14th December 2007, 3:01 PM
Oh yes, I thought I'd rate the BC of the three systems as it stands right now.
Top of the list is the Wii. I mean, that's obvious. They may be bottom of the barrel in online support, but their BC is top notch. It's easy to see why. The Wii is basically just a Gamecube with improved specs. They even went as far as to include Gamecube controller and memory card ports, so it's not just fully compatible with every Gamecube game out there, it is fully compatible with every Gamecube accessory there is. The only things it can't do are use the Gameboy Player (which isn't so much a Gamecube incompatibility as it is as Gameboy incompatibility, but that's fine), and use the online adapters (moden and broadband). That latter one doesn't matter as the Wii has it's own built in online support, in the form of Wifi. Sure the LAN adapter needs to be bought seperatly, but pretty much everyone should have a Wifi supporting router by now. Really the only thing I can note is the lack of LAN mode in games that supported it. Mario Kart Double Dash, namely, and for some Phantasy Star Online. This could be easily fixed with an update to emulate that device using the Wii's Wifi/LAN adapter to do the job of the old broadband adapter (as for the moden, that would take some more clever fakes, but the only game that supports it also supports broadband so it's not needed at all). The only issue is that I wonder if the Gamecube is just hardcoded support outright and can't be modified via firmware in any way. That said, short of one small feature, Wii has the best BC right now.
PS3 is next in line, or to be more accurate, the original models. Aside from running games for two generations, the first model did it all natively. They had a good thing going, until they butchered it by removing PS2 chips down the line to reduce themselves to emulation for BC. The BC list is growing fairly fast compaired to the 360, but it still isn't nearly what the first model had. The big issue is hardware compatibility. Here's the info I've been able to get on this one. First, it doesn't have the old memory card ports. To transfer saves, one must get a seperate adapter and copy it all in there. That works fine for everything except the PocketStation. From what I've read, it apparently does detect it plugged in as a pocket station, with it's own icon and everything, but since that adapter itself can't be assigned to a memory card port, the problem is the games won't detect the "virtual memory card" as a pocket station. This could be fixed with a simple flag that tells all games that all virtual memory cards are pocket stations. Since that device was compatible with all games, that shouldn't pose a problem. There's still the issue of moving those save files for pocket station games back and forth though. It's also doubtful they will ever include a pocketstation emulator in either the PS3 or PSP (though I would assume such an emulator would be easy to code). The bigger issue though is the total lack of peripheral support. At least, officially. It seems that 3rd party companies have made special USB adapters for PS2/PS1 style controller things, to use the dance pads or guitars or light guns or whatever. Since the PS3 controllers can be hooked up via USB, the device just uses that method to pretend it's a PS3 controller, and when the PS2 or PS1 game takes over it just detects the addon controller for what it is and uses it that way. The problem they had for a while was that PS2 games apparently need you to press this "home" button on the controller when they start up. That seems a little odd anyway. One other solution would be adding emulation for modern controllers to be remapped to PS2 and PS1 game equivalents. They already do this with the PS3 controller anyway. So for example USB dance pads could be emulated to pretend to be the old PS2 dance pads. The last thing to note is while there is an addon download that lets PS2 games use the PS3's hard disk, it doesn't apparently work with all the games that can use it. FFXI and SOCOM 2 do, but Resident Evil Outbreak 1 and 2 apparently aren't supported. They are getting closer to total support, but the big issue is removing that important hardware needed for total compatibility. Sure they have the cheaper model everyone that could get a 360 can now afford, but people buying one and realizing only later that they can't play their PS2 games at all on it are going to be a little upset. I'm curious about the return rates of these new and improved sales... In terms of rumble, one can either use that 3rd party addon connector to use a PS2/PS1 controller or get one of those new rumble supporting PS3 controllers coming out soon.
Now the 360 is trying, I'll give them that, but they certainly have a lot of work cut out for them. They are steadily increasing the number of games one can play, and they are within reach of being able to emulate all the games that really matter (the good titles basically, both exclusives and ones that were ported to all 3 systems last gen), but they have a number of issues. On the one hand, they do one thing the other two don't, which is actually improve a small handful of games with higher resolution output and antialiasing applied. Some even have greater draw distances and less slowdown or load times. Besides that, most are emulated pretty much without error. However, a decent chunk of the emulated games are NOT flawless. A number have a couple errors in them, ranging from barely noticable to making the game almost unplayable. After finalizing the list of at least the games people are asking for, they really need to run back through that list and fix all the problems. One problem that recurs throughout all the games is that initial skipping when an original game is starting up, which according to MS is due to the initial spooling of the game's data to the hard disk. I can accept that, but I will note the original XBox did that spooling too but without cutting into the game. My suggestion is to go ahead and do the spooling before running the game. The initial startup will take a few seconds longer but it'll be smooth from then on. The second note is, just like the PS3, there's no peripheral support. Again a lot of this could be done by emulating modern USB equivilants to pretend to be the old controllers. The one controller they couldn't do this with is that big mech console thing from Steel Battalion. Short of just making a modern remake of that game, I don't see that one ever being properly emulated on the 360. One other thing to note is the 360 has no official method for transferring saved data. There's a number of unofficial methods, but they range from being not very effective (the ones that just let you connect the original system's memory cards won't be able to transfer a large number of saves for various reasons) to being downright impracticle for the average user (hacking the system with a mod chip to install custom firmware (kicking you off of Live on that system forever) and then transferring all the saved data to the 360 through another purchased addon). The best solution would be a software supported one, where the original and 360 could link up through added options in the firmware to transfer saved data between them.
Top of the list is the Wii. I mean, that's obvious. They may be bottom of the barrel in online support, but their BC is top notch. It's easy to see why. The Wii is basically just a Gamecube with improved specs. They even went as far as to include Gamecube controller and memory card ports, so it's not just fully compatible with every Gamecube game out there, it is fully compatible with every Gamecube accessory there is. The only things it can't do are use the Gameboy Player (which isn't so much a Gamecube incompatibility as it is as Gameboy incompatibility, but that's fine), and use the online adapters (moden and broadband). That latter one doesn't matter as the Wii has it's own built in online support, in the form of Wifi. Sure the LAN adapter needs to be bought seperatly, but pretty much everyone should have a Wifi supporting router by now. Really the only thing I can note is the lack of LAN mode in games that supported it. Mario Kart Double Dash, namely, and for some Phantasy Star Online. This could be easily fixed with an update to emulate that device using the Wii's Wifi/LAN adapter to do the job of the old broadband adapter (as for the moden, that would take some more clever fakes, but the only game that supports it also supports broadband so it's not needed at all). The only issue is that I wonder if the Gamecube is just hardcoded support outright and can't be modified via firmware in any way. That said, short of one small feature, Wii has the best BC right now.
PS3 is next in line, or to be more accurate, the original models. Aside from running games for two generations, the first model did it all natively. They had a good thing going, until they butchered it by removing PS2 chips down the line to reduce themselves to emulation for BC. The BC list is growing fairly fast compaired to the 360, but it still isn't nearly what the first model had. The big issue is hardware compatibility. Here's the info I've been able to get on this one. First, it doesn't have the old memory card ports. To transfer saves, one must get a seperate adapter and copy it all in there. That works fine for everything except the PocketStation. From what I've read, it apparently does detect it plugged in as a pocket station, with it's own icon and everything, but since that adapter itself can't be assigned to a memory card port, the problem is the games won't detect the "virtual memory card" as a pocket station. This could be fixed with a simple flag that tells all games that all virtual memory cards are pocket stations. Since that device was compatible with all games, that shouldn't pose a problem. There's still the issue of moving those save files for pocket station games back and forth though. It's also doubtful they will ever include a pocketstation emulator in either the PS3 or PSP (though I would assume such an emulator would be easy to code). The bigger issue though is the total lack of peripheral support. At least, officially. It seems that 3rd party companies have made special USB adapters for PS2/PS1 style controller things, to use the dance pads or guitars or light guns or whatever. Since the PS3 controllers can be hooked up via USB, the device just uses that method to pretend it's a PS3 controller, and when the PS2 or PS1 game takes over it just detects the addon controller for what it is and uses it that way. The problem they had for a while was that PS2 games apparently need you to press this "home" button on the controller when they start up. That seems a little odd anyway. One other solution would be adding emulation for modern controllers to be remapped to PS2 and PS1 game equivalents. They already do this with the PS3 controller anyway. So for example USB dance pads could be emulated to pretend to be the old PS2 dance pads. The last thing to note is while there is an addon download that lets PS2 games use the PS3's hard disk, it doesn't apparently work with all the games that can use it. FFXI and SOCOM 2 do, but Resident Evil Outbreak 1 and 2 apparently aren't supported. They are getting closer to total support, but the big issue is removing that important hardware needed for total compatibility. Sure they have the cheaper model everyone that could get a 360 can now afford, but people buying one and realizing only later that they can't play their PS2 games at all on it are going to be a little upset. I'm curious about the return rates of these new and improved sales... In terms of rumble, one can either use that 3rd party addon connector to use a PS2/PS1 controller or get one of those new rumble supporting PS3 controllers coming out soon.
Now the 360 is trying, I'll give them that, but they certainly have a lot of work cut out for them. They are steadily increasing the number of games one can play, and they are within reach of being able to emulate all the games that really matter (the good titles basically, both exclusives and ones that were ported to all 3 systems last gen), but they have a number of issues. On the one hand, they do one thing the other two don't, which is actually improve a small handful of games with higher resolution output and antialiasing applied. Some even have greater draw distances and less slowdown or load times. Besides that, most are emulated pretty much without error. However, a decent chunk of the emulated games are NOT flawless. A number have a couple errors in them, ranging from barely noticable to making the game almost unplayable. After finalizing the list of at least the games people are asking for, they really need to run back through that list and fix all the problems. One problem that recurs throughout all the games is that initial skipping when an original game is starting up, which according to MS is due to the initial spooling of the game's data to the hard disk. I can accept that, but I will note the original XBox did that spooling too but without cutting into the game. My suggestion is to go ahead and do the spooling before running the game. The initial startup will take a few seconds longer but it'll be smooth from then on. The second note is, just like the PS3, there's no peripheral support. Again a lot of this could be done by emulating modern USB equivilants to pretend to be the old controllers. The one controller they couldn't do this with is that big mech console thing from Steel Battalion. Short of just making a modern remake of that game, I don't see that one ever being properly emulated on the 360. One other thing to note is the 360 has no official method for transferring saved data. There's a number of unofficial methods, but they range from being not very effective (the ones that just let you connect the original system's memory cards won't be able to transfer a large number of saves for various reasons) to being downright impracticle for the average user (hacking the system with a mod chip to install custom firmware (kicking you off of Live on that system forever) and then transferring all the saved data to the 360 through another purchased addon). The best solution would be a software supported one, where the original and 360 could link up through added options in the firmware to transfer saved data between them.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)