[Update: The FAQ is now live on Xbox.com.]
As you all know by now, we recently released an update to the backwards compatibility emulator for the Xbox 360. After the release, we saw some questions online that we wanted to answer, so David Reid, Larry Hryb (Major Nelson), and folks from the product and support team met to get some answers to the most common questions. They'll be posting these comments on Xbox.com soon, but I wanted to get them to you as soon as I could.
If you’re interested in more detail, Larry did a great interview with David Reid in his latest blogcast—be sure to check it out.
I want to mention that the product team is definitely interested in your feedback. They read the comments left here and on MajorNelson.com, and they monitor your comments left in forums, and they read each email submitted.
How are you deciding what titles to work on next?
We’ve prioritized what’s on top of the list based on what we’re hearing from you. We’ve heard your feedback in the forums, and in email, and we have a good idea of what’s most important to the majority of you. A good example of that is the list we updated today, which includes titles from the Splinter Cell series. As we’ve mentioned before, some games are harder to do than other games. If your favorite title isn’t working, chances are, it’s honestly just taking longer.
When is the next release?
We have a team of some of the best developers at Microsoft dedicated to working on this. They are currently working on the next round of titles, and will update the emulator when dev and testing is complete for the next batch of titles. (To be honest about it, they’re taking a few weeks off for the holidays, and will start back to work in early January.) We’re not announcing any dates, because we honestly don’t know how long it’s going to take to do the next series of titles.
Why did you include some titles on the list that clearly weren’t as popular as others?
We’ll reiterate what Todd said in the original interview: “As we focused on the top sellers, we discovered that many other games worked due to similarities in their technology. As an added benefit, games that share engines and technology have been in some cases easier to certify for backward compatibility and have made the launch lineup as a result.”
So when we complete work on each update, we test every title in the library to see how they behave. Many games that shared similarities with the top-selling games we prioritized worked with the update, so we included them in the update. Additionally, many of the technically less ambitious games worked well also and those too were included with the update.
Are you intentionally trying to keep a game off the list because you want us to buy the 360 version?
Not at all. Our goal remains to get every title to be backwards compatible. The only things influencing what titles we’re working on are how popular the title is, and how easy it is to make backwards compatible. For example, both the Xbox 360 and original Xbox versions of Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland work on Xbox 360. Other original Xbox games which also shipped Xbox 360 have been more challenging, but we continue to work on those and hope to get them working on Xbox 360 as well.
Why aren’t newer games working?
Many of the games that have come out recently are more technically demanding than older titles, so they are taking longer. Our goal of updating every title hasn’t changed, and we’ll continue to prioritize our work based on your feedback.
Will new or future Xbox games be backward compatible?
That’s our goal. Reiterating Todd's Q&A: “We're not going to forget about the console that got us where we are today. Xbox still has a very bright future with many top-tier titles coming out from the world's best developers. To that end, we are working with developers to certify that their games will run on Xbox 360 down the line.”
What does it cost for the update/how do I get it?
There is no charge for the update. You can get the newest version one of three ways: 1) Xbox Live: Load an original Xbox title into the Xbox 360. If you’re connected to Xbox Live (Gold or Silver, either is fine) and have the hard drive, it will download it automatically as a system update. 2) You can download the software from Xbox.com, and burn it to a CD. Drop the CD into the Xbox 360, and it will load the update. 3) You can order a disc from Microsoft (you’ll pay shipping/handling). The update discs with the latest software are being created, and should be ready to order in the next several days. Allow time for shipping. You can find out more by checking out the how to article on Xbox.com.
Why isn’t the software on the box already?
There is a version of the emulator on the box (version 1.0 runs Halo and Halo 2, but only offline), which is all that was ready in August when manufacturing of hard drives and consoles began. The team worked on the first update right up until Nov. 21, and (as you see today), they continue to update the list. In the near future, new consoles will come with updated emulators, but you’ll still want to download the latest version if you can.
Can you add the software to the disc I get from Official Xbox Magazine, or on shipping Xbox 360 games?
Because we were making ongoing updates to the software, we weren’t able to get it on demo or games discs in time for launch. We think it’s a good idea, and we’re investigating it seriously for future games and demo discs.
How do I get the emulator to work? What if I have problems?
Detailed instructions on Xbox.com. We also have technicians standing by to help if you’re having problems. Call 1-800-4MYXBOX.
How do I give my feedback to the team?
Email backcomp@microsoft.com. We literally read every single email and we value the feedback as it helps us identify issues and prioritize our next round of titles. We're sorry that we aren’t able to reply to everyone directly. Please keep sending your thoughts—it really does make a difference in the product!
Here are some comments on some specific titles:
Some games have black boxes on either side when I play in 16:9 resolution. Can I stretch them to fit my screen? Some games were made to display only in a 4:3 ratio, so when outputting 720p/1080i, the emulator adds black bars on both sides of a 4:3 image. Because 720p and 1080i are inherently 16:9 widescreen video modes, most TVs will not allow the user to change between “stretched/full” mode and “normal/black bars” mode while displaying HD video. The Xbox 360 preserves the aspect ratio of the original game when upscaling games to 720p and 1080i. If you prefer to “stretch” the 4:3 image on your TV, you can work around this by changing your console’s video output to 480p (which TVs do not assume to be 16:9 widescreen).
Mortal Kombat Deception: In our first test passes, this game seemed to run fine, but after receiving feedback from the community we’ve discovered our emulation for MKD is not up to our quality bar yet, so we’ve removed it from the list for now and hope to get it back for you soon.
Ninja Gaiden/Ninja Gaiden Black: We’ve been able to play through the game in our labs here, but we’ve also been able to reproduce the errors folks in the community have uncovered so we are working on this and hoping to have an updated emulator for you to improve this.
Fight Night Round 2 and Incredibles Rise of the Underminer: We’ve heard the feedback from folks in the community on these games and are trying to reproduce the errors in our labs, from there we’ll set out to see if there are improvements we can make.
Jade Empire Limited Edition: Based on your feedback we were able to find the problem in our first emulator and have made the Monk Zheng content from the Jade Empire Limited Edition work in the second emulator, so you will be able to play with this character on Xbox 360.
Tetris Worlds: After getting your comments we investigated this more in our labs and learned there are problems with the online version of this game (the Xbox Live enabled version). While the offline (non-Xbox Live) version works fine, we will continue working on updating our emulator to make the online version work as well. You can tell whether a copy of this title is the offline or online version by looking at the package and seeing if there is an Xbox Live orange stripe near the top of the front of the package, just under the Xbox logo.