Xbox's Preservation Step Sets A Much-Needed Example, Especially For Nintendo

Hanzla from eXputer inquires: "If Xbox can care about preserving its games and legacy, what exactly is wrong with Nintendo, trying to kill game preservation single-handedly?"

[purple101]

Ahh yes the good old game preservation of saving all your games to a removable hhd on the Xbox 360, taking it round your mates house, setting up multiple tvs to
Be met with “save data corrupted, please re download”

Or how about removing 360 games
From the store
, download them now or else, and, better hope to god that save data doesn’t corrupt, or it’s lost for ever

Nice one ☝️

[Zeref]

It's better than what Nintendo and Playstation is doing. It might not be perfect but at least they are TRYING. Unlike the others.

[DarXyde]

Trying? Take off the blinders for a moment, mate.

1. A failure to preserve games is just that: a failure to preserve games. Don't try to sugarcoat it: NO ONE is doing it properly. Better than awful is nothing to write home about.

2. At the time of this comment, isn't it the case that you need an internet connection to play Xbox games even if you buy physical discs that are hardly in circulation anymore? I don't have a Series X and I can't verify, but I think that is correct. I'm fairly certain you can at least play PS5 games at version 1.0 (not much of a win really when many games require day one patches). I think Microsoft's all digital, licensing approach is by far more aggressive than anyone else's. They really try to push you to game pass where you lose your entire library by umm.... Skipping a month of payments.

I don't think anyone is doing it right whatsoever. Don't get me started on Nintendo, who goes after anyone looking to preserve their games better than they ever would with extreme litigation.

Don't be a simp for any of these companies. Get it together.

[PhillyDonJawn]

@DarX never speak on Xbox again. You lost all credibility with your internet connection comment. Smh you have 0 clue and misinformed yet speaking on something you don't no squat about.

[Einhander1972]

What has Sony done exactly? You guys keep deflecting to Sony but I am not actually seeing any results, and ai am certain nothing that you can come up with even comes close to what Microsoft has done and what they have tried and failed to do, like tie all your disks to your account on xbone.

Microsoft removed their whole indie section when they moved to the xbone because they were going to only allow games on the service that came from a publisher, id@xbox started after xbone launched and it only exists because Sony embraced indie and Microsoft was forced to cancel their plans and reverse course.

And every single game that was part of games for windows live including disk games (I have gta 4 on disk that won't work) so hundreds of games that use that DRM no longer work unless the company themselves patched it out which of course very few did.

[MrBaskerville]

Not trying. Tried. they killed of the backcomp program years ago. They set something up again, but sounds like it's more of an attempt to save the current library on whatever they are planning next. With luck they save everything and more, but let's see. I could see them killing off parts of the OG xbox and 360 libraries. Can't imagine that they would allow us to play Forza 5-7 in the future.

With that said, I do like what they've done and really wish they could have done more.

[shinoff2183]

Zeref

So killing off physical media is trying what exactly. Ms don't really give a fk if you think they do your kidding yourself.

[Profchaos]

They are not trying this team is established for forward compatability the team is. It interested in preserving Xbox or 360 games.

[isarai]

Is that why Hellblade 2 is digital only?

[Zeref]

Just because it's digital only doesn't mean you can't preserve it. Just put it on an external and you have the exact same functionality of what a disc does.

[MrNinosan]

Guess you're trolling, but if you actually think that's how it works, I'd recommend buying some braincells.

[mkis007]

Volitile vs nonvolitile data. A disc will not corrupt either. A drive can be corrupted.

[Einhander1972]

This is just a scammy PR move to distract from the fact they are going digital only and trying to push streaming and subscriptions only.

No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft.

Without discs there is no preservation, preservation can't be done by the rights holders it can only be done by the consumers, anything else is a lie.

[Einhander1972]

Anyone remember xblig which Microsoft removed their whole 360 indie section removing hundreds of games from people?

[Zeref]

Do you know you can put your games on an external and preserve them that way? There are no benefits to discs. ZERO. Idk why some of you are still obsessed with them.

[DarXyde]

Because games like Persona 5 exist. It's STILL V1.00. On Playstation, that's a win because 1.00 is installed on the disc—no need to download anything.

If a game does not require any updates, it's all on the disc.

Extremely low bar in the modern era, of course. It's not much of a win by any stretch.

But for now, physical media does have a purpose, at least on Playstation.

[Einhander1972]

That is factually not how game licensing works, try plugging your hard drive into someone else xbox, It's not going to work, and it won't work if the licensing servers ever go down.

[Einhander1972]

Anyone remember games for windows live.

I have around a dozen games, some on Steam itself that will not work because Microsoft shut off the licensing servers.

[BehindTheRows]

I do. I STILL have games (Gears of War being the big one) I cannot access because Games for Windows LIVE is total garbage and no one has held Microsoft accountable.

[Zeref]

You don't have an Xbox apparently. Because you can 100 percent plug in your external and play games from it on any Xbox console lol. You just have to be logged in to prove ownership.

[Chevalier]

"You don't have an Xbox apparently. Because you can 100 percent plug in your external and play games from it on any Xbox console lol. You just have to be logged in to prove ownership."

Damn how many times do people got to explain your idiocy to you? You can take a copy of Persona 5 like someone used as an example and play that game on ANY console WITHOUT logging in which means I can lend the game to a friend without internet and they can play my game. Can you lend your hard drive to anyone without logging in for them to play? NOPE. That is a huge difference and if you think otherwise then sorry you're an idiot.

[Tacoboto]

"No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft."

Ubisoft is literally erasing games people bought from their libraries... My PS1-3 discs are useless on modern hardware. Nintendo's re-published and resold almost their entire Wii U library, and the eShop is completely dead with no BC mechanism in the Switch software. Microsoft publishes everything they make today day one on Steam and Xbox/Windows. Sony only brings to PC the titles they think you might want some years later and Nintendo won't even design a functional long-lasting joystick.

You're absolutely trolling and not serious if you think Microsoft today is the worst offender.

[shinoff2183]

Yay steam

Not everyone fks with computers though. The disc is still the best way as a console player. Period.

[Tacoboto]

How do Sony and Nintendo feel about these discs from 2001-2013?

Don't be stupid, you know Xbox is the best at this today.

[Hofstaderman]

Nobody wants this. Sales or the lack of it in the case of XBOX is very telling. I wonder how the adorably all digital series X will fare. Adorably dismal perhaps?

[crazyCoconuts]

Only time will tell, but for from someone like me suspecting that Xbox is trying to gracefully exit the console market, that "forward compatibility" team is trying to get Xbox games playing on Windows PCs. I mean, it's nice that they're not planning on exiting with a "enjoy your games while the hardware still works" message, so that's nice. They still have a brand to protect via Microsoft so probably feel obligated to have a better exit strategy.

[Xeofate]

That is not their plan, their plan is to transfer users accounts to the cloud.

Phil Spencer himself said as much a few months back, plans could have changed but I think people are reading way too much into one statement where Phil said he would allow Epic on xbox because he wants to be able to sell xbox games directly on other platforms. Aka, instead of selling Sea of Thives through PSN he wants to have an xbox store to sell his games on PlayStation without giving PlayStation any money.

Again, it's extremely unlikely that Phil plans to put PC on xbox and licensing would prevent them from just giving out other publishers games purchased on xbox copies of thier games on PC, Microsoft does not own their games.

[crazyCoconuts]

The thing that doesn't align with the cloud strategy is the giving up on exclusives. You'd still need strong exclusives for cloud streaming - it's still a "platform" , just with a lower upfront hardware investment. I feel like they've learned what PS learned with PSNow long ago. We're not ready to stream games and it's only gonna lose them money to try at this point

[shinoff2183]

Agreed

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I would love that, I'd buy up some of the Xbox games if they could run on PC, like the Rare Replay, Lost Odyssey and Dead or Alive Ultimate, probably a pipe dream though.

[Firebird360]

This is the one that nobody can argue microsoft is getting right.
The idea of moving from one gen to the next and losing all previous purchases is mind blowing.
Console should and could be like pc. Theres absolutely no excuse for it, especially in the digital age.

[PRIMORDUS]

If you want to keep game collections forever just torrent/usenet rom collections of consoles. When you have the physical game on a drive it's yours period it will never go away.

[Profchaos]

So this is a bit misleading.

Nintendo I'd argue maintains some level of preservation consistent with Xbox as they have offered a method of playing older games since the Wii vua the virtual console and NSO they also frequently remake their older games like links adventure.

Are they perfect far from it but there's some level of reverence to the past output. They have made a lot of mis steps and frequently try to go after its own community but there's efforts being made and new games are coming to NSO frequently with games that never saw release actually getting launched like star fox 2.

Let's also not forget the fact that this Xbox preservation team and the PlayStation preservation team while we are at it because if you remember correctly PlayStation set up its own preservation team roughly two years ago now they have not done anything yet.

Xbox ended its backwards compatibility program a few years ago now and as a result no new 360 games are being brought to current generation consoles this compatibility team is established for forward compatability making sure xsx games run on Xbox series successor hardware.

In short the new Xbox team isn't interested in preserving Xbox and Xbox 360 games that currently are not backwards compatible and yes that list is overwhelmingly huge with heavy hitters like the orange box becoming unplayable as of a few months back

[YourMommySpoils]

Soon you'll be preserving Xbox by sticking your games in an Xbox fridge.

[Jingsing]

Microsoft haven't actually done anything other than announce a team.

[gold_drake]

thats probably the only thing xbox has going for it.

[QuantumMechanic]

Just a reminder: MS' marketed "backwards-compatibility& quot; is not true backwards-compatibility, save for the Xbox One generation. You must download an emulator-wrapped recompiled version of each OG and 360 game. When that authentication/download server is removed, the older games will no longer "work". The discs are only used for authentication. Moreover, only ~65 OG and ~650 360 (mostly LIVE Arcade) games are supported. The program is nowhere near as comprehensive or preservation-secure as people may have been led to believe.