Pc ( without emulation) vs xbox series x in terms of backward compatibility, which one is better ?

[Ayush008]

Hello guys,

 

I hope you all are doing well 

 

Stay safe and healthy 

 

Your opinions are highly valuable for me 

 

I know you all have quite depth knowledge regarding electronic gadgets stuffs..  so I thought to share this post with all of you. .

 

Would you be so kind to guide me your preference choice.

 

Please feel free to share you opinion..

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

What exactly is the question you're trying to ask?

[Ayush008]

12 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

What exactly is the question you're trying to ask?

Which one is better in terms of backward compatibility?

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, Ayush008 said:

Which one is better in terms of backward compatibility?

This is why you directly ask a question in the body of the message, not in a cryptic title.  

 

A modern PC can run just about any software ever written, counting emulation. (Of course emulators don't cover current or even last generation consoles effectively yet, but that's a moving window and there's plenty of native software in that time frame.) No console can touch that.

[TetraSky]

Obviously the PC... We can literally play games from the 90s if we wanted. Not to mention, with emulation, PC can have older console games as well. Which increases the catalogue of "backward compatible" stuff even more.

The only games that cannot be played anymore on PC, are the ones that were always online with their servers pulled down and a handful of ones that just don't play nice with emulation.

While Xbox... Well, you get xbox games. That's about it. You might be able to install retroarch for some older console gaming as well, but you're still limited to "console games". PC does PC games, Console games, phone games, browser based games and all that.

[Blue4130]

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Obviously the PC... We can literally play games from the 90s if we wanted.

90s? Nothing stopping from going back to the 70s.

[Needfuldoer]

9 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

90s? Nothing stopping from going back to the 70s.

Only the 70s?

[Blue4130]

5 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Only the 70s?

Eniac wasn't really gaming though. Since the op was talking about consoles, I took the leap that he meant for gaming, not General computing. But yes, pretty much any system can be emulated or used on a pc.

[Mark Kaine]

7 hours ago, Ayush008 said:

Hello guys,

 

I hope you all are doing well 

 

Stay safe and healthy 

 

Your opinions are highly valuable for me 

 

I know you all have quite depth knowledge regarding electronic gadgets stuffs..  so I thought to share this post with all of you. .

 

Would you be so kind to guide me your preference choice.

 

Please feel free to share you opinion..

 

 

no, because what's wrong with emulation?   

 

its like saying what's better, cars *without wheels* or bikes...

 

 

you only want confirmation for your, well, confirmation bias. not from me, sorry. 

[Mark Kaine]

6 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

This is why you directly ask a question in the body of the message, not in a cryptic title.  

 

A modern PC can run just about any software ever written, counting emulation. (Of course emulators don't cover current or even last generation consoles effectively yet, but that's a moving window and there's plenty of native software in that time frame.) No console can touch that.

last part is also kinda irrelevant because most console "exclusives" arent even worth mentioning *or* are just timed exclusives,  so can be played in a better state on pc after a while,  there's no reason not to wait, unless severe case of FOMO.

[starsmine]

Not sure why you are excluding emulators. But with modern front ends to "emulate" dos and scumm with dosbox and scummVM (not emulaters per se), you have most of the entire back PC catalog playable on modern machines. 

Are you counting 32bit mode windows as emulation rather then just compatibility layers?

 

scroll through GOG for just a fraction of old games you can play today

Also apparently scummVM is working on getting the first version of nancy drew engines to work. the developers just said screw that and remade the game because of how impossible it was to run on modern machines

[it_dont_work]

Probably depends on what platform you own more games for. 

[thrasher_565]

i dont think the xbox can play older games? unless they re make em on a eshop? but there no reason to own an xbox anyway when you can play all the new stuff on pc so... ya its cheaper then a pc but you can do so much more with it...

emulators are better then what any consols can put out even if you emulate the xbox.

[Ayush008]

14 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

no, because what's wrong with emulation?   

 

its like saying what's better, cars *without wheels* or bikes...

 

 

you only want confirmation for your, well, confirmation bias. not from me, sorry. 

Thnx for sharing your opinion @Mark Kaine. I appriciate it. Actually I don't have any access to emulation, Playing old titles on pc is quite complicated like wide screen issue, bugs, glitches n all... so I have purchased series x, as I have heard it support backward compatible games.

[Ayush008]

8 hours ago, starsmine said:

Not sure why you are excluding emulators. But with modern front ends to "emulate" dos and scumm with dosbox and scummVM (not emulaters per se), you have most of the entire back PC catalog playable on modern machines. 

Are you counting 32bit mode windows as emulation rather then just compatibility layers?

 

scroll through GOG for just a fraction of old games you can play today

Also apparently scummVM is working on getting the first version of nancy drew engines to work. the developers just said screw that and remade the game because of how impossible it was to run on modern machines

Thnx @starsmine, for sharing your opinion. I appreciate it. I dont have access to emulation. Without emulation, playing game on pc is like car without wheels, plus I have heard there are lot of issue playing old games on mordern machine, so I have purchased series X.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Ayush008 said:

Thnx @starsmine, for sharing your opinion. I appreciate it. I dont have access to emulation. Without emulation, playing game on pc is like car without wheels, plus I have heard there are lot of issue playing old games on mordern machine, so I have purchased series X.

If you have access to the internet, then you have access to emulation. Unless you are forbidden from installing software on the computer.

[Ayush008]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

If you have access to the internet, then you have access to emulation. Unless you are forbidden from installing software on the computer.

But I guess now it too late, as I have purchased series x and I don't want to this deal...

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Ayush008 said:

Thnx for sharing your opinion @Mark Kaine. I appriciate it. Actually I don't have any access to emulation, Playing old titles on pc is quite complicated like wide screen issue, bugs, glitches n all... so I have purchased series x, as I have heard it support backward compatible games.

yes, but then the answer is still pc.

 by a country mile.

 

i think the question you should be asking is "how can i get emulators and older games working on pc?"

 

because if you just say emulation etc doesn't work for you then what's even the question,  consoles are your only choice,  which frankly often is not a great experience and game selection is limited,  that doesn't mean it cant be fun, it just means its not easy or even possible for any of us to answer your question in a way that would be helpful to you,  because again,  yes, yes, backwards compatibility is better on pc *especially* because emulation exists. 

[Mark Kaine]

11 hours ago, starsmine said:

Not sure why you are excluding emulators. But with modern front ends to "emulate" dos and scumm with dosbox and scummVM (not emulaters per se), you have most of the entire back PC catalog playable on modern machines. 

thats the thing, literally *all* dos games are playable for example (ok maybe 99%) and dosbox is extremely easy to install  - i have *no* idea how it works, and still had no issues to get it working lol.

 

And there's emulators for browsers too! even simpler lol

 

 

pcsx2 is also very easy to use,  all you need is a pc and a (probably external) dvd drive... it even "auto patches" games with wide-screen fixes, etc...

 

emulation will never be this good on consoles,  for playstation especially. 

 

 

i even got CXBX running,  which is a bit more involved,  you have to kinda "compile" your games first...

 

 

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[Thaldor]

Not to forget the tiny little part where most of the time you will need a PC to run emulators on consoles.

 

And seriously, without emulators we are talking about a media machine that can run whatever the manufacturer in their high and mighty gracious let's you run on it vs. a thing that just runs anything it can. Modern consoles have ZERO backwards compatibility, that you can download and run digital versions of older generation console games isn't backwards compatibility, that is emulation. As in, we aren't talking about taking PS1 game disc and stuffing it into PS2 and the console doesn't even care and just runs the game, that's backwards compatibility, that you can download old game to your console is emulation and that is exactly what Xbox Series X does with old games (when you insert original Xbox game into it and it prompts to install the game, it really downloads the game and emulator from Microsoft and runs that, the disc is only used to validate you have the game).

 

Strictly with that Xbox Series X has zero backwards compatibility while PC has probably around 20 years of direct backwards compatibility (I would think you can just install Morrowind on Windows 11 and it doesn't even care that the game is now 21 years old). With emulation without any modding included Xbox Series X goes as far as Original Xbox while PC goes all the way to the dawn of computer games. With modding you get the SeriesX to go Retroarch and get the old consoles outside of Microsoft emulated ones but you are still far from running 1971 The Oregon Trail made for HP 2100 on SeriesX but your Ultimate Cyber Dick 5,000,000 with all the bells and whistles and the extremely needed dual RTX 4090's will happily run it, if you can find it, but you can easily run the 1975 Apple II Oregon Trail on your browser (the 1971 is a bit hard to find since it was never really published outside of the source code released in 1978, and if we are nitpicky the 1975 is also just a port on Apple II published in 1978).

[Kisai]

On 9/16/2023 at 3:15 AM, Ayush008 said:

Your opinions are highly valuable for me 

 

I know you all have quite depth knowledge regarding electronic gadgets stuffs..  so I thought to share this post with all of you. .

 

Would you be so kind to guide me your preference choice.

 

Windows has indefinite backwards compatibility, just a question of how much you want to work for it.

 

All DOS/16-bit era games can be run on 32-bit and-64bit windows under certain conditions. Under 32-bit windows, MOST DOS games work, but require a special sound driver installed into the NTVDM, 64-bit, ZERO 16-bit games work. That's where Dosbox, or PCEM works. Most DOS era games in the S3Virge-3DFX-TNT2 era of 1993-1996 as well as early Windows 95/98 games are entirely unplayable as well as ALL Win3.x games are unplayable on 64-bit Windows, as well as 32-bit windows.

 

That said, Windows compatibility for Directdraw/Direct3D up to DX7 is somewhat of a clusterf*ck, most games work, but to make them work on Windows XP and later without being recompiled usually requires:

- not running in 256 colors and not in 15bit/16-bit color mode (because no control over the GPU Palette)

- not running full screen (because they have no control over the GPU palette)

- not using DirectPlay, DirectMusic (Games using either of these, will either not work, or have errors trying to initialize)

 

To make games that aren't 32-bit color and might be full screen work, you need the "DX Windower" software, which basically just wraps calls to the functions that would switch it into full screen. Likewise 3DFX Glide wrappers exist as well (and was largely a result of trying to get early N64/PSX emulators to run on non-3DFX hardware, their use with native PC games only came after the demise of 3DFX.)

 

Now compare that to game consoles:

NES - original model, does not work on HDMI-only systems. Upscalers exist, but that's an expense and not one anyone short of a speedrunner needs. Alternative is the NT Mini and AVS. Both of these solve the problem with needing HDMI output, work with the original cartridges, or can have firmware unlocked to just play (YOUR)  games off SD cards. Super NT, and Mega SG accomplish the same for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis/Master System/GameGear respectively.

SNES - most original model SNES/SFC's are dead. Period. The only way to play original carts is with late-model SNES's before the 1-chip model and or with the Super NT as stated above.

Sega Master System, Genesis(Megadrive), SegaCD, and 32X - The Master System/SG3000 exists in a power base converter for the Genesis, likewise the SegaCD and 32X require a real genesis to work. The MegaSG above can work with the real accessories, but it's a bit more complicated due to how the devices interface with each other. Suffice it to say, software emulation on a PC is probably the better option for "SEGA" titles such as as the SEGA collections available on Steam.

 

Other 8-bit and 16-bit consoles/computers: Many original model gameboy/gameboy advance and DS units still work. Atari, Amiga, Apple, various Japanese computers, and so forth... There is presently no existing way to play any ATARI, Amiga, Apple, or Japanese computers without the original hardware, other than a handful of Atari (2600) first party games that have been ported to other platforms. Next to no Amiga or Apple (Apple II, IIgs, and 68K Mac) exclusive games have ever been ported to the PC, and usually those that did, were inferior, or performed worse on the PC due to the lack of sound hardware.

 

In fact there is somewhat of a void of games that were released for Apple II computers and early Macintosh's due to the inability to read the flippy diskettes by PC's. Amiga computers could read PC diskettes but not the other way around. Yet more C64 and Amiga games have been preserved, and some Apple II software has been preserved, but rarely any of this stuff got ported to PC.

 

Playstation 1, 2,3,4,5. So backwards compatibility with the playstation was a bit of a "Depends on what version you have". Early PS2's had PS1 hardware in them. Early PS3's had PS2 hardware in them. Later models do not. PS4 and PS5's can not run PS3 games due to not having the hardware and can't recompile the software on the fly like a PC PS3 emulator can. PS5's have no excuse to not play PS4 titles.

 

Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, etc, Likewise, because Microsoft changed the CPU between the original Xbox and the 360, and then again with the One, pretty much no Xbox game has ever been completely backwards compatible. 

 

GameCube, Wii and WiiU are pretty much the same hardware, and other than the change to the optical drive, and omission of GC ports on the WiiU, there was really nothing stopping the WiiU from playing GC games.

The Switch uses an ARM chip, which is the same as the 3DS, DSi, DS, and GBA. There is no reason why any of these game are not running on the Switch. Nintendo could make them work and they choose not to.

 

In terms of backwards compatibility, Nintendo has had the longest running compatibility with the WiiU. Pity they decided to go in another direction and chose the "you will own nothing" model.

 

Which brings us back again to the PC.

 

The PC can play anything, depending on how bad you want to play it. No game console has a survivability rating high enough to ever justify "buying legacy console and games", because most of these legacy games on mask-ROM still work, but the majority of affordable legacy console games you find on eBay are counterfeit flashROM copies. The game developers already made their money on the physical cartridges and CD/DVD/BD games, and most of the optical media doesn't survive being handled and shipped.

 

So as much as I argue that the only reason PC emulators exist is to play pirated games, that IS true, but it's true because the developers choose to leave money on the table and not recompile their games for each new OS/Console that comes out. I can see why not to bother recompiling a PS2 era title for a PS5, you're unlikely to make the money back converting it. But porting it to the PC? Free money. Just do it, or encourage the fan community around the game to port it for you. Just give them the source code to the game engine and tell them to go nuts. Keep selling the game in a downloadable format for that effort.

 

Like in my opinion the success of Wolfenstien, Doom and Quake is owed to the original developers releasing the source code for the game engines. This spawned many 3D engines like Valve's "Source" engine. Even Unreal engine was developed because of seeing DOOM.

 

So if we talk about specific game titles only. The oldest PC games that can still be played, on a 64-bit version of Windows, would be versions of Wolfenstein and Doom that were recompiled for Windows.

 

There are of course other ways to get there, ScummVM will also play games going back to the 80's on Windows/MacOS but these are re-implementations of the game engines, and tend to always fall just a little bit short of what emulating the game would offer. (Sometimes you just want to play games the way they were intended, and ScummVM falls short for titles that were intended to be played with MT-32 or General Midi due to requiring additional third party copyrighted materials to be present that aren't easy to setup.)

 

So for most PC games, it largely depends on the effort you want to make. If you just want to go to Steam and hit install, most of the games in STEAM will install, and require no tinkering. If you go to GOG, most of the games require tinkering, sometimes quite a bit if they use dosbox or scummvm, as usually the out-of-the-box experience always falls short for the reason I mention above.  If a game was originally released on Windows 95, or 98, then often DXWindower or Glide wrappers are included or required to be installed/updated to make the game work at all.

 

But Backwards compatibility on Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo is extremely lackluster, and it shows a lack of care and a push towards "You will own nothing, you will rent access, and you will be happy with that" type of rent seeking of entertainment instead of buying games and playing them on your own terms. 

 

The correct way to keep selling games on new platforms is to recompile the game to operate natively, write a wrapper if necessary to support the new API, just don't shelve games that were working on previous consoles. But more to the point, don't punish people for refusing to buy a new version that just wraps the previous version. I've pointed out before that the game ROM's for the SEGA collection, are literately in the game directory and you could just use any master system/genesis emulator you wanted to, including the MegaSG. Likewise, SEGA itself has implemented emulators inside the Yakuza games to play several of the arcade versions of their games. We might not see any more of that since SEGA no longer owns the arcade business, but the arcades games in Yakuza were "period accurate" more or less, or parodies of games that actually existed in SEGA arcades.

 

At any rate there is no reason to exclude "emulation" if you can obtain a game legally from the developer. As we've seen... even developers seem to think it's okay to pirate games. Thus making the argument about media shifting more legitimate, as long as you have a physical copy, it doesn't matter how you got the digital one.

 

[Ayush008]

1 hour ago, Thaldor said:

Not to forget the tiny little part where most of the time you will need a PC to run emulators on consoles.

 

And seriously, without emulators we are talking about a media machine that can run whatever the manufacturer in their high and mighty gracious let's you run on it vs. a thing that just runs anything it can. Modern consoles have ZERO backwards compatibility, that you can download and run digital versions of older generation console games isn't backwards compatibility, that is emulation. As in, we aren't talking about taking PS1 game disc and stuffing it into PS2 and the console doesn't even care and just runs the game, that's backwards compatibility, that you can download old game to your console is emulation and that is exactly what Xbox Series X does with old games (when you insert original Xbox game into it and it prompts to install the game, it really downloads the game and emulator from Microsoft and runs that, the disc is only used to validate you have the game).

 

Strictly with that Xbox Series X has zero backwards compatibility while PC has probably around 20 years of direct backwards compatibility (I would think you can just install Morrowind on Windows 11 and it doesn't even care that the game is now 21 years old). With emulation without any modding included Xbox Series X goes as far as Original Xbox while PC goes all the way to the dawn of computer games. With modding you get the SeriesX to go Retroarch and get the old consoles outside of Microsoft emulated ones but you are still far from running 1971 The Oregon Trail made for HP 2100 on SeriesX but your Ultimate Cyber Dick 5,000,000 with all the bells and whistles and the extremely needed dual RTX 4090's will happily run it, if you can find it, but you can easily run the 1975 Apple II Oregon Trail on your browser (the 1971 is a bit hard to find since it was never really published outside of the source code released in 1978, and if we are nitpicky the 1975 is also just a port on Apple II published in 1978).

Thnx for sharing your opinion @Thaldor, I appricate the way you explain it to me. Thnx for putting your energy, vaulable time and efforts. I appriciate it from bottom of my heart. I don't have any knowledge regarding emulators, so I have purchased Series X, as I know it supports original xbox games too..

[Ayush008]

Just now, Ayush008 said:

Thnx for sharing your opinion @Thaldor, I appricate the way you explain it to me. Thnx for putting your energy, vaulable time and efforts. I appriciate it from bottom of my heart. I don't have any knowledge regarding emulators, so I have purchased Series X, as I know it supports original xbox games too..

I hope my Xbox will not be wasted.

[Ayush008]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Windows has indefinite backwards compatibility, just a question of how much you want to work for it.

 

All DOS/16-bit era games can be run on 32-bit and-64bit windows under certain conditions. Under 32-bit windows, MOST DOS games work, but require a special sound driver installed into the NTVDM, 64-bit, ZERO 16-bit games work. That's where Dosbox, or PCEM works. Most DOS era games in the S3Virge-3DFX-TNT2 era of 1993-1996 as well as early Windows 95/98 games are entirely unplayable as well as ALL Win3.x games are unplayable on 64-bit Windows, as well as 32-bit windows.

 

That said, Windows compatibility for Directdraw/Direct3D up to DX7 is somewhat of a clusterf*ck, most games work, but to make them work on Windows XP and later without being recompiled usually requires:

- not running in 256 colors and not in 15bit/16-bit color mode (because no control over the GPU Palette)

- not running full screen (because they have no control over the GPU palette)

- not using DirectPlay, DirectMusic (Games using either of these, will either not work, or have errors trying to initialize)

 

To make games that aren't 32-bit color and might be full screen work, you need the "DX Windower" software, which basically just wraps calls to the functions that would switch it into full screen. Likewise 3DFX Glide wrappers exist as well (and was largely a result of trying to get early N64/PSX emulators to run on non-3DFX hardware, their use with native PC games only came after the demise of 3DFX.)

 

Now compare that to game consoles:

NES - original model, does not work on HDMI-only systems. Upscalers exist, but that's an expense and not one anyone short of a speedrunner needs. Alternative is the NT Mini and AVS. Both of these solve the problem with needing HDMI output, work with the original cartridges, or can have firmware unlocked to just play (YOUR)  games off SD cards. Super NT, and Mega SG accomplish the same for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis/Master System/GameGear respectively.

SNES - most original model SNES/SFC's are dead. Period. The only way to play original carts is with late-model SNES's before the 1-chip model and or with the Super NT as stated above.

Sega Master System, Genesis(Megadrive), SegaCD, and 32X - The Master System/SG3000 exists in a power base converter for the Genesis, likewise the SegaCD and 32X require a real genesis to work. The MegaSG above can work with the real accessories, but it's a bit more complicated due to how the devices interface with each other. Suffice it to say, software emulation on a PC is probably the better option for "SEGA" titles such as as the SEGA collections available on Steam.

 

Other 8-bit and 16-bit consoles/computers: Many original model gameboy/gameboy advance and DS units still work. Atari, Amiga, Apple, various Japanese computers, and so forth... There is presently no existing way to play any ATARI, Amiga, Apple, or Japanese computers without the original hardware, other than a handful of Atari (2600) first party games that have been ported to other platforms. Next to no Amiga or Apple (Apple II, IIgs, and 68K Mac) exclusive games have ever been ported to the PC, and usually those that did, were inferior, or performed worse on the PC due to the lack of sound hardware.

 

In fact there is somewhat of a void of games that were released for Apple II computers and early Macintosh's due to the inability to read the flippy diskettes by PC's. Amiga computers could read PC diskettes but not the other way around. Yet more C64 and Amiga games have been preserved, and some Apple II software has been preserved, but rarely any of this stuff got ported to PC.

 

Playstation 1, 2,3,4,5. So backwards compatibility with the playstation was a bit of a "Depends on what version you have". Early PS2's had PS1 hardware in them. Early PS3's had PS2 hardware in them. Later models do not. PS4 and PS5's can not run PS3 games due to not having the hardware and can't recompile the software on the fly like a PC PS3 emulator can. PS5's have no excuse to not play PS4 titles.

 

Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, etc, Likewise, because Microsoft changed the CPU between the original Xbox and the 360, and then again with the One, pretty much no Xbox game has ever been completely backwards compatible. 

 

GameCube, Wii and WiiU are pretty much the same hardware, and other than the change to the optical drive, and omission of GC ports on the WiiU, there was really nothing stopping the WiiU from playing GC games.

The Switch uses an ARM chip, which is the same as the 3DS, DSi, DS, and GBA. There is no reason why any of these game are not running on the Switch. Nintendo could make them work and they choose not to.

 

In terms of backwards compatibility, Nintendo has had the longest running compatibility with the WiiU. Pity they decided to go in another direction and chose the "you will own nothing" model.

 

Which brings us back again to the PC.

 

The PC can play anything, depending on how bad you want to play it. No game console has a survivability rating high enough to ever justify "buying legacy console and games", because most of these legacy games on mask-ROM still work, but the majority of affordable legacy console games you find on eBay are counterfeit flashROM copies. The game developers already made their money on the physical cartridges and CD/DVD/BD games, and most of the optical media doesn't survive being handled and shipped.

 

So as much as I argue that the only reason PC emulators exist is to play pirated games, that IS true, but it's true because the developers choose to leave money on the table and not recompile their games for each new OS/Console that comes out. I can see why not to bother recompiling a PS2 era title for a PS5, you're unlikely to make the money back converting it. But porting it to the PC? Free money. Just do it, or encourage the fan community around the game to port it for you. Just give them the source code to the game engine and tell them to go nuts. Keep selling the game in a downloadable format for that effort.

 

Like in my opinion the success of Wolfenstien, Doom and Quake is owed to the original developers releasing the source code for the game engines. This spawned many 3D engines like Valve's "Source" engine. Even Unreal engine was developed because of seeing DOOM.

 

So if we talk about specific game titles only. The oldest PC games that can still be played, on a 64-bit version of Windows, would be versions of Wolfenstein and Doom that were recompiled for Windows.

 

There are of course other ways to get there, ScummVM will also play games going back to the 80's on Windows/MacOS but these are re-implementations of the game engines, and tend to always fall just a little bit short of what emulating the game would offer. (Sometimes you just want to play games the way they were intended, and ScummVM falls short for titles that were intended to be played with MT-32 or General Midi due to requiring additional third party copyrighted materials to be present that aren't easy to setup.)

 

So for most PC games, it largely depends on the effort you want to make. If you just want to go to Steam and hit install, most of the games in STEAM will install, and require no tinkering. If you go to GOG, most of the games require tinkering, sometimes quite a bit if they use dosbox or scummvm, as usually the out-of-the-box experience always falls short for the reason I mention above.  If a game was originally released on Windows 95, or 98, then often DXWindower or Glide wrappers are included or required to be installed/updated to make the game work at all.

 

But Backwards compatibility on Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo is extremely lackluster, and it shows a lack of care and a push towards "You will own nothing, you will rent access, and you will be happy with that" type of rent seeking of entertainment instead of buying games and playing them on your own terms. 

 

The correct way to keep selling games on new platforms is to recompile the game to operate natively, write a wrapper if necessary to support the new API, just don't shelve games that were working on previous consoles. But more to the point, don't punish people for refusing to buy a new version that just wraps the previous version. I've pointed out before that the game ROM's for the SEGA collection, are literately in the game directory and you could just use any master system/genesis emulator you wanted to, including the MegaSG. Likewise, SEGA itself has implemented emulators inside the Yakuza games to play several of the arcade versions of their games. We might not see any more of that since SEGA no longer owns the arcade business, but the arcades games in Yakuza were "period accurate" more or less, or parodies of games that actually existed in SEGA arcades.

 

At any rate there is no reason to exclude "emulation" if you can obtain a game legally from the developer. As we've seen... even developers seem to think it's okay to pirate games. Thus making the argument about media shifting more legitimate, as long as you have a physical copy, it doesn't matter how you got the digital one.

 

Thnx @Kisai,for your massive information...it means alot to me. I really appreciate your efforts.....You have a massive knowledge regarding ps stuffs n consoles.....

[BrandonLatzig]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

you will own nothing" model

I disagree with this, simply because the switch uses cartridges with the game data on them unlike ps5 and xbox, which  need downloading