The case(s) outlined in Joel’s aren’t directly comparable to Microsoft’s Backward Compatability “strategy” for the Xbox 360. My point was that Microsoft are/were supporting, in the majority, the cheap easy crap, ignoring the more complex (many critically acclaimed) titles because they just don’t appear to want to spend money in supporting them. Even with the prospect of winning huge praise from the community, it’s still about business and not about the end consumer.

Granted, Microsoft have taken a very good stab at filling in the larger gaps when it comes to critically acclaimed and niche titles with this update. But The Warriors still hasn’t been added to the support roster, even though we know Manhunt runs on the same engine.

And there are bound to be others, engine-wise, which are similar in terms of the extra instruction sets they need “wrapping” in order for them to work on the Xbox 360’s hardware. But I really don’t think Microsoft will bother.

Arguably, we’ve been blessed in receiving another BC update at all, but many – and not without justification – are now writing off any future BC updates from Microsoft. They’ve no vested business interest in it now, as platform adoption rate is almost at critical mass when it comes to last-generation Xbox owners upgrading. And as I mentioned in my original post, MS have such a strong – and continuous – AAA release schedule for Xbox 360, why would you want to take the spotlight off that with news stories covering new BC updates? Even I can tell you that isn’t good business sense.

Moreover, we’ve had to wait what seems like an exorbitant amount of time for this update, the next one would likely fall right in the midst of Microsoft’s mammoth Autumn/Winter ‘07 line-up. And when that lands I’m going to be far too busy picking up and playing BioShock and Grand Theft Auto IV to care about hobbled last-gen support. You can guarantee Microsoft will be banking on this sentiment, too.

They are usually backwardly compatible to the point of extremism. They never fixed scoping rules in the 5 years and 5 Service Packs of VC++ 6.

Also Joel (of Joel on Software) has to say on it: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html

They were definitely Commodore-branded in their final few weeks, because I remember the massive red-and-blue Commodore ‘C’ logo being attached to the front of the shop and the decor changing inside. It was barren though, now that I think about it more–had just a handful of machines inside at the end. In fact, I seem to remember they were actually using wallpaper pasting tables to stand some of their equipment on the day they opened.

I distinctly remember walking by the shop that Saturday morning and being surprised that they’d actually opened at all. The salesmen were busying themselves with pulling the plastic sheeting off what few pieces of office furniture they did have. Later, one of them was stood outside stuffing flyers into the hands/bags/(other available openings) of passersby.

Not the most impressive brand relaunch in the history of computers…

There was GamesMaster who was located next to the arts & craft shop near where the litten tree was located. He eventually moved across the road and then closed down. The guy who ran it started selling bootleg playstation games at the local car boot sales. We complained repeatedly to Trading Standards to no avail (but they were quite happy to raid us regularly).

Then there was Rumbelows. They had a Jaguar in. They went belly up and all the shops were taken by Escom, a german firm PC retailer, and they lasted about 6 months. In that time a close friend’s parents bought a PC from them and then the PC died just after Escom went bankrupt.

I heard about the Commodore lauch via [H] but didn’t really think much of it. An yes they are lurid designs.

G.

I’ll have to go see if my local Computer Exchange still has that copy of Orta now.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13607