The lack of backwards compatibility on console is incredibly annoying

In the past few months, I've been eschewing newer games in favor of old classics. I already played some while others I've never touched. You might remember a thread where I asked about the best way to get into MGS. This is still a work in progress as my brother still has the PS1, PS2, and PS3.

I also purchased an Xbox One X this summer for Ninja Gaiden Black and II (but picked up some nice Xbox exclusives like Conker's Live and Reloaded, Fable 2(which sucks), Halo 5, and a few others).

What my entire quest made me realize is how utterly painful it is to play oldies on consoles. Jesus Christ. It's an absolute nightmare if you haven't kept your old machines. I learned this the hard way and will never sell them again. Anyway, my latest endeavor involved completing the original GOW trilogy. I have GOW3 Remaster on my PS4, but 1 and 2 are only available on PS2 or on PS3 with the HD collection. Enter PSNow. Tried it, but the lag is just too much and you get absolutely murked when trying to enjoy the game. A split-second frameskip is enough to throw you off on higher difficulties and screw up your run.

What's the best solution now? Yep. Emulators. This is ridiculous. I know a huge part of the blame falls on me. Who told me to lend/sell these consoles? Still, on PC this isn't a problem whatsoever. On Xbox, Microsoft has made some great efforts to make games all the way from the Xbox era available. Those that aren't are easily available on PC. Playstation? Yeah, sucker. If you didn't keep your console, use PSNow (assuming they have the games) or screw you).

It's a long-winded rant but PS3-era games especially are stuck in an odd place where they're not emulated properly, still sorta suck on PSNow, and aren't available on PS4/5.

/endrant

Yuup! Indeed. Still waiting on MS to bring that back.

Unfortunately emulators are the way to go. It is also the reason why I was a big fan of Microsoft Focus on backwards compatibility. There is a serious lack of options when it comes to playing older games on consoles. At the moment I'm working on emulating several different consoles for this very reason. We have the physical copies of the game but the lack of physical Hardware.

Why give backwards compatibility when you can charge for remasters?

@BassMan: BC games are charged as well. See: the Xbox store.

Just illegally emulate your games. Then don’t have to worry. I emulate Sony and Microsoft games all the time.

Sony dropped the ball this gen. I also really don't appreciate the lack of transparency. A year before PS5 dropped you'd see clickbait articles on gaming websites saying PS5 would be backwards compatible. They should've been honest upfront and said it would only play PS4 games. I pity the fool who may have sold an older console thinking PS5 would be Sony's jack of all trades lol

@mesome713: *remembers that other thread* Oh boy...

@mesome713: How do you emulate Microsoft games? There isn’t a decent Xbox emulator out there.

Not that I want the answer because I already have an Xbox One X, but the PS stuff, especially PS3 is just irritating.

It's annoying this time around on lack of BC. It's a good thing I keep my old consoles to avoid this problem.

Not if you already own the game. Meanwhile we have Nintendo, reselling old games at full price. 😂

Agreed. Hopefully this will no longer be an issue moving forward from here but we’ll see.

@Pedro: And you get on my case for bringing up stuff you never brought up, let alone mentioned at all. Hypocrite....

Still stands, you can buy BC games should you seek.

This time around both the PS5 and Series has strong BC with last gen.

Xbox Original games run well on the Xbox One and the Series consoles. The Xbox 360 games run very well on the Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles because there is Xbox 360 hardware built in to assist. The way they did it allowed them to exceed the original performance instead of simply running exactly the same way. Xbox started R&D for this well in advance.

But BC is more of an after thought on PS consoles.

We are talking about BC and systems no? You think we should mentioned Nintendo because they are the ABSOLUTE worse.😂

@Pedro: That would be up to the TC, don't you think?

Besides, Switch wasn't built for discs. And because everyone started hating Virtual Console when the Wii U came out, Nintendo, unfortunately sacked it.

I keep my old systems as well but I can’t have them all hooked up all the time so that whenever I get the urge to play a game from a previous gen I can fire it up at a moment’s notice. So much more convenient to just play it on a current gen system and with better performance to boot.

It is not for TC to decide, it is right there in the title. 😂 People hated on Virtual Console? 🤔 So, why are people requesting this feature so much then?

Its not as bad as Nintendo almost non existent BC efforts but I do am annoyed at Sony and Jim Ryan stand on this. His idiot statement of people dont play old game always makes me mad I replayed my fav games from 20-30 years ago from time to time. Great PS4 is supported on PS5 but the implementation does made me think its a decision based on reaction to xbox.

@Pedro: Why didn't he bring them up? Why didn't most others bring them up? Pretty sure Sony and MS had bigger promises.

"People hated Virtual Console?" Yes. Even Nintendo picked up on that. Otherwise, Switch would've seen it.

"So, why are people requesting this feature then?" Either hypocrisy or picking a poison between that and crappy subscription services.

Yeah, it sucks big time. Can't even play my PS2 games on my PS3, PS4 and PS5. Remasters are great, but not always perfect.

I blame the free pass the gaming community gave Sony with the PS4, and the lack of BC with that. Granted the PS3 titles were pretty much impossible considering the console architecture but I felt the free pass came from the digital PS1 and PS2 classics they had on the PS3 digital store and not honoring them with compatibility with the PS4 ecosystem. These are after all ISOs running in tandem with an emulator, and PS4 had working emulation for these systems, stands to reason they totally could have offered local play for PS1 and PS2 classics and honored past purchases and expanded on the catalog. Instead Sony tried pushing PS Now streaming BC, and a new tier of emulation with trophies and emulator enhanced resolution and justify an increase in price. Such a shame they didn't try building off the PS1/PS2 classics catalog they started building on PSN the prior gen, because that was a fantastic start. Arrogant Sony returned.

@mesome713: Troll level 100%

I sold all my PS2 games when my PS2 busted and I found out PS5 wouldn't have BC that far back. Sold the lot for $400 like 80 games, most were absolute classics. I miss them but don't at the same time. Conflicted.

Kept all my OG Xbox and 360 games though, I still pick up 360 physical games and OG Xbox games that support BC (still have a 360 but plan on picking up series X eventually) games like shadows of the damned (360) Brutal Legend (360) burnout 3 (og Xbox) mercenaries (og Xbox)

I buy up these og Xbox physicals and 360 games for this reason.

MS was smart to support BC of physical games.

I hate that this is a struggle for anyone who wants to play these old PS games. Honestly, even though I am a massive Sony fan, it is an area where they should be following Microsoft's lead. Having said that, anything older than PS3 is insanely painful for me to play and look at. Every time I see a thread like this, I'm trying to figure out if the OP is a masochist or trying to drum up SW criticism. I did see your other thread though and don't think this is the latter.

Husband and I booted up my PS2 last year as he wanted to play an RPG called Shadow Hearts that he had absolutely loved. He lasted 45 mins before he said it looked better in his memory lol. Anyway, if you are a masochist and still love your PS2, Shadow Hearts was pretty amazing for its time.

Hmm... never thought of this.

@nintendoboy16: Stop being foolish, this thread is about consoles and the fact that you think TC needs to explicitly mention Nintendo inorder for the one of three console manufacturer to be mentioned, shows how far gone you are with your cultish behavior. 😂

I mean, you need a mention if I bring something up to you, so...

Also, the casual throwing of the word "cult".

@Jendeh: first shadow hearts doesnt age well but the sequel, Shadow Hearts Covenant and sequel/Spin off Shadow Hearts: New World still looks pretty good.

Personally, I can't live without my Unreal Tournament 2004 bot match every now and then. Thank goodness I can play it on the same machine I play Total War: Warhammer II and Forza Horizon 4 on with a click of an icon.

With console makers seemingly switching to more ubiquitous architectures like ARM and x86 - and more importantly staying there - this should improve a bit in the future. Doesn't help with the games on niche architectures like PowerPC and MIPS of the past, unfortunately.

Eh, the Switch is the only recent Nintendo platform that isn't backwards-compatible.

The Wii could play Gamecube games. The Wii U could play Wii games. The GBA could play GB games. The DS could play GBA games. The 3DS could play DS games.

The Switch is an outlier - and to be fair, it's structurally very different to the 3DS (only one screen) and WiiU (one screen + no disc drive).

The Switch is not an outlier, its the new standard, the new Nintendo. If you think that the Switch 2 will bother with BC, you're lying to yourself. Instead, they will "remaster" a 720p game into a 900p one and sell it to you for $60.

If you bought a VC game on the Wii and then migrated over to the Wii U, Nintendo are nice enough to recognise that you've bought the game before and they let you buy it again... At a discount. Nintendo are unbelievable. I mean what is that? :-(

So because Nintendo are too useless to properly set up accounts for people, you just keep re-buying content?

In contrast, Xbox carries over most of your content three gens on. I say most, because I've noticed Street Fighter 3 Third Strike online, Street Fighter 2 HD Remix and Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting, and most of the old Spider-Man games don't show up on newer consoles. I think the latter, is compatibility, but I have a feeling Capcom is behind the Street Fighter games not carrying over, they're fishy like that. I imagine they want to keep forcing people to re-buy Street Fighter games over and over. A-holes.

The whole online system Nintendo has is so shitty that somebody needs to sue them for having such a shitty online infrastructure in 2021. Like it doesn't even make sense. The cult doesn't see this, tho. For them, its exactly as it should be🤢

They're so slow too. I remember thinking like 10 years ago or more, wouldn't it be cool for people if there was a fully online Pokemon game, and then more then 10 years later they do it. Things that make sense to most people they won't do.

But I don't know how that works without proper accounts and profiles.

Could you imagine how the latest ai and physics capabilities would be for Nintendo games if they actually tried?

The games people are hot for like more F-Zero GX sequel... Nothing. Do you remember how hot Star Fox 64 was lol? Then nothing and they just had shitty sequels down the line.

Going back to accounts/profiles, I don't kknow what it's like now, but Xbox and PS set those up in like 2006. 2006 MAN. It's 2021. Do they still use friend codes?

You still need to use your phone with a Nintendo app to chat with a friend🤣Like WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT? We're way beyond a meme at this point. And its Nintendo, nothing evolves there, so of course friend codes are still used. The company is hardstuck in 1991.🤦‍♂️

Your problem is with Sony, certainly not Microsoft here.

@shadyacshuns: not all games is BC on Xbox.

Most are though, BIG step up from what Sony is doing.

Same with PS4. Prior to that PS is pretty much king of BC. PS2, PS3, PSP and Vita all got some form of emulation. All consoles can do PS1.

PS4 and Switch is almost non existent and games that is BC, is either paywall or remastered.

PS5 is great at PS4 BC but come on, if PSP almost 15 years ago can do PS1 emulation why not these modern system.

Not most. But big step up from recent sony.

Tons of games got upgraded for PS4 pro and for PS5 and I'm grateful for that.

But I just want Sony to patch Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian for 4K/60/HDR.

I want Take two to patch the latest Mafia remake for PS5 and Xbox series.

On PC it's a given when you get more powerful hardware, you can play older games at better settings, higher resolutions (playing Call of Duty 2 and GTA V right now at high frames/resolution and it's bliss).

On consoles it's a gamble, I hate that.

it's the reason i still haven't made the jump to digital on console. still building trust my games will persist across generations. xbox are ahead in that regard. steam won that trust 15+ years ago

I've got a BC PS3 and and a PS5, so I can play almost every game released on PlayStation (Minus a few PS2 games that won't work on my BC PS3)

I don't play old games that often, and when I do it typically isn't more for a couple of hours. A lot of the games haven't aged that well, OR there are better ways to play them with more modern features.

I loved Star Wars Bounty Hunter as a Kid, but It's impossible for me to go back and play because it's a third person shooter with INVERTED ANALOG STICK CONTROLS. I physically can't play it anymore, ESPECIALLY after playing a modern sci fi 3rd person shooter like Returnal, which has really tight controls. The only way I could play Star Wars Bounty Hunter now is to emulate it and Re-button map the analog movement.

Not having PS1 and PS2 backwards compatibility was lame with the PS4, and pretty much inexcusable with the PS5. Sony can suck it.... but I'd probably pay money for something that could play PS2 + PS3 games with some enhancements (better performance mainly)

I appreciate what Microsoft did/ is doing on that front. If they didn't screw up the Xb One's reveal/launch so badly and were more competitive I bet they probably wouldn't have bothered so I guess some good did come out of that disaster.

It would've been nice if MS approach was the standard for the past 10 - 15 years.

And Nintendo.... lol ....

PC doesn't let me play classics easily either. I have two copies of Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. Neither work on my Win 10 system. They didn't work on any previous Windows either going back to XP. So unless I just so happen to have the only PC game that's not backwards compatible... don't give me that shit.