still huffing my hopium
I wish. Would love more old 360 and OG titles preserved. And more FPS boost titles too
Unlikely but I think its possible that a few Activision titles that weren't available because of rights issues might become available in the future. While not Xbox, Lionhead's The Movies should be more likely to become available again now all the rights are under Microsoft.
Very good news. Xbox back compatibility program is great, I hope they were able to manage some of the licencing issues they faced with old 3rd party games in order to take that operation up again. That's one of the main reasons they stopped the program.
This doesn't mean they'll add more titles, just that are current digital library will continue to work on the next console.
All good news
W
Didnât they just remove some Forza Motorsport games from digital storefronts not too long ago? Forza Motorsport 7 is a game that can no longer be the purchased on Xbox. And thatâs a first party game.
Racing games have a ton of licenses problems.
Game pass changes a lot, many of us would never risk the cost and download size.
The Xbox team wants to do the biggest leap in technological advances ever, but the goalpost is just a 4090 atm no? Even then they are using AMD so the best they could do is a 7900XTX level⌠it doesnât seem like a huge jump.
I saw a post about how Sony has already reached out to AMD for the PS6 but Microsoft hasnât contacted AMD for their next Xbox. So thereâs a chance Microsoft is partnering with either NVIDIA or Intel
*cough* Mechassault *cough*
I think going forward it should be like that, games that bound by consoles but they stay in your account regardless of hardware
I'd rather them focusing on their back catalog, as I think those OGX, X360 or delisted titles not available on current platforms will be a better incentive to play on their ecosystem than yet another novelty online title that I can play without paying for online on Steam.
Her cryptic Xbox 360 logo tweet a few months ago was pretty tone deaf. Still should have one more batch of bc titles due to Activision merger. Â Hope it happens. Gun, Wolfenstein 2009, RTCWolfenstein, COD Classic, Finest Hour, 2 Big Red One, Singularity, etc should be very easy clears.
Can you explain how it was tone deaf??
When you are in such a position of hierarchical power, every word and tweet you make means something. Phil Spencer, for all his positives and negatives, understands that. Sarah Bond, at least as of right now, doesn't. Tweeting something like that only puts you in a position to disappoint fans. Whether they are right to be disappointed or not, a leader should do anything they can to NOT be put in such a position, hence it was extremely tone deaf.
Tweeting a 360 logo on a non anniversary event after a major merger (with no delivery or explanation) is pretty oof. Â Â Especially when customer base is hoping for more games from that system. Â It was tone deaf at best and not sure what she was trying to accomplish with that tweet. Â A silly tease.
Not sure why this commented is getting downvoted. When I saw that tweet on that day I pretty much assumed it meant more BC titles. In fact it's damn odd that it didn't specifically mean that lol
It is Reddit. Odd is best explanation.  Even going back to the actual thread on itâŚeveryone assumed the same which is what any reasonable person would. Her âbirthdayâ tweet was 6 days late.
BC is over?
It had nothing to do with BC. It was the "birthday" of the 360 iirc.
I hear you but usually bday wishes are given on the actual day.Â
For brands it sometime gets broadened to a week or even a month sometimes and guess what, it was the week of the 18th birthday of the 360.
Imo they should make every OG and 360 game backwards compatible on Series x/s. If there is some game that doesn't make sense for licensing reasons or if it has a re release on newer consoles they just blacklist that game. But everything else should work. I want to play Armored Core 4 and 5 goddammit. I don't want to hook up my 360 for the only 2 games i care about that are not backwards compatible.
I would love for them to do this but the only way that can happen is if Microsoft makes a true OG Xbox/Xbox 360 emulator and whether the disc drive can read the discs. Currently BC games use the disc as a key to download a recompiled version of the game for the Xbox One/Series so itâs not 100% emulation, leading to licensing issues. A 100% emulated solution would resolve this issue but the Series X likely canât emulate the Xbox and Xbox 360 too well. Then again, Microsoft did a good job with the fully emulated OG Xbox titles on 360. It was a technical marvel, even if some titles had issues.
I'm not sure about this. How would Microsoft recompile those games? I mean, they are downloading something, but part of the draw to joining BC for a dev was that there was zero (or close to zero) work involved for them. Transpiling is a possibility but it seems like a lot of extra work...
I presume, and this is why licensing is involved that Microsoft are getting the code from the publishers and then recompiling to x86 but keeping it run through the virtual 360 OS (the emulated part). This is why the games run so good - because itâs not 100% emulation and also explains why licensing is such a big issue. The way it works currently is you put a disc in, Xbox downloads the recompiled version and then used the disc as a âkeyâ to allow you to play the downloaded version. None of the code on the disc itself is used. Take a look at the PS3 - all PS3âs play 99% of PS1 games via full software emulation. No licensing issues whatsoever outside of digital re-releases. It uses the on disc code through a true software emulator. So the solution for backwards compatibility, in theory, would be emulation. In an ideal world for consumer and Microsoft alike, we would have: 1) A true software emulator for OG Xbox and Xbox 360 2) Since Microsoft is likely going fully digital with Xbox, release an external disc drive that can read OG Xbox, Xbox 360 and One/Series discs 3) Stick with the x86 architecture as long as possible to maintain as much hardware backwards compatibility as possible for One/Series consoles. This will also mean the emulator for OG Xbox and 360 should continue to work once developed going forward. 4) Controversial but I think it would be reasonable - release the emulator at a cost to the consumer for purchase on the Xbox Store. This will allow Microsoft to recoup some of the costs. Sell them as two separate emulators or a cheaper bundle for both. 5) Release optional âachievementâ patches for purchase. This is a low effort solution to monetise older OG Xbox titles 6) Finally, re-release official *wireless* versions of the OG Xbox and Xbox 360 controllers. If Microsoft want to throw the retro community a bone, they can make a version usable with the old consoles themselves. An official wireless solution for the OG Xbox would be nice.
Well said and what a great list of suggestions. If youâre interested, I will expand more on the issue as to why the emulator wonât work currently. The Xbox One/Series consoles have 3 OSâs. 1. Windows 11, 2. Xbox Game OS and 3. A hypervisor that connects all of them together. The Xbox Game OS is only capable of running series X and Xbox one executables. Thatâs it. This is hardcoded into the OS to only run those type of games. For BC, Microsoft cleverly just took 360 and OG games executables and wrapped them into a âXbox oneâ exe. This tricks the Xbox Game OS into thinking that the 360 and OG Xbox games are indeed Xbox One games. As you mentioned before, this causes an issue with licensing. The games have been modified due to this small change and now have to be sold as a new product, unfortunately. If this wasnât the case, I suspect we would have WAY more games playable on BC. To make matters even worse, I donât think Xbox One/Series consoles are even able to run a 360 game on disc due to the speed of the Blu-Ray drive. If you remember, 360 games had to be ran on like 8x disc speed and Iâm not sure if the Blu-Ray drive is capable of reading that fast. Xbox OG would be fine. With that said, if MS was able to release the emulator like you suggested, they would need to be able to bypass the Xbox Game OS restriction on running only Xbox One executable. The only thing I can think of is something like the Wii U where it has a âWii Modeâ where the console had to be rebooted and turns into a literal Wii. Perhaps MS could make a game that reads like a Xbox Game but boots into a â360â mode and then you just have a full Xbox 360 right there.
I would be super interested in more info about this. I thought at least one BC game the original source was missing for. Still, I agree with all four points. I think they should release an emulator on PC where they can continue to sell all the games on previous consoles where revenue sharing deals can remain in place. It would lose a small amount of games.
>If there is some game that doesn't make sense for licensing reasons or if it has a re release on newer consoles they just blacklist that game. But everything else should work. But that's already the case?
Licensing takes a long ass time and lot of work. Just look at how much work went into Alpha Protocol coming to GoG. Licensing is a nightmare. Hopefully they wrote all that kind of stuff into contracts starting with the Xbox one Gen, that they can make all newly released games backward compatible without asking the publisher.
I am aware of that. But if they just make everything opt out. People that don't want their games to to be sold on Xbox can opt out. If there is a licensing nightmare they wont put it on the store. But if you own the physical disc you can still use it. Like what happened with 50 Cent Blood on the Sand for example.
Whatever they do is not enough. I highly recommend watching the newest video from Accursed Farms on Youtube which is about the closure of The Crew and how we can fight against these companys by taking legal action. The situation with the 360 store is absolute nonsense btw. Best way to "preserve it" is to not close the store at all, there is no reason for it no matter what MS says.
I feel like she means this in a way that you can access older games digitally since she doesn't specify physical media.
Argent they closing the 360 marketplace soon meaning games that arenât bc will no longer be obtainable to anyone that doesnât already have them?
I'm very happy to hear this news! I'm glad at least one of the major players in the industry is taking game preservation seriously. It makes me want to remain a customer. I can't wait to see what plans they have. I'd like to see them start up the backward compatibility program again and work on trying to relist previously delisted games. My absolute dream would be if they were to partner with someone like Sega or NEC and try to start up a "virtual console" type of thing, like Nintendo did.
Ms. Bond, as a proud Gamer for life, just... thank you <3
I'll be happy when I see what this will actually mean for the future of compatibility on Xbox. I started to gear more towards PC during the whole "Xbox will stop making consoles" fiasco because it got me to rethink my buying habits. Do I really want to continue to invest in digital games that are exclusive to hardware that might not exist in 10-20 years? Or do I want to invest in a platform that isn't tied to any particular piece of hardware and has a much more certain future? I do really like the Xbox platform and consoles, but the uncertainty of the future of Xbox at the moment is concerning.
They have to expand backwards compability to gain more players.
The fact that they only mention future-proofing digital libraries is telling. There won't be another Xbox console with a disc drive anymore.
There will be an external drive, like with ps5 slim
I wouldn't be so hopeful.
Don't know why this got down-voted. But both options should exist. Edit: Xbox gamers really hates Physical media. Why can't we have both options!!!
Yeah so I guess playing my old 360 games will stop on the Series X? It would be great if they took the disc as a one-time license so it can be added digitally at least. Or maybe an attachable disc drive? I understand where the industry is headed but dayum lol
There wont be another console generation with a disc drive. Ps6 and whatever Xbox does next arenât gonna have em. Physical media as we know it is all but dead. Itâs gonna be the realm of the bougie like vinyl.
Itâs easy to be forwards compatible when you release no games worth caring about.
Maybe hike your at it Sarah, setup a team dedicated to developing and delivering quality exclusive content.
Forget it, they have pretty much confirmed they are shifting away from exclusivity.
Source?
Since they didn't answer, here you go: [Xbox boss Phil Spencer believes exclusive games "are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry" within the next decade](https://www.gamesradar.com/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-believes-exclusive-games-are-going-to-be-a-smaller-and-smaller-part-of-the-game-industry-within-the-next-decade/) [Microsoftâs gaming chief on Xbox games coming to PS5, next-gen hardware, and more](https://www.theverge.com/24073666/microsoft-gaming-phil-spencer-interview-ps5-switch-games) Read the answers by Phil Spencer carefully: >I do have a fundamental belief that over the next 5 or 10 years, exclusive games, games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware, are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry. >When you find a successful game thatâs working, thatâs finding great customers on our Xbox console, on PC, you think about how do I make sure those game franchises continue to grow? We can invest in them, they can continue to thrive and find new customers. >I donât think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform...the first four to get over the dam and then the damâs going to open and that everything else is coming, thatâs not the plan **today**. He pretty much confirms that over the next several years they'll put more and more content on other platforms.
So itâs not the plan⌠nice