Console Wars: Why the XBox 360 Will Be Stupid

I will almost certainly get a PlayStation3 when it comes out.

I might get a Nintendo Revolution when it comes out.

I was not planning on getting an XBox 360 when it came out (have to draw the line somewhere), but someone online just pointed out a factor that makes me even more certain of my decision.

I don't think I've ever been outright down on the original XBox. There are, in fact, a small number of games that make me very jealous of XBox owners (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic being a major one.) But as compared with the other two consoles, there just weren't that many XBox only games that I really wanted. The system had a direction that didn't include quite enough of the kind of games I like to make buying it worthwhile.

Considering this, buying the 360 was never really a consideration. The other two systems will be able to play all of my current game library, plus a number of oldies if the Revolution's retro library pans out. Unless something very odd happened, like Final Fantasy suddenly going exclusive to XBox, there was just no reason to pick up the 360. But after what I've learned, I wonder if a lot of people who actually have XBoxes now might feel the same way.

We've known for a while that there will be two versions of the XBox available at launch. One is a "value priced" version, with only the basics included, pretty much system and controller. The more expensive premium package has some extra bells and whistles, like a headset for talking online, an ethernet cable, and a hard drive. Now you might be thinking that all this extra stuff is fun but fairly unnecessary. Think again. If you have a pile of XBox games sitting around and you want to play them on your shiny new 360, then you NEED that hard drive. That's right, the XBox360 is backwards compatible ONLY IF you have a hard drive for it. The hard drive can be bought separately if you have the core package for about $100. (If you are considering getting a 360 and want it to be backwards compatible with your XBox games, I would recommend the premium package, since the price difference equals the cost of the hard drive by itself and you get some extra goodies as well.)

But wait, it gets better, by which I mean worse. Y'see, your new system will be able to play only SOME of the XBox games you have now. As best I understand it, the hard drive of the 360 contains an XBox emulator much like the emulators for older console that I'm sure none of you have on your computers because it's illegal. The XBox emulator, however, can't handle every XBox games as is. Tweaks to its code will be needed to allow many games to be played. And because this takes time and work, Microsoft is going to have to pick some games for the honor of being playable on the 360. Isn't that nice?

Now to be fair, I checked the stats for the PS3 while writing this article to make sure there wasn't a similar thing going on. And in the interests of honesty, even the people at Sony are saying that the PS3 may not be 100% backwards compatible. Some PS2 and PSOne games just may not play on the new system. Given people's problems with some PS2s not playing various games and DVDs, we may well see the same thing in the new system. But at least they are able to aim for total backward compatibility, as opposed to the "array" of original XBox games you can play on the 360, according to the display ad in Toys R Us. I pretty much knew I'd be staying brand loyal with my consoles, but now I'm absolutely certain.