My Thoughts On Backwards Compatibility In Games & Media – a waffle on camera

In the past Sega, Sony, Nintendo as well as Microsoft have provided backwards compatibility to some extend on their systems. With the newest iteration of consoles, with the lucky exception of the Nintendo WiiU both Microsoft and Sony broke away from that and offered non backward compatibility whatsoever.

Now recently Microsoft unveiled a new backwards compatibility with 360 games both in digital download as well as physical media without any extra costs to the gamer at E3 2015. It has become a topic of a little controversy. Some say Microsoft should leave the past the past and should focus on the future and don’t bother with something like that. Others embrace it and say Sony should do the same. Sony could do the same as their console is powerful enough to at least offer PS1 and PS2 backwards compatibility in software.

In this video I discuss what I think about backwards compatibility in general. Is it a good or is it a bad thing? Is it something we need? Is it something the new consoles should strive to offer?

Back in the day physical backwards compatibility actually was the norm for a lot of systems:
Atari: 2600 to 7800
Nintendo: Gameboy to Gameboy Colour to Gameboy Advance to DS
Nintendo: DS to 3DS to New 3DS
Nintendo: Wii to WiiU
Sega: Master System to Genesis / Megadrive
Sega: Genesis/Megadrive to 32x
?? Sony: Playstation 1 to 2 to 3 (partially) to ?
?? Microsoft: Xbox to Xbox360 (partially) to Xbox One ?