[Video Game] Question about X-box 360.

[Red Infinity Ranger]

I just got an X-box 360 and I have a question that might be stupid. Am I able to play original X-box games on X-box 360? I ask because I grew up with Playstation and I know that you can't play PS 1 or 2 games on the PS 3. So I'm just wondering if its the same for X-box.

 

[Lynxara]

Certain Xbox games can be played on an Xbox 360, but not all of them. This is a pretty good list of what's compatible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_games_compatible_with_Xbox_360

 

[Red Infinity Ranger]

Thank you

 

[KingRanger]

I just got an X-box 360 and I have a question that might be stupid. Am I able to play original X-box games on X-box 360? I ask because I grew up with Playstation and I know that you can't play PS 1 or 2 games on the PS 3. So I'm just wondering if its the same for X-box.

Yes you can play PS1 games on the PS3.

 

[Dessa]

Yes you can play PS1 games on the PS3.

For the original discs, only some models of PS3 are backwards compatible.

 

[KingRanger]

For the original discs, only some models of PS3 are backwards compatible.

That is PS2. PS1 games are all playable via emulation software that all PS3's have.

 

[FlashNeko]

Yeah, it seems kind of weird on the surface but they removed the PS2 compatibility because of how expensive it was, but by that point the emulation software for letting PS1 discs run was so cheap and small there was no reason to take it out.

Thus you're left with the strange situation where the later models of PS3s can still run Blasto but not Soul Calibur II.

 

[kuroihikari]

I don't get the mechanics and economics behind that, honestly. If people can write an emulator for free on their spare time, why can't Microsoft and Sony improvise a port of emulators on their own systems?

At least that gives incentives to the owners of the old systems to upgrade to the newer one (at least for the better graphics and more functionality) if they've never been interested.

 

[Lynxara]

In order to emulate a system purely through software, your hardware must be exponentially more powerful than the original system in question. Computers now can emulate PS2 because they've got exponentially more powerful processors and more RAM, but the PS3 just wasn't exponentially more powerful than the PS2 at launch. For the PS3 to run PS2 games, it needed PS2 hardware shoved in the box, which was expensive. And at the time the PS3 came out, PS2 emulation on PC also didn't work very well yet, because most computers just weren't powerful enough to pull it off.

The Xbox 360 is just barely powerful enough to emulate some, but not all, Xbox games. And from what we know of the specs, the Xbox One simply is not powerful enough to software emulate 360 games at all. The PS4 also isn't powerful enough to software emulate the PS3, but there's rumors that Sony's working on some kind of crazy streaming solution to the problem that might let them sidestep their hardware limitations.