This is slight revisionist history, and overlooking key architectural differences.
Every XBox has largely been built on the same, or somewhat interchangeable CPU platforms and storage formats (it's always been some form of disc). That was most likely a matter of convenience for them in developing a new system, and making devkits easy to work around, but it has had the side effect of making backward comparability easier to handle. Sony has switched up architecture a couple of times, and Nintendo has really only kept the same exact storage format for all of two generations.
That aside, people are conveniently overlooking that the One launched without backwards compatibility. And it wasn't because they couldn't, they just didn't feel like putting in the work at the time. They didn't launch it until a few years into that generation, when they started their current Good Guy Microsoft campaign. Which, objectively speaking, comes off more as the nostalgia arm of a hearts and minds campaign than it does some grand gesture of games preservation.
That said, the practice of selling old games back to people as is is some lame shyt. If you're going to sell me a 10/15/20+ year old game again, I need it to either be cheaper than a standard full retail release, or have improvements warranting that price tag. Nintendo absolutely needs to be taken to task for bullshyt like the 3D All Stars collection. Those games were sold at standard retail, and were largely untouched aside from changing up mechanics that called for Wiimote inputs.
It's cool that Microsoft is giving people a way to play their old games, but let's not act like they're doing it for some grand philosophical reason, or that "You can play all your old games" should be looked at as something that is a universal selling point for all gamers.
Every XBox has largely been built on the same, or somewhat interchangeable CPU platforms and storage formats (it's always been some form of disc). That was most likely a matter of convenience for them in developing a new system, and making devkits easy to work around, but it has had the side effect of making backward comparability easier to handle. Sony has switched up architecture a couple of times, and Nintendo has really only kept the same exact storage format for all of two generations.
That aside, people are conveniently overlooking that the One launched without backwards compatibility. And it wasn't because they couldn't, they just didn't feel like putting in the work at the time. They didn't launch it until a few years into that generation, when they started their current Good Guy Microsoft campaign. Which, objectively speaking, comes off more as the nostalgia arm of a hearts and minds campaign than it does some grand gesture of games preservation.
That said, the practice of selling old games back to people as is is some lame shyt. If you're going to sell me a 10/15/20+ year old game again, I need it to either be cheaper than a standard full retail release, or have improvements warranting that price tag. Nintendo absolutely needs to be taken to task for bullshyt like the 3D All Stars collection. Those games were sold at standard retail, and were largely untouched aside from changing up mechanics that called for Wiimote inputs.
It's cool that Microsoft is giving people a way to play their old games, but let's not act like they're doing it for some grand philosophical reason, or that "You can play all your old games" should be looked at as something that is a universal selling point for all gamers.
”