Is Backwards Compatibility Still Relevant? Digital vs Physical (A Response To LWNBPST1975)

Backwards compatibility or cross platform compatibility is something that was with us from the early days of computer & video games.

The Colecovision could play Atari 2600 games with an add-on, the Atari 7800 could play 2600 games, most Atari 8bit microcomputers were perfectly capable of running the same software.

Commodore only ever did backwards compatibility with the C128 vs the C64 and the Amiga range of computers.

Nintendo designed the Snes to be backwards compatible with the Nes but eventually strayed away from that. The WiiU, Wii, Gamecube and the Gameboy range of systems have some pretty decent backwards compatibility if only one generation prior on the disc based systems.

Sony had a good track record with backwardscompatibility with the PS2 and the PSOne/PSX but basically phased it out for the most part.

Microsoft is trying to make the Xbox iterations into a single platform (sort of – as it still is only including a small selection of games) which may be the thing to do when it comes to the future of videogames.

Sega did a great job with the Megadrive/Genesis and the way SMS games played on the system. All these backwards compatibility solutions prevented game libraries and investments from becoming obsolete. But with ownership changing in newer generations of consoles, this whole concept might evolve into something that can either be a good or a bad thing.

In this video I touch upon the various points that there are to make on backwards compatibility and I also touch on digital vs physical games as I do think that also plays a huge part in why backwards compatibility is or isn’t important. Of course I diverge from the topic here and there and it all is a bit of a tangent. But hey – that’s what I am all about. 😛

– hardware iterations within the same console generation
– digital vs physical games
– gaming as a service
– streaming, input lag & mpeg artefacts

Check out Dave’s aka Lawnboyspost1975 original video here:

Check out Dave’s aka Lawnboyspost1975 Channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSOyHZ6oTFWKpSMGcwS9l0A