PlayStation 4 Console Thread

[Smoothy]

I would be up for paying Sony for either a software or hardware solution for backwards compatibility. Win/win as I get to play my originals that I invested money in (without turning to the use of illegal emulators) and it doesn't pose an extra cost to the clear majority of PS4 owners wh don't want and don't need bc.

Pfffff not sure what went wrong with your investment. I just pull out the console I bought to play the old games on, as it still forms part of my investment.

[Unofficial Who]

How does Sony digitally sell the many, many PS1/2 games that are in licensing hell following the bankruptcy or acquisition of the rights owner?

Name me one, just one game in such a state that's still worth being played.

....OK, you got me with Outrun 2006.....name me another (etc)

[Alex W.]

Presumably at the time the games were added to the service, the publisher signed a perpetual agreement for those platforms.

[TehStu]

Do GOG give you the game free if you own the original?

Sigh.

Also, "god given right". Really, guys? You're reading way, way too much into this. It's a fucking nice to have, not something I'll slit throats over. And it's a very reasonable ask, given that's where gaming has shifted for the masses.

I really don't agree with you needing to buy a PC, either. The master race have spent the last 2 years telling you we can build a better PC than a PS4 for 50 quid and a packet of fags. So Sony haven't punted out some $700 machine this time. What will it take to continue the cycle next time? Who cares. But you're implying it'll need to be a monster to emulate this gen, whereas MS have emulated a console *still on sale* on the the machine everyone likes to rag on.

[TehStu]

Didn't the whole "Wintel" environment start to get massivly bogged down, both hardware and software, by trying to keep BC going at one point?

PC isn't all that BC any more anyway. I've occasionally tried to install XP or Vista era games which won't work any more.

No idea what you mean there.

You may be able to buy those games again on Steam for peanuts. Isn't that a good thing? That's the option these BC approaches give, but we're moaning about them.

[TehStu]

Oh, and I missed mobile. They're expensive because people want the latest shiny, in a tiny package. My moto G cost $150, runs a lot of the same games as the latest $700 Samsung.

[Radish]

Do GOG give you the game free if you own the original?

No, because they've put work into ensuring every individual game is compatable with modern hardware (and software). They often include extras too, such as soundtracks or digital art books. It would be nice to have all that for free but you can't expect it.

(I'm assuming that your post wasn't a joke)

[Wiper]

Do GOG give you the game free if you own the original?

Glad to see you've ignored the entirety of my argument and focussed on my aside instead. Of course they don't, which is why PC gaming is 'only' as backwards compatible as it always has been, it just happens to be the case that there are now also extra avenues to get access to those games if you a) didn't own them before and don't want to have to pay through the nose to get a second-hand physical copy, and/or b) want to have them preconfigured to work well on modern systems, without requiring the user to put in any legwork searching down patches or configuring emulators.

With or without GOG's existence, PC gaming is no less 'backward compatible' than it ever was, and to suggest otherwise is to significantly underestimate the issues that PCs have always had with playing older games. The only real difference now is that there are a hell of a lot more 'older games' by default.

[kradica1]

Remote play coming soon to PC (unofficially)

[Dudley]

No, because they've put work into ensuring every individual game is compatable with modern hardware (and software).

Sony would also have had to put work into writing that software emulator to be fair.

[Monkeyspill]

Is PSN down? I never know if it's PSN or our shitty router. I have to connect wirelessly here (yeah, I know it's not a good idea but no choice).

[mushashi]

What are they?

Selling hardware for a profit would be the big one, as that is how it works on the hardware platforms people like to compare consoles to.

You'd also need to essentially do what Nintendo have done and get stuck in a hardware rut of incrementally upgrading the same basic building blocks.

GameCube became GameCube Turbo (faster clocks, more RAM, same basic hardware) which morphed into GameCube Squared (faster clocks, multiply the CPU and slap on some new functionality, move to a newer different GPU but have to reserve die space for the old design for BC reasons). Imagine how bogged down you'd get after a few decades of this sort of thing...

Over time the baggage would mean you need more powerful hardware than otherwise would be required under the classical console model and have to keep your devs at arms length from the hardware, like the 3DO did, which undermines the whole console philosophy. Mark Cerny famously got the 3DO hardware designers to give up access to the hardware to allow him to get it running at playable speeds (he's one of those old school programmers that can actually converse with machines in their own language), they wanted devs to go through their interface instead but that was dog shit slow. He even did the same for the cancelled M2:

Were you at 3DO when they were making the M2? (Ed. note: The abandoned successor to the original 3DO hardware)

BB: Yeah, they ran into problems because of the software. I don't know if you know this story, but Mark Cerny was consulting. He came in one day, and they had all these SGI guys, and they built this bloated retained mode scene graph renderer, and the games were running it at like two frames a second. It was terrible. Because they were used to much more powerful systems.

And Mark Cerny came in with this very tight little piece he had written in assembly language -- he's an awesome assembly coder -- and a very well-designed process data, taking into consideration how big the caches and the memory were on the system. It was really fast. He saved that whole project. So, yeah, I've got a ton of respect for Mark after witnessing that and [how] he rebuilt that whole project.

I really don't agree with you needing to buy a PC, either. The master race have spent the last 2 years telling you we can build a better PC than a PS4 for 50 quid and a packet of fags. So Sony haven't punted out some $700 machine this time. What will it take to continue the cycle next time? Who cares. But you're implying it'll need to be a monster to emulate this gen, whereas MS have emulated a console *still on sale* on the the machine everyone likes to rag on.

The way Microsoft achieved this isn't via the classical emulation route and relies on certain things, it isn't free for them to implement either. They'll take one for the team this round, will they next time if they ever get back to being top dog?

We seem to be in an interesting situation with regards to how BC the 3 platform holders are now.

Nintendo officially support near complete free BC for their last gen box, but removed 2 gen old BC, despite it being proven feasible by homebrew software.

Microsoft officially support partial free last gen BC, but don't do 2 gen old BC, even though you'd think a x86 Celeron and weedy Nvidia GPU system would be fairly trivial to implement on a modern x86 AMD and AMD GPU system.

Sony will officially support some form of 2 gen old BC now, but don't provide last gen BC natively.

[TehStu]

Spencer hasn't ruled out Xbox BC (and I think tweeted about him asking the dev team for it?), and said he would like to see 360 BC on Windows 10. I appreciate it isn't free - I work in enterprise software development, I know at least 8 months of time spent isn't cheap.

Of course, this could all be the same hot air that Boozy accuses Sony of. Will enjoy it while it lasts.

[Yoshimax]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-one-backwards-compatibility-for-original-xbox/1100-6432524/

No OG emulation anytime soon

[SeanR]

Guys, this is the ps4 thread, right?

[MW_Jimmy]

[Stanley]

Sorry, but the recent moves from MS has changed expectations. I'd like the others to do more now.

A few old, mainly shit games. It was the same last gen, and it changes nothing.

[TehStu]

Imagine pissing away all that money to promote a few old, mainly shit games that people already own. Bravo, Spencer.

[DC]

One of the sticks on my pad has something wrong with it. I can push fully up in Bloodborne and my man just stutters like I'm alternating between walking and running.

It's still in warranty (I think) but the fucking serial number is unreadable now. It would have either come from SimplyGames with the console or Tesco by itself, so assuming that neither of them want to help, has anyone else experienced this fault and fixed it by taking the pad to bits?

[rafaqat]

I'd contact Sony if the retailers fail you.

[SeanR]

One of the sticks on my pad has something wrong with it...

... the fucking serial number is unreadable now.

[Stanley]

Imagine pissing away all that money to promote a few old, mainly shit games that people already own. Bravo, Spencer.

So tell me what it changes?

[DocG]

So tell me what it changes?

You don't think it's possible that Microsoft, having created this emulator, might just continue to release games for it until they have a large collection of 360 games running on the XBone?

[SeanR]

[Stanley]

You don't think it's possible that Microsoft, having created this emulator, might just continue to release games for it until they have a large collection of 360 games running on the XBone?

I don't think it will amount to much. The list so far is uninspiring and they're at the mercy of publishers who'd rather you'd play their new Xbox One games. Anyone heavily invested in the 360 still, and plays it's games regularly, will still have their 360 set up. This has many advantages, mainly that it plays every game ever released for the system, and secondly it doesn't eat into their storage space. It's very unlikely we'll reach a point where someone can transfer their entire collection across. In that sense it's not really true backwards compatibility and therefore not much of a selling point. I think most people buying an Xbox One want to play Xbox One games, and Microsofts own stats and previous statements regarding BC only back this up.

[Kryptonian]

I disagree, there are good games on the list and it has been a feature for less than a month with more games to come. For people who don't want multiple consoles under the TV it's a good thing and to make a system that plays previous generations software like iOS is a sensible business decision to 'lock people in' if it continues to the next generation which is more likely now due to the architecture.

It's difficult to say it's not a selling point when there are a number of people (on here and presumably elsewhere) who have literally bought the console on the back of this.

[Alex W.]

I don't know where you got the impression that this was it from Microsoft's statements. Their announcement signed off with:

Stay tuned because this is just the beginning of a long list of Xbox 360 games that will run on Xbox One.

Which makes it sound like the initial 100 games is just a minority of the total amount they want to have working on Xbox One.

Even the web site says:

With over 100 titles available now, and hundreds more in the months to come

[PaB]

It's difficult to say it's not a selling point when there are a number of people (on here and presumably elsewhere) who have literally bought the console on the back of this.

It's easy. It's not a selling point. It never ever has been. A "number of people" on here (that number being what, 5? 10? 50?) is not going to make massive dent in Sonys lead. They could have full BC and it won;t make a jot of difference. It would be a cool feature to have, sure, but people buy consoles to play the latest games, not the ones they can already play, and it has always, always been this way.

[Clipper]

If only they streamed old games and allowed you to pay £12 a month for privilege.

[Stanley]

Well you're daft literally buying an Xbox One to play 360 games when you could save yourself a lot of money just playing them on a 360.

And how long will it be before you can ditch your 360 and have one console under your telly that plays everything? It will probably never happen. Like I said MS have made statements in the past intimating that very few users bother with the feature. The only reason they're doing it now is 1) It's a side effect of the technology invested in the Rare collection, so essentially not costing anything extra to develop and 2) They've had their hand forced by Sony who are outselling them. But as a value added feature it's pretty low down the list of reasons for buying a new system.

Look at the 360. They pretty much abandoned backwards compatibility after saying similar things about it on that system.