Opinion: PS4 and XBOX ONE Backwards Compatibility

In this article I will offer my opinions and try to see both sides of the backwards compatibility (henceforth known as BC) issue.

As stated in the "Console Wars" article, neither the XBOX ONE or the PS4 are going to support previous generation games by way of being able to pop the disc in and fire it up.  Both companies have plan in place for BC, but that isn't what this article is about.  Lets talk about them not supporting the older games straight out of the box the conventional way.

If we look back at the launch of the XBOX 360 and the PS3 we can see that the two consoles had different price points.  The XBOX 360 came in two flavors and they cost $299 and $399.  The first version of the PS3 cost $599.  Part of that huge cost was due to the fact that they had to shell out $$ for R&D to figure out how to basically shove a PS2 into the box along side the PS3 ciruit board.  The XBOX 360 was not BC per se, but instead Microsoft left it up to developers to write in BC support for their Original XBOX games.

Sony doesn't look to repeat its past mistake.  They are leaving BC out at launch to keep the price on the console down to be able to compete in the market.  The company has a plan for supporting all old titles from PS1 to PS3 in the future via the cloud streaming service GAIKAI that they acquired.  We'll have to see how that develops as the life cycle plays out.

From the point of view of someone like me, BC is not so much of an issue.  When I buy a new system it is because I am interested in what it has to offer that its predecessor did not.  I am not interested in if it will let me play all the games I've already played on another system.  The future of games is what I'm in the new console generation for.  I want Halo 5, Grand Theft Auto V, Watchdogs, etc.  I'm not really concerned about if I can play Halo 4, GTA IV, or Final Fantasy 13 on it.

If we look at it from another point of view though, we can see that there are people out there that have large game collections.  They feel like the amount of money they invested in their collection should be taken into consideration with the new generation of consoles.  A lot of older games are still fun and people really do want to be able to carry those games over with them to the new hardware.  I don't really blame them because even though BC isn't a big deal to me, that doesn't mean that it isn't to someone else.

Having said that, it would be cool if I could pop Halo 4 into the XBOX ONE and play it when I wanted to, but the fact that I won't be able to do that doesn't sway me from wanting to buy an XBOX ONE.  I will likely just keep my XBOX 360 until such a time as I realize it has been months since I've used it.

BC is something I think both companies have discussed amongst themselves at length.  Seeing how both of them have some kind of plan in place to support it should make people hopeful.  The way it works might not appeal to people because you may end up having to pay for the service, but the option is there nonetheless.

Does the cost increase of including BC matter to you?

Would you pay more for a console if it supported your old games?

Feel free to comment in the comments section below, and stay tuned to Big Ups Gaming for more articles like this one.  Thanks for reading!