The Three Sixty

I know that your supposed to hate everything except Nintendo, and constantly talk about how everything sucks except the revolution, even though we havent seen a single game for it yet, but there are some things you should consider.

1.) Launch titles are *always* lackluster. Seriously. When was the last time a new system launched that really wowed you? The Nintendo 64 only had Mario 64 going for it, and while it was a good game, it didn’t exactly represent a strong launch lineup. What did the PS2 have? Fantavision? The XBOX had Halo and only Halo. Gamecube had SSBM, also a good game, but once again, one game does not make it. The GBA had a port of Mario 2, the DS had a port of Mario 64 that was frustrating to try and control with the touch screen. Everyone bitched about the PSP lineup, even though anyone who played Lumines got hopelessly addicted, and it also had Metal Gear AC!D, Ridge Racer and Wipeout Pure. So now the XBOX 360 comes out and the bitching begins anew. Call of Duty 2 is an excellent game, and I’ve heard good things about a few other games, and everyone complains about the lackluster launch. So I ask you, when the fuck did we have a launch with 10 perfect games after the 16 bit era?

2.) Backwards compatability. I know everyone wants everything thats ever been on any system on each subsequent system. But honestly the backwards compatability is something they didn’t have to do that they gave a best effort. I also realize that microsoft = evil and everyone assumes they are keeping games out to try and make more money on games sales. I’m not claiming to have any knowledge of the internal processes of MS, but I do understand how backwards compatability works.

Do you know why the PS2 is able to play PS1 games? Because the PS2 actually has PS1 hardware embedded into it. WHen you put in a PS1 disc, the rest of the console shuts down and it just routes everything through the PS1 hardware. The same is true for the GBA playing GB/GBC games. The XBOX 360 is radically different hardware than the original. XBOX 360 uses a Power PC architecture whereas the XBOX used an intel/x86 architecture. (Kind of like how you can’t play PC games on your Mac)

So rather than trying to embed XBOX hardware into the 360, which would likely raise the price further and make the system much bigger than it already is, they decided to go with emulation, similar to emulation on PCs. Anyone who knows what its like to use Virtual PC knows this isn’t exactly the best from a performance standpoint. Microsoft officially announced that 212 titles would be compatible with the Xbox360’s emulator by launch alone, with more to come in the future. There are a few notable titles missing, like Jet Set Radio Future and the Splinter Cell series, but its a pretty impressive feat.

Why are these games missing? Is it because they think Cabella’s Deer Hunt, Renegade Paintball or Barbie’s Horse Adventure are the important games to emulate? No. Its a question of APIs.

Wikipedia wrote: “One of the primary purposes of an API is to provide a set of commonly-used functions—for example, to draw windows or icons on the screen. Programmers can then take advantage of the API by making use of its functionality, saving them the task of programming everything from scratch. APIs are abstract: software that provides a certain API is often called the implementation of that API. In many instances, an API is often a part of an SDK, or software development kit. An SDK may include an API as well as other tools/hardware, so the two terms are not strictly interchangeable. ”

An API, for example, might contain functions used in every game like drawing images on the screen or displaying text (much like your web browser is using an API to do when you surf the web). APIs save developers a ton of time as they don’t have to code everything from scratch.

Now when a game like Splinter Cell comes along and does something radically different with lighting than any other game has ever done before, it means they have to code that effect from scratch, forgoing any ability to use the standard API for lighting. Because the lighting in Splinter Cell was so new, they had to squeeze every bit of potential out of the XBOX hardware to do it. This is referred to as “writing to the metal” — a phrase meaning “to write code specific to one set of hardware as to squeeze out the most amount of power possible from the hardware” The result is that Splinter Cell works very nicely and fits very snugly on the XBOX hardware.

However, when you try and bring that onto the XBOX 360, the emulation disc mimicks the Original XBOX API, but the game is written to the metal of the XBOX and not the 360. Therefore, the game simply doesn’t work. Its not to say that all games that have non-API code will not work, just that some will have issues or perform so horribly that they cannot be played on the 360. The real issue is the API, not that they are trying to keep splinter cell out of your hands so they can sell you new and improved splinter cell. I think we all know, if you own the first part of a franchise of games chances are your going to purchase the new badass installment when it comes out for next-gen harware.

3.) Finally, and this goes along with my first point. It takes developers time to grow into a new system. The launch titles only have slightly better graphics because graphics technology moves slower now, for the most part. There is no jump from 2D to 3D anymore to make improvements obvious. The reason its not just an XBOX 1.5, is because there is so much more room for it to grow over its lifetime. The developers haven’t had the dev kits for very long to work with. It takes games years to make now thanks to all the shit gamers demand from each and every title (Multi-player both online and offline, HD Support, etc).

I know we as geeks constantly view the world from behind bitter lenses of “Han Shot First!” and such shit, but honestly, we can stand to actually think about the how and why as opposed to just “Man this sucks”. I’m not even defending the 360 in all honesty. I just tire of hearing the same arguments every single time anything gets launched ever. If you don’t want to be an early adopter, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean those who get excited about something new are somehow below those of us who wait it out.

After I finished writing this article, its important to note that the 360 received an update to include Splinter Cell in the backwards compatability.