Microsoft has solved multi-disc backwards compatibility for 360 games on XB1

[Fulle]

@Lil Frier

I'm not following you on your thoughts on Tomb Raider. What I was saying is just that Tomb Raider Definitive Edition's work was primarily done by Nixxes Software (for PS4) and United Front Games (XBO), so that it didn't delay anything that Crystal Dynamics was working on. Commonly, there's this idea that a port is delaying the next new game, but its usually not the case.... and definitely not, in this particular case.

Rise of the Tomb Raider was initially being worked as a multiplatform release by Crystal Dynamics. The Publisher, Square Enix, decided that they wanted to mitigate risk by having Microsoft take on an unknown portion of the upfront cost of the game, in exchange for a period of exclusivity.

I think it's somewhat interesting to see that Nixxes Software got contracts to do the port work for the Xbox 360, and PC... So I figure they'll probably do the PS4 version of Rise of the Tomb Raider. I hope so anyway, since they did a good job with Tomb Raider Definitive Edition for PS4.

This is a good example of how ports don't usually delay new projects, since the port work is usually not done by the game's lead developer, and instead is completed by a smaller studio like Nixxes Software, or Bluepoint Games, that specializes in that sort of work.

 

[sweenish]

I'll play devil's advocate here and be the first person to go to the extreme of "Xbox 360 emulation is bad".

Yes, I did say that. Why though? Well, we just got a really nice running Valkyria Chronicles port today on PS4. Runs at 60 FPS, a good resolution upgrade, and so on. It's just a straight port, but it runs perfect. God of War 3 was similar, you know, and there's the occasional higher effort ports from stuff like The Last of Us, or the Nathan Drake collection. All run really good, a lot of the time significantly better than the original game on PS3. 'Tomb Raider Definitive Edition' would be an example of a game whose port to PS4 runs a LOT better.

Meanwhile, the Xbox emulator runs Reach really poorly. Alan Wake runs great, but not Reach... What do you think the chances are of it getting ported are, with the emulator as a thing? For games like Reach, or Gears of War 3, that run like garbage through the emulator.... think they'll get ported?

So, I suppose it a value add for people, that, you know, don't mind playing Assassin's Creed II with regular frame rate drops into the 20s, but.... eh? You know, I would rather see a port of a game like that to the XBO or PS4, running at 60 FPS at 1080p.

That's me though, I mean I realize some people are just poor or whatever... but I see this as a deterrent for devs to want to port things over to the XBO properly. Long run, I think the system will be forwards compatible, with XBO games running on the next Xbox, so the sooner things get ported the better... but why port things with this emulator present?

This is a terrible argument.

People who bought games previously that still work and don't want to buy remasters must be poor? Fantastic deductive reasoning, there.

Devs shouldn't be porting anything right now, period. The current gen has a massive dearth of fresh IP, or even fresh games for that matter because these ports getting slurped up.

I'm not saying they should never make ports, but what was the timeline from original TLoU to the remaster? Pathetically short. People only give it a pass because it's such a great game.

If anything should actually be getting ports, it should be from two generations ago and beyond.

As to poorly performing games in the emulator, I imagine the new hardware everyone's getting worked up about will remedy that.

 

[Lil Frier]

I'm not in total agreement about a lack of IP. However, I'll say I don't agree with you the idea of porting is represented. I'm admittedly not one who follows that kind of stuff, but I don't expect that remasters come down to having a developer hand over all code to another group and saying "make this prettier!" There has to be some level of collaboration, even if the majority of the work is done by another team. Plus, it's not ALL a simple slapping of paint onto an old game and rolling it out, like we seem to be getting with Arkham soon.

Gears Ultimate wasn't outsourced, meaning development resources for Gears 4 went to it. Tomb Raider seems to be a weird instance, since it apparently had 4 different developers (CD only did the 360; Nixxes did PS3, PS4, and PC; UF did XB1; Feral Interactive did OSX). I'm not going to go digging for all of the examples contrary or supporting the point, but I think that even in the case of an outsourced port, the primary developer has to allot SOME time to getting the new team settled with the plan.

But my response is more about the IP claim. I think that there is PLENTY of new stuff out this generation, but too much of it has been of the one-and-done variety. Think Ryse, Knack, Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, Destiny, Splatoon, Shadow of Mordor, Dying Light, The Division, Driveclub, Bloodborne, The Evil Within, Unraveled, Pokken Tournament, Yoshi's Woolly World, The Golf Club, The Crew, Screamride, and I could go on. You also have the upcoming stuff, like Horizon, The Last Guardian, ReCore, Overwatch, Sea of Thieves, Scalebound, and other things that we'll certainly see announced at E3 this year.

I agree we don't need to abandon ports and remasters altogether. I just think they're overdone. We really didn't need Devil May Cry brought over. We didn't need two-thirds of Borderlands (honestly, it all could have been left on the old consoles, but given my take on Battleborn, I suppose Gearbox didn't have a better alternative). Metro was borderline as well, just because it doesn't seem to be something to expand upon like much of the rest. I guess it's just the feeling that they could have spread these out more/better. Making new games at the same time would have been nice, meaning some spacing between releases and re-releases. The Last of Us could have gotten a better remaster if Sony had let it stew a bit, let the developers get the process on PS4 perfected, then made it something for 2016 or 2017. God of War could have gotten a time frame to allow all 3 games to be redone, same for Gears--one game (especially just the third, in God of War's case) is kind of a waste (again, especially with a campaign-focused God of War). It's as much about the speed of the remasters as the number of them.

 

[Fulle]

@sweenish

I agree that if the Xbox One gets a revision, like the rumored PS4 Neo, then it's very likely to help the emulator's performance. It's primarily FPS drop issues, so all that's probably needed is a bit more CPU muscle.

On TLoU Remastered coming out too soon, I'm not sure if I agree. PS4 had a lack of games at the time, a lot of Xbox 360 players just came over to the platform, and the game was still new enough that some PS3 owners that upgraded to PS4 might not have played it yet. The timing wasn't bad, actually, and the port to PS4 sold over 4 million copies.

Now, as far as the recurring concern here among most people that this generation has seen few worthwhile new games.... I agree. Besides The Witcher 3, and Bloodborne, I haven't had a lot of new games wow me. It's been more or less 1 big let down after the next, with games that should have been amazing, like Battlefront, getting released too early, released broken like Unity, missing features like Fallout 4, and so on and so on. Despite my frustration, though, I don't think the porting going on is a contributing factor. Its not exactly tying up SIE Santa Monica Studio that much when Wholesale Algorithms ported over GoW 3. Heck, even TLoU Remastered only pulled a small number of Naughty Dog's resources, as they didn't even dedicate any designers to the project.

The main problem, I think, is that there's this strong need now to release a game "on time" or during certain financial quarters, and that sort of thing, and less of an emphasis on quality. A good example would be Battlefront, which had all kinds of features cut in order to release alongside the Star Wars movie hype. As a gaming community we really need to STOP pre-ordering things.

 

[sweenish]

Post mostly in response to Frier

You bring up some interesting examples of one-off games, but Shadow of Mordor released on last-gen, Driveclub and The Evil Within were not well received due to being so broken, Unraveled received a lukewarm reception, Yoshi's Wooly World is a fresh aesthetic on an old franchise, etc.

However, it's not like these one-off titles match up with RDR, AC, Souls, Bioshock, Gears, L4D, LO, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, ME, Uncharted, TLoU, Braid, Journey, Brothers, etc.

While almost none of what you named has shown itself franchise-worthy (Bloodbourne, a Souls spin-off being the closest), last-gen spawned so much more. I think the biggest part of that is that the dev houses were actually trying things, indies weren't seen as a checkbox (they were literally a renaissance that has now become nothing more than a marketing term), and e-sports weren't as big as they are today.

I get that it's early years for the current gen still, but with the talk of newer more powerful hardware already all but confirmed, it doesn't look like the current gen will live up to the previous gen's library. And the largest contributor, in my opinion, is all this re-hashing. Too many devs are too busy looking back, hoping to make a relatively quick buck.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I get that it's early years for the current gen still, but with the talk of newer more powerful hardware already all but confirmed, it doesn't look like the current gen will live up to the previous gen's library. And the largest contributor, in my opinion, is all this re-hashing. Too many devs are too busy looking back, hoping to make a relatively quick buck.

You hit the nail on the head here. There's been way too much talk about remasters, definitive editions, and backwards compatibility and not enough really new games that haven't come before. It's been 3 years and we really haven't seen much to be excited about. Now they want to try dropping new or upgraded consoles on us and totally ignore the fact that we haven't received enough software. I suppose for some people there's been a lot to play with the yearly releases and sports titles. That just doesn't do it for me.

 

[Lil Frier]

Post mostly in response to Frier

You bring up some interesting examples of one-off games, but Shadow of Mordor released on last-gen, Driveclub and The Evil Within were not well received due to being so broken, Unraveled received a lukewarm reception, Yoshi's Wooly World is a fresh aesthetic on an old franchise, etc.

However, it's not like these one-off titles match up with RDR, AC, Souls, Bioshock, Gears, L4D, LO, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, ME, Uncharted, TLoU, Braid, Journey, Brothers, etc.

While almost none of what you named has shown itself franchise-worthy (Bloodbourne, a Souls spin-off being the closest), last-gen spawned so much more. I think the biggest part of that is that the dev houses were actually trying things, indies weren't seen as a checkbox (they were literally a renaissance that has now become nothing more than a marketing term), and e-sports weren't as big as they are today.

I get that it's early years for the current gen still, but with the talk of newer more powerful hardware already all but confirmed, it doesn't look like the current gen will live up to the previous gen's library. And the largest contributor, in my opinion, is all this re-hashing. Too many devs are too busy looking back, hoping to make a relatively quick buck.

Well, that things aren't successful doesn't mean they don't exist. Mordor launched on the previous consoles, but it was insanely neutered and reviewed terribly--it never should have existed. Wooly World plays so uniquely, tailored perfect to your level of challenge and interest, and if you want to get into it deeply, that stuff is all platform iteration. However, I'd say that from a mechanics standpoint, Woolly World and Super Mario 3D World stand out really well among traditional platformers and deserve separate recognition from the rehashed things like NSMBU, SLU, and DKC:TF. But, you're splitting hairs there.

Now, as for the rest, that's insanely subjective. It also involves a lot of comparison of mid- and late-generation stuff. Mass Effect, BioShock, and Assassin's Creed were 2 years into the generation. Demon's Souls was 3.5 years in, Dark Souls 6. Red Dead Redemption was 4.5 years into the generation, AND it wasn't new IP (given it followed Red Dead Revolver), so it shouldn't be counted. I could keep going, because that's MOSTLY stuff that was 2+ years into the generation, with Gears as the only exception I can readily recognize.

Then, there's--again--the fact it's subjective. I still think Left 4 Dead is bad. It's insanely redundant and shallow. I'd take a number of games over it, even ones I don't like, because they at least had some complexity. Several of the games you listed, to me, were a mix of unappealing (Lost Odyssey, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Braid, Journey) and things I flat-out didn't like (L4D, I found Mass Effect and Dark Souls to be too slow and clunky, BioShock 2 was awful). I would honestly take Dying Light over everything on your list, with the first Gears (and only the first one) as the only thing I'd maybe put against it (and that's more about the multiplayer than the so-so campaign experience). I'd put Mordor over most of it, as I greatly enjoyed it.

End of the day, you're using your personal preferences to decide way too much. Quantum Break, Dying Light, Sunset Overdrive, The Division, and Shadow of Mordor would be worthy of sequels on gameplay alone (QB and DL also brought strong stories worth giving more time). Think of some of the games you listed. Mirror's Edge took forever to get a sequel--an entire generation. Assassin's Creed's focus lasted about 3 games, and then just went off the rails (I really liked the first, but the second was so easy and shallow with its combat that I never played another). BioShock 2 was plain bad, and Infinite was so different that it's hard to say anything after the first was a "worthy sequel." Gears' sequels were all incrementally worse. TO cap it off, you're basically arguing that the last generation put out IP deserves sequels, then complaining about the abundance of sequels.

Anywho, there's a novel of what I think. You're pulling stuff from years into the generation and putting it against the infancy of this one. It's not a fair comparison. The start of this generation, I think, was incredibly strong. Lik stated previously, I think Dying Light is a phenomenal game, one of the best mixes of good gameplay and a compelling story I've played in a long time. Mordor was pure chaos and fun, though too easy and with a so-so story. Quantum Break did something very unique with an interesting subject, as we'd expect with Remedy. Sunset Overdrive truly was Ratchet & Clank for an adult-oriented audience, and absurdly entertaining in its character development (more so than the actual plot).

Admittedly, I don't own a PS4, and I just got a PS3 at Christmas, just for Kingdom Hearts. I can't speak to what Sony has done this generation, though their 2015 slate was barren (even by their own omission). The 2016-and-beyond for Microsoft is pretty sad, with little exploration beyond the main franchises (Halo, Gears, Forza, Minecraft) once ReCore, Scalebound, Sea of Thieves, and Crackdown 3 drop (especially with the studio slashing). However, Sony's at least got plans on the table, with The Last Guardian and Horizon (the one thing Sony's intrigued me with, other than baseball). For Honor looks interesting and different (though Ubisoft's fantastically under-delivered this generation, even with really good ideas). There's been stuff, and more is planned. It's been 2.5 years. We were just to the releases of Assassin's Creed and BioShock at this point in the last generation. The argument of "this generation might end soon and not live up to the last one" is just ridiculously unfair. It's not a reasonable point of contention that a generation of 4 years should be on-par with one of 7-8.

 

[sweenish]

I recognized that it's still early years for the current gen. And then I explained why I felt the current gen won't catch up. But you didn't tackle that at all. Just trying to get ahead by repeatedly saying something I covered. The simple fact is that time has been spent re-hashing old territory and not forging ahead. Regardless of who that time has been spent by, it was time doing touch-ups for a quick buck and not putting hours into something new. And it's going to show.

Mordor was, in my opinion, fairly boring. Combat is literally a two button game, even with all the skills and abilities, the world felt fairly sterile, and the story absolutely failed to capture me. The Nemesis system is pretty great, and I would like to see it explored further, but it didn't save Mordor for me. My opinion is no more subjective than yours.

You brought up original titles for the current gen, I brought up original titles for last gen. My list happened to generally spawn franchises and change our expectations for certain genres, and your list has largely failed to sell in the same numbers, let alone have a similar impact.

You want to continue to count Woolly World for "doing platforming so well" while discounting RDR even though it plays NOTHING like Red Dead Revolver and is still arguably one of the best sandbox games out there. We are arguing about subjective things, and it definitely shows.

As to your first sentence, you're not wrong, but it proves nothing. There were a bajillion one-off games last gen that went nowhere, too. Culdcept Saga, Folklore, Kameo, etc. failed to kickstart franchises and as far as I know, didn't sell well. There's a reason I didn't list them.

I see where I implied a complaint about sequels, but I don't mind a sequel done well. If a formula works, I don't mind going in for another. My beef isn't with sequels, it's with the pace at which they come out. Obviously not all franchises are guilty, but enough are that it merits complaint. But sequel talk is tangential.

One last thing, a Mirror's Edge sequel taking a whole generation to happen has no bearing on my argument. The first one was not wildly successful, but it definitely has cult status. And at no point did I say or imply that EVERY game I listed had spawned a franchise, anyway. It was about the impact those games had. Maybe Sunset Overdrive will get a sequel. Who knows? The Division very likely will, since it's Ubisoft. They're trying Watchdogs again, for crying out loud. Besides, they have to fix the balance of The Division, and I doubt continued patch support will get it where it should be at this point.

Also, Deus Ex. Are you going to discount Deus Ex for taking decades to get a third installment, and jumping generations for the next sequel? Does it somehow not meet whatever qualifications you've set?

At the end of the day, I simply don't look very favorably on this generation as a whole. This re-hashing is just a part of that.

You're not the only one that could go on and on about this. Obviously we both care a great deal; we just have differences of opinion. I do want to thank you for keeping it civil, I know my written tone comes off quite harsh.

 

[Lil Frier]

I don't find anything there to be harsh, and people who take text to be harsh in tone without specifically harsh language are just uninterested in discussion.

I just don't think you're using a fair measuring stick is all. I don't care to add or subtract YWW or RDR from the discussion, I just wanted the same standards applied because you knocked the former, then presented the latter. What matters is that you're saying you gave examples that spawned franchises, which is true, but that doesn't really mean much against a generation that hasn't allowed time for franchises to develop. It's true that the examples you gave had more success, but they also have had 5-10 more years of opportunity to have that success. Destiny is one that comes to mind, where it clearly is a look towards building a franchise, though I don't like the game. Titanfall is just getting to its first sequel. Some of this stuff probably WON'T get a sequel, but not necessarily because it doesn't deserve it. I never played Ryse (waiting for it to hit GWG at this point), but it seemed to be well-done and a solid Xbox alternative to God of War. From what I read, Crytek didn't want to build a sequel, instead trying to make Microsoft take it over AND pay for the brand, which Microsoft turned down. I don't think that makes God of War better than Ryse. I think that could come down to a preference of the settings involved (Greek/Roman theme).

The other issue I have is that your points kind of kill each other off a bit; it's hard for both to happen. You seem to want to support the franchises of last-gen, while getting new IP. That the franchises you talk up got sequels is part of why we're getting remasters and ports left and right. Gears is a decade old. Assassin's Creed is, like, a year younger. Arkham threw out its fourth game. Uncharted, too. Halo will turn FIFTEEN this year. The sequels spawned onto this generation almost necessitated the remakes and remasters. Without TMCC or The Nathan Drake Collection to reintroduce the franchises to new consumers (especially the kids who will more likely be the future of the market), Halo 5 and and Uncharted 4 might not have gone over as well, economically speaking. The long-rumored Assassin's Creed compilation might be needed just to wash out the awful taste of Unity and show folks that the franchise had a story and direction, at one point (especially with the supposed attempt to get back on-track there). When you go for a campaign-driven game (Dishonored is the one that comes to mind immediately), you somewhat need it to have a story that will make sense to new customers, 4 years after the first. What you end up seeing there is, yes, franchises were spawned last generation. Those franchises are kind of what's killing the IP growth now (if you think that exists, I think it's still questionable). Then there are the ones whose presence doesn't seem sensible or necessary. BioShock doesn't look destined for another installment, so why does its rumored re-release need to happen? Given Arkham also just wrapped up, not sure why it is getting the upcoming remaster...of only 2 of the 3 previous titles.

The validity of franchise continuation can be questioned with some of that stuff as well. Assassin's Creed got a lot of love after the first, but I personally liked the first a lot more, and as I stated, was so bored by the second one that I took 3+ years to finish it and never went back. BioShock was great fun for me, but I only got halfway through the second and never played Infinite as a result. Borderlands was cool the first time, but its quality rapidly deteriorated, as the playable characters lost their appeal and the humor got stale for me. That could easily be applied to Watch_Dogs (which I thought was an OK, less-ignorant alternative to GTA) and Titanfall (which has some extremely sloppy gunplay, though traversal and Titan play are done well), so I don't think getting sequels is even a fair way to judge quality. I'd honestly say that I've had as much fun with some of the games of this generation as last. I skipped a LOT of stuff in the second-half of the last generation, between boycotting EA over their Online Pass junk (why I never got into Mirror's Edge, Crysis, Dead Space, Battlefield, or Dragon Age) and generally being pulled in more by online shooters than is reasonable (like Black Ops, Halo, and Gears). I can't speak to too much of it, but there also wasn't a whole lot I felt like I missed out on. It wasn't stuff that grabbed my attention like Quantum Break, Dying Light, and Sunset Overdrive did. That's 100% opinion though.

The whole thing is a mix of laziness and necessity, I think. BioShock and Arkham don't need remasters. Same goes for Devil May Cry. Halo, Gears, Uncharted, Dishonored, and Assassin's Creed could easily argue the need. Much of the stuff coming from EA could probably warrant it as well, namely Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge. I know I'd pass on Catalyst because I didn't play the first and don't care to get half a story. That's the kind of gamer mentality that leads to the remakes, really. I'm part of the problem. It's just cranked up to 11 for maximization of profits.

Something else that is kind of a curious topic is how/if this generation actually ends. We might see new hardware in a month, announced at E3. However, the emergence of x86 in these new consoles also means that they could get continued software support as Microsoft and Sony back off commitments to PS4 and XB1. If a PS4.5 is more of a PS5, in that it's not just a minor hardware tweaks, and we get some modular Xbox, but then from a hardware advancement standpoint, they might seem like a new generation. It could also mean that the common architecture lets all forthcoming games work on both platforms. If those launched in late-2016, would it be fair to call this generation dead? Hard to say, but that distinction might also be the ultimate aspect of the discussion that affects the long-term views of this generation.

 

[sweenish]

I liked your last paragraph the best. The possibility of never losing backwards compatibility due to an architecture that doesn't change, but only gets beefier every generation is essentially PCs, but with stripped operating systems to be living room devices. I could be on board with that.

Instead of a Minimum spec, all the box would have to say is PS4.5 or higher. That's not too shabby, in my opinion.

I don't think my support of a well-made sequel undermines my dislike of re-hashes as much you make it out to be. ME didn't make it to the PS3 until the second installment. Players were given an interactive comic where they could make some of the bigger decisions and have them transfer over to ME2. Witcher 2 had to do something as well (first game being PC exclusive), although I think their solution was built into the game.

With older franchises, sure. Like I had said earlier, remakes should be going back two generations at a minimum, not the late games of the last generation. I have no beef with the Master Chief Collection as a thing that exists, just its horrible execution for multiplayer.

Your case for Uncharted makes sense, but at the same time I think backwards compatibility would have done the job just fine. I prefer MS's route here in pursuing emulation that allows experiencing the old games, whether the player is looking to relive some memories or get a full franchise experience. These last gen re-hases serve more as a quick cash-in, when the time could be better spent making "the next big thing." Apparently CoD BLOPS sales sky-rocketed after BC was announced for the One. That's obviously relative to whatever its sales were before, but there is money to be had in pursuing the emulation route as well.

I can concede that there has been more effort put forth than I originally implied, though.

 

[Lil Frier]

Well, backwards compatibility is ideal, but it just seems that Sony can't do it. The CPU architecture of the PS3 is too exotic to reasonably do it with. Saying "generation" is also kind of unfair, for timing this stuff. Generations can stop and start suddenly, and they aren't a set time frame. Someone who got a 360 for the first time in 2011 would have been in that generation, but maybe for only 2 years before trading up to a newer console, for example. The first Xbox only lasted 4 years before a predecessor came out. The 360 lasted twice as long. Each is a generation, but the 360's generation was twice as long, and the games of the first-half of that generation weren't as optimized or well-made. Remastering that stuff could make sense. That's just a general statement of the wording philosophy though, rather than a point about something specific. It does kind of apply to Gears of War though. It was one generation ago, but the first game was 9 years old when it was remastered.

I think we agree on both points, that remasters and the such can be done properly, but that they're being well overdone here. Bringing someone up to speed on several games withing a franchise with a remaster makes sense. Giving us one game that is a year old, like Tomb Raider Definitive Edition did, is ridiculous.

 

[sweenish]

My definition of generation is tied to the hardware.

And it does appear that we largely agree. Timelines being the main difference. You seem a bit more flexible on it than me.