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| Re: backwards compatibility = recompiled games | |
| Posted By: Evergreen98 <evergreen98@the-junkyard.net> | Date: 5/19/05 9:21 a.m. |
In Response To: backwards compatibility = recompiled games (3Suns) : http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=8996 : Check out the article above. Halo games are top of the list. : Cheers,
Noticed this one this morning. We've been having a slightly technical discussion about backwards compatibility over at The Junkyard forums, and a possible way that these recompiled games might get distributed would be over Xbox Live... The original thread is at http://forums.the-junkyard.net/showthread.php?t=7278
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* Microsoft ships the Xbox Guide/Dashboard/whatever they're calling the UI for Xbox 360 with a few basic features; specifically, recompiled XBE's (which have now become XEX's, Xenon EXecutables) for Halo and Halo 2. If "recompiling" means what I think it means, they can simply grab a copy of the latest game build from Bungie, tweak various platform features (big-endian platform - if that affects anything) and dump out a new executable stub. * The XEX stub will effectively *be* the same as the original XBE, except compiled/optimized for the new platform. I'm definitely trivializing the process of porting games to the PPC architecture, but it is possible - all the Xbox games I've seen ship with the main XBE file as something like 3-10MB in size, with all the resources, textures and sounds stored in giant "tomes" or volumes (Halo/Halo 2's .map files, DOA-series games), or sounds/textures stored as separate WMA/ADPCM WAV files (KOTOR, KOTOR2.) * Xbox Live allows them to push out updates to the games - which means that if Microsoft can either convince developers to recompile their code or get the code themselves (1st party developers), they can just download the updated XEX from Xbox Live when the disc is inserted. What's more, the process would be transparent to users except for the "first run" - in which the console connects to XBL, verifies the disc, downloads the XEX, and then runs it, using the resources from the original DVD drive. * This way, they don't have to redistribute DVDs or force the download of 4GB games over Xbox Live - all they need to do is include the stub launcher as the download, and only make it accessible when the original disc is inserted into the drive. * Oh, did I mention they can charge for stuff like this with "Xbox Live Marketplace", if they should so want? -.- * So... it is highly likely that any games other than Halo/Halo 2, which are "backwards compatible" (the process is crude and clunky compared to how the PS3/PS2 implemented it) will only be first-party games with spare development budgets. Microsoft may have to provide developers with some incentives for recoding some of the parts of the game as well... ---
I'll definitely be following this thread and this situation with interest, though. It's entirely possible that Microsoft could go back to a "redistribution" system with pressing the game discs again, but a far more likely scenario would be either a) free backwards compatibility updates over Live or b) hey, why don't you download all your old games again - for a fee? It all comes down to money. | |
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