Microsoft may have run into a minor hiccup in their plans for backwards compatability for Xbox games on the Xbox 360. MS does not own the silicon in the original Xbox. So including the licenced hardware in the X360 for backwards compatability was difficult from many points of view, not least the costs.
However backwards compatability is a must have feature and Microsoft have promised it. Backwards compatability will be performed using software emulation. Here's the hiccup. Emulating the Nvidia GPU from Xbox will require MS to pay some royalties to Nvidia just as if the actual hardware were used.
Microsoft appear intent on using software patches delivered by Xbox live as well as software emulation in order to provide backwards compatability.
Reading somewhat between the lines this would seem to imply that with an X360 you can load your old Xbox game on the the hard disk and patch it for backwards compatability, and then run it in the Xbox emulation. If this is the case then it may be that you do not have to re-purchase older Xbox games for the X360. This would be a good thing. All speculation of course.
One last thing to note, when emulating hardware in software a great deal of performance is lost. If you look at the emulation of other game systems on todays PCs you can swiftly see that it is not perfect. Even classic emulations such as the MAME system have some grey areas, and you need a good P3 or low end P4 system just to accurately emulate an arcade machine from 20 years ago. The P3/P4 hardware is so many orders of magnitude faster than the arcade machine being emulated it almost doesn't bear thinking about. X360 is fast, but is it fast enough? I hope so.
Microsoft worries me every time they talk about doing something in software and then mention the word patch. Microsoft as a corporate entity appears to believe that it is OK to release buggy software that you later patch. Console games have never worked that way, please Microsoft do not bring patch tuesday to the console world.
~Highlander
Microsoft appear intent on using software patches delivered by Xbox live as well as software emulation in order to provide backwards compatability.
Reading somewhat between the lines this would seem to imply that with an X360 you can load your old Xbox game on the the hard disk and patch it for backwards compatability, and then run it in the Xbox emulation. If this is the case then it may be that you do not have to re-purchase older Xbox games for the X360. This would be a good thing. All speculation of course.
One last thing to note, when emulating hardware in software a great deal of performance is lost. If you look at the emulation of other game systems on todays PCs you can swiftly see that it is not perfect. Even classic emulations such as the MAME system have some grey areas, and you need a good P3 or low end P4 system just to accurately emulate an arcade machine from 20 years ago. The P3/P4 hardware is so many orders of magnitude faster than the arcade machine being emulated it almost doesn't bear thinking about. X360 is fast, but is it fast enough? I hope so.
Microsoft worries me every time they talk about doing something in software and then mention the word patch. Microsoft as a corporate entity appears to believe that it is OK to release buggy software that you later patch. Console games have never worked that way, please Microsoft do not bring patch tuesday to the console world.
~Highlander
