The 8th generation is here! So far we've had the pre-E3 announcements for both Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One (the Wii U is NOT an 8th generation console - no amount of angry comments will change that, so get over it). There's still much we don't know about either console that I expect we'll have to wait for E3 to discover, but something we know right here and now is that neither console will support games from their respective predecessors. Indeed, no backwards compatibility whatsoever seem to be in the cards here, and I've seen some people that are really not particularly happy over it.
My question (in case you somehow missed the title of this article) is does it really matter? It's easy to say, "Hell yeah it matters DeAno; are you fucking stupid," but really think about it, and be honest. How many Gamecube games did you play on your Wii? Wait, that wasn't a fair question; if you're reading this blog I very seriously doubt you bought a Wii unless you have kids. Let me try again. For you launch model PS3 owners, exactly how often did you play PS2 games? Play many PSOne games on either your PS3s or PS2s?
If you're anything like me the answer is yes...for that first year. The previous consoles were still supported and had a great library while the current gen system really didn't have all that much going for it. Past that first year, though? Please. Sure there are a few stalworth classics that were fun to have another go at, but by and large I was buying current generation games for my current generation console, and so were you.
Don't get me wrong, here. Backwards compatibility is a cool thing to have. I remember when it was announced that the PS2 would be able to play PSOne games; that shit blew my mind! Sure we'd seen that happen before on Nintendo's handheld consoles, but for a main living room gaming console, it was a huge deal. That and the fact that it could play DVD movies out of the box killed the Dreamcast in less time than it took for you to finish reading this sentence. It sold more consoles than any other console in gaming history. It was a game changer!
What would have happened if it couldn't play PSOne games? Pretty much the same thing. Even without being able to play PSOne games in addition to the CDs, DVDs, and of course PS2 games that it could play, people would have still bought the shit out of it. While being able to play past games was very cool, people bought it to play the new games. I know that's why I bought it. Even when it came time to upgrade to the PS3 the biggest factor that played a role in the purchase was the expandable hard drive and the multimedia functions (and of course the fact that it played PS3 games). I don't buy a new console to play old games.
I'm getting off topic. This entire blog post started as me asking a very simple question on my Google+ page and went out of control from there, so let's get back to that. Is this really an issue that you care about and if so, why? Let me know in the comments; I'm really interested to know what you think!
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