I heard it has the emotion engine chip, but no ps3 graphics chip. Or vice versa.
It didn't have the EE+GS chip, but it did have a LSI chip that worked as the GS chip.
The PS3 console available in Japan and the US is equipped with EE+GS chip which is PS2's core LSI chip composed of Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer integrated onto a single chip. Instead of the EE+GS chip which will be excluded from the European version of the console, SCE will provide a new graphics LSI chip that can replace the functions performed by Graphics Synthesizer.
At this point, the PS3 controllers could possibly catch fire and explode in your hands and I wouldn't be surprised to see Sony try to spin that as a good thing
"That only happens if you have thoughts of hurting or molesting children in a racist manner.
You should be happy we're hurting skinhead pedophiles."
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
The other thing that might play into this is the PSP/PSX down loadable games we're supposed to be seeing coming down the pipeline. I mean, if you could actually play your old PSX games you wouldn't have to pay to download them from scratch again.
The 40gig does still play PS1 games because it's all software emulated now see PSP.
Now I don't see why some people are making such a big deal about this since there are still 60gig & 80gig models out PS2 BC. The 80gig is even dropping down to $499 when the 40gig launches.
I'm going to be an optimist and believe that Sony will add PS2 BC software emulation via firmware updates. I'm going to go towards the edge of the lime and even surmise this update will be for all PS3s and will disable any & all hardware BC. Just to put everyone on the same BC system.
there are already PS3s with software PS2 emulation. So, if the 40 gb PS3 doesn't include this software emulation of the PS2, why would it include software emulation of the PSX?
It's not all done in software, 80GB PS3 still has some hardware to help it chug along. Otherwise emulators like pcxs2 would have been able to run KH on my rig fine a long time ago.
And not including a PS1 emulator would be stupid unless they were really that strapped for firmware space, which obviously won't be the case.
nope, it doesn't. the 80 gb ps3 removed hardware ps2 support.
And the fact that KH2 doesn't run on your computer is not proof that the 80 gb ps3 has hardware ps2 support. I don't even know how you could infer that.
I think Sony (and general ps2 emulation devs) are kind of struggling to find an all-software solution for ps2 emulation, and the 80 GB definitely has some ps2 hardware in it in the form of a modified version of either the EE or the GS chip, can't remember which...otherwise if total software emulation with 90% compatibility was already available there would be no reason pcsx2 wouldn't run fine.
And I know PS3 architecture != PC, and yea actually the real reason ps2 emulators don't run is because PS2 architecture isn't exactly easy to emulate in the first place thanks to a combination of its weird processors and lack of knowledge about the inner hardware, but whatever.
For the record, I think that I'd choose a PS3 over a 360 with a gun to my head, but the only console I own right now is a PSP (and Dreamcast, I guess) because I am a sucker for ARPGs. I really want PS2 BC so that I can actually relive games like FFXII and KH, but that's becoming more of a dream in light of developments like these. I think it's kind of a stretch to expect the price of a new PC for a PS3 and a PS2 just to be able to enjoy games of this generation and last, not even taking into consideration the prices of the games.
EDIT:
The PS3 console available in Japan and the US is equipped with EE+GS chip which is PS2's core LSI chip composed of Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer integrated onto a single chip. Instead of the EE+GS chip which will be excluded from the European version of the console, SCE will provide a new graphics LSI chip that can replace the functions performed by Graphics Synthesizer.
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
"The PS3 isn't doing bad because of its price or lack of games. It's doing bad because of people who refuse to accept the next generation of games and continue to buy old games!"
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
To a certain extent, I'm not really one for the lolsony train of thought, I don't hold one manufacturer above any other. Still, I find that Sony seems to be giving me even more reasons to sigh lately. I'm really not sure why they would remove BC since they don't make money off the consoles, even if old games are cheaper and more likely to be picked up off the used shelf, it's some money rolling in as compared to no money rolling in.
I personally was going to pick up a 360 and this doesn't change this at all, but it does move back my plans of eventually getting a PS3 thereafter. I'm one of those weird types of people we call gamers who am willing to follow good games wherever that may lead. Since the PS3s game library is as small as it is, buying the PS3 for BC was a good choice for me as it would allow me to catch up on my jrpgs and fighting games, but if I can't even get that, and all the good releases will be seeing a 360 showing anyways, I don't see much reason to invest until the library grows quite a bit.
You don't understand guys this is all part of Sony's plan.
It's funny, they actually said something like this. It was in regards to the numerous different models, each more gimped than the last, but they said that it was all part of a plan that was laid down at the beginning.
I read about it on UK:R, and the comment there was "I'd like to be at the meeting where this was proposed and accepted as a good idea."
The split bus thing would be a bit tricky though the expansion bus, as I don't think it had it's own set of address lines. It probably could have been done, but it definitely would have hosed things up.
It did. Offset $6000-$7FFF.
We're about to get *really* off-topic =P
You can't stuff the CHR-ROM into that area, as it gets accessed simultaneously with the PRG. It needs its own set of data and address lines, unless you do something complicated, like double-clocking everyhing and time-multiplexing the thing. Also, that part of the address space on the NES was used for optional on-cart WRAM, with optional battery backup. Games that used CHR-RAM, and didn't do any terribly extreme remapping might be able to work right, as they'd upload to the SNES VRAM area. The sprite table works a bit differently though, which would further complicate things.
The SNES itself has three individual busses, the CPU/cart bus, PPU bus A, and PPU bus B. A NES cart would have to tie into all three to properly feed all the data to the right places, and you can't just tweak something at the start, as the mappers serve as a gatekeeper for every single access either the CPU or PPU do, period.
It would work great, if everyone stuck to simple straightforward use of the NES PPU. However, I don't think there's a console in history that didn't have developers eventually pulling every last dirty trick the hardware would allow. The older the console, the ever dirtier the tricks.
Hell, there's exactly 3 unused bytes in the SMB1 rom, and that was their US launch title.
The audio would be a seperate mess, as it would mean either dropping the NES CPU in, with all that entailed (sucked power like nothing else) or cooking up a custom chip to provide it, since it was just stuffed right into the 2A03.
The smarter thing to do would be create a custom chip, which is what I'd imagine they'd do.
Agreed.
Man, it's been a while since I've looked at the 6 NES memory mappers, but you're talking about MMC6, right? They used scanline IRQ to set up bankswitching to provide scrolling in 2 directions, right? Basically split screen? They used these because the NES didn't have hblank or vblank interrupt, correct? The SNES did, however... it doesn't seem too hard to create a custom chip which translated scanline IRQ into hblank interrupt. or am I wrong and did the mmc use scanline IRQ for different purposes?
There were way more than 6. Ignoring the straight TTL mappers, which were generally rather simple bankswitches, and the unlicensed Tengen stuff, they broke down like so:
MMC1: Basic bankswitcher, no IRQ support, used for a lot of the early first-parties. Most notably the FDS ports, so Zelda, Metroid, etc.
MMC2: Only used in Punchout. Extremely quirky, switched CHR banks out mid-frame based on tile accesses.
MMC3: Main workhorse mapper, really full-featured. Wide variety of bankswitching configurations, as well as a scanline IRQ. More below.
MMC4: Never made it to this side of the pacific, generally identical to the MMC2, used in some Fire Emblem games.
MMC5: The craziest mapper ever conceived. Had a multiplier, and could greatly expand the tile and color limits, by way of carefully munging data as the PPU pulled it from memory. Also had a couple of extra sound channels, but those were unusable on the NES -- the audio pin on the famicom cart connector has no equivalent on the NES. Used for the US version of Castlevania 3 (JPN version used a custom Konami mapper
with 3 extra sound channels, and a much simpler bank scheme. Koei used this in a number of places, as it allowed for 512-1024k of PRG.
MMC6: An MMC3 with the save ram built in.
There were generally two styles of scanline IRQ avaliable on the NES, straight CPU cycle counters, and the MMC3. The MMC3's counter snooped the upper PPU address lines, watching for transitions from the pattern tables to the name tables. The way the PPU worked, there were exactly 42 of those per scanline. By abusing the VRAM access registers, you could fake out the MMC3 and get an IRQ earlier than requested.
Older games, like zelda and SMB1, used the built-in sprite hit trigger coupled with cycle-timed code.
Essentially, by the time the SNES started getting rolling, the only reliable way of even getting the first and second party libaries running on it would be to drop a NES inside. Doing that cheaply would require designing some new ASICs, which in the case of the CPU, would have probably been a bit excessive.
I'm not sure I follow... I don't think all NES games are so hard coded to interal timing of all chips. As I recall, only scanline IRQ enabled MMCs and the main CPU are important unless you're talking about over seas games. Remember - domestic games prohibited outside chips, there were only the 6 mmcs. I guess that means SFC would have more problems than SNES.
Not all of them, but a large number of them. Nintendo themselves tended to pull some rather evil tricks, and RARE was legendary for them. BackCompat tends to look really bad if you can't even run all of your first party titles, much less the second parties.
The only other counter on the CV/Intellivision part is that it isn't really backwards compatability if you're playing the competitor's frontline titles
heh, well would you call the PS3 BC then? I mean, it's playing PS2 front line titles.
The PS3 is more like the 5200 or 7800. The closest thing to the CV/Intellivision thing on recent consoles would have been Bleemcast, and we all know how that turned out.
summary: I maintain that an SNES built for NES backcompat would have been a decidedly more expensive, and probably rather different SNES than what we know and love. Initial designs probably had backcompat in mind, but those plans fell afoul of the rampant insanity perpetrated by their developer community, as well as the custom mapper designs.
It would have been more expensive, that's not up for debate. I don't think it'd be too different, but it probably would be a little.
To use the carts, without some *serious* pcb acrobatics would require some fundamentally different architectural decisions.
I have a ps2 already and it works fine so I don't have a problem with this. When the gamecube came out I still had to plug in my 64 to play some old games every now and again. And same with the Wii for games I already own and shit. So uh shit luck to the people who were late to ps2 party (or just never showed up) I guess.
I really want to read all that but I've been up for too long. I also want to talk about some more stuff but I think we'd start getting into grey areas... but you know your stuff. What other websites do you visit?
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
ahaha oh wow, seriously?
That goes past lolsony and heads straight into facepalm.jpg
I have a ps2 already and it works fine so I don't have a problem with this. When the gamecube came out I still had to plug in my 64 to play some old games every now and again. And same with the Wii for games I already own and shit. So uh shit luck to the people who were late to ps2 party (or just never showed up) I guess.
It's just that if I've got to pick between the PS3 and the 360 (and I do; no way I've got the money for both), this removes the PS3's biggest advantage to me as a PS2 owner.
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
ahaha oh wow, seriously?
That goes past lolsony and heads straight into facepalm.jpg
This whole thing has gone from LOL SONY to Sony..?
Oh god TSR, you got Rathstern going about hardware. We're gonna be here all night.
From a business perspective though, which is where I follow the industry a lot more closely: there was a level on which the SNES didn't need BC (neither does the PS3 really, I'll get to that in a bit.) By the time the SNES was ready for release in North America, the NES had already sold millions on millions of systems, and Nintendo was angling to sell again to that market they had already created. There wouldn't be as much point in BC because a lot of customers would be NES owners anyway, making BC redundant.
Even beyond that though, the NES was officially supported for years after the SNES came out. There was even the NES 2 hardware revision, which came out in 1993. That revision is important, because it retailed for $49.99; cheap even by 1993 standards. Nintendo knew that they could just keep selling the NES on the strength of its by-then-legendary software library, even years after the system was out of date. There was no need for BC in the SNES since the NES could still be sold for super-cheap as a seperate unit for those few SNES owners who didn't have an NES already. Nintendo knew who they were marketing to and planned accordingly.
Now, the big irony here is that Sony should be in the same position today. They have New Hotness hitting the streets, but they are also possessed of a console which possesses possibly the greatest software library in the history of the industry, and a library which is STILL getting titles. The PS2 should be a sales boon to the PS3, due to incredible brand loyalty. But Sony has bungled the PS3 with an anemic first year library, odd controller issues, titanic price confusions and now they're saying that the old, incredible PS2 library shouldn't be played and that players should focus on the PS3 library instead, which will greatly endear third parties to Sony who don't have titles on the PS3 yet. Sony could be doing the same thing as Nintendo - using their existing base to build up the PS3 further - but they're stumbling on doing so at every turn, and now they seem to be disowning their previous library instead of encouraging it.
BC is such a funny little item. In theory, it's something you logically can do without. But once you have your first taste of it, you enjoy it so much you can't live without it.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Backwards compatibility is needed these days for one simple reason: "moving parts". Sure I have to blow on a few NES carts to get them to work but I ain't gonna be fixing a broken disc based system if it decides it wants to break.
Dritz on
There I was, 3DS: 2621-2671-9899 (Ekera), Wii U: LostCrescendo
0
Dusdais ashamed of this postSLC, UTRegistered Userregular
edited October 2007
I am increasingly convinced (this is the second time I've mentioned this) that in time there is going to be a shit storm when people's launch window PS3's start breaking and Sony tries to replace them with non-BC ones. I mean, how many hardware BC console replacements are they going to hang onto?
I envision the Sony executives in their secret bunker, gathered around a large map spread across the table. The CEO is ranting and screaming about betrayal and treason, slamming his fist on the table as he roars in nearly incoherent bursts of rage. He demands that his generals move divisions that no longer exist to defend lines that have long since collapsed. And he wears Kleenex boxes on his feet. That's the only situation that explains this decision.
I envision the Sony executives in their secret bunker, gathered around a large map spread across the table. The CEO is ranting and screaming about betrayal and treason, slamming his fist on the table as he roars in nearly incoherent bursts of rage. He demands that his generals move divisions that no longer exist to defend lines that have long since collapsed. And he wears Kleenex boxes on his feet. That's the only situation that explains this decision.
I am increasingly convinced (this is the second time I've mentioned this) that in time there is going to be a shit storm when people's launch window PS3's start breaking and Sony tries to replace them with non-BC ones. I mean, how many hardware BC console replacements are they going to hang onto?
I think a later model is going to reimplement hardware BC. It'll have a huge hard drive (Say, 120 or 160), the EE+GS chip, and a Dualshock 3 and will be the $599 model. You know it's going to happen. I'd say right after the Holidays.
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
ahaha oh wow, seriously?
That goes past lolsony and heads straight into facepalm.jpg
This whole thing has gone from LOL SONY to Sony..?
You know that scene in The Simpsons where Bart writes something on the back of Homer's head, and Homer ends up twirling around on the floor trying to see what it says? At first, the rest of the family laughs at his stupidity, but eventually the sad shame of his behaviour sinks in and they fall into an awkward, unhappy silence.
That's how I feel watching Sony's continued failures with the PS3. At first it was kind of funny, but now it's just pathetic.
I am increasingly convinced (this is the second time I've mentioned this) that in time there is going to be a shit storm when people's launch window PS3's start breaking and Sony tries to replace them with non-BC ones. I mean, how many hardware BC console replacements are they going to hang onto?
I think a later model is going to reimplement hardware BC. It'll have a huge hard drive (Say, 120 or 160), the EE+GS chip, and a Dualshock 3 and will be the $599 model. You know it's going to happen. I'd say right after the Holidays.
So what, you are saying that Sony's new business model is to release a $400 console that is appealing to parents this holiday season and will buy that one over the $500 forcing them to buy PS3 games for their kids for christmas and with christmas money that they recieve in an attempt to force higher blu-ray and PS3 game sales before the end of the financial year in March to trick investors into believing the format is a worthy cause but in the process screwing over anybody who does buy the $400 model this season because it will fall out of most store's 90 day return policy for when the ungimped systems are released?
olol son... oh wait, that actually seems very likely.
(Also, run on sentence ahoy!)
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
ahaha oh wow, seriously?
That goes past lolsony and heads straight into facepalm.jpg
With Nintendo’s Wii having outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 by almost fivefold during the quarter ending in June, Sony’s CFO Nobuyuki Oneda appears to be looking on the bright side of life.
"Sales of the PS3 have risen but we booked losses due to our strategic decision to price it below the (production) cost. Actually, because the number of units sold was not as high as we hoped, the loss was better than our original expectation," he said.
In any case, I won't be buying a PS3 without backwards compatibility, even though the $1500 TV I just bought NEEDS a goddamn source of HD use. I'm going to apply me some employee discount to a 60gb, hopefully after the projected pricedrop to $400. With that and one of my 10% off shopping days at le Target, I can bring the price down to about 320.
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
ahaha oh wow, seriously?
That goes past lolsony and heads straight into facepalm.jpg
With Nintendo’s Wii having outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 by almost fivefold during the quarter ending in June, Sony’s CFO Nobuyuki Oneda appears to be looking on the bright side of life.
"Sales of the PS3 have risen but we booked losses due to our strategic decision to price it below the (production) cost. Actually, because the number of units sold was not as high as we hoped, the loss was better than our original expectation," he said.
I just checked all my PS2 games for Software BC and all but one do function with it. This means I have to get a BC PS3, doesn't it? Anyone interested in Motor Storm and Resistence?
LeRoy on
Mario Stürmer Aufgeladen Fußball:
Friend Code 064 526 171 784
They attempted to spin the bad sales of the PS3 as a good thing because they didn't lose as much money as if the PS3 had been successful. That is Sony Defense Force levels of spin.
ahaha oh wow, seriously?
That goes past lolsony and heads straight into facepalm.jpg
With Nintendo’s Wii having outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 by almost fivefold during the quarter ending in June, Sony’s CFO Nobuyuki Oneda appears to be looking on the bright side of life.
"Sales of the PS3 have risen but we booked losses due to our strategic decision to price it below the (production) cost. Actually, because the number of units sold was not as high as we hoped, the loss was better than our original expectation," he said.
Damn. That is some shit right there. Damn.
You could probably easily make a site called LOLSONY.com.
Posts
It didn't have the EE+GS chip, but it did have a LSI chip that worked as the GS chip.
"That only happens if you have thoughts of hurting or molesting children in a racist manner.
You should be happy we're hurting skinhead pedophiles."
lol Sony.
And I know PS3 architecture != PC, and yea actually the real reason ps2 emulators don't run is because PS2 architecture isn't exactly easy to emulate in the first place thanks to a combination of its weird processors and lack of knowledge about the inner hardware, but whatever.
For the record, I think that I'd choose a PS3 over a 360 with a gun to my head, but the only console I own right now is a PSP (and Dreamcast, I guess) because I am a sucker for ARPGs. I really want PS2 BC so that I can actually relive games like FFXII and KH, but that's becoming more of a dream in light of developments like these. I think it's kind of a stretch to expect the price of a new PC for a PS3 and a PS2 just to be able to enjoy games of this generation and last, not even taking into consideration the prices of the games.
EDIT:
Ok, I guess this sounds more accurate.
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"The PS3 isn't doing bad because of its price or lack of games. It's doing bad because of people who refuse to accept the next generation of games and continue to buy old games!"
Pretty much, they also are begging devlopers to not jump ship. They are holding on for dear life it seems these days.
www.XboxLiveScene.com - Xbox LIVE News & Info 24/7
I personally was going to pick up a 360 and this doesn't change this at all, but it does move back my plans of eventually getting a PS3 thereafter. I'm one of those weird types of people we call gamers who am willing to follow good games wherever that may lead. Since the PS3s game library is as small as it is, buying the PS3 for BC was a good choice for me as it would allow me to catch up on my jrpgs and fighting games, but if I can't even get that, and all the good releases will be seeing a 360 showing anyways, I don't see much reason to invest until the library grows quite a bit.
I hate to say this but... lolsony.
By March, Sony will be, by far and away, the winner.
See, it's not even that funny as a joke anymore. It's getting to be sad.
It's funny, they actually said something like this. It was in regards to the numerous different models, each more gimped than the last, but they said that it was all part of a plan that was laid down at the beginning.
I read about it on UK:R, and the comment there was "I'd like to be at the meeting where this was proposed and accepted as a good idea."
ohsony
We're about to get *really* off-topic =P
You can't stuff the CHR-ROM into that area, as it gets accessed simultaneously with the PRG. It needs its own set of data and address lines, unless you do something complicated, like double-clocking everyhing and time-multiplexing the thing. Also, that part of the address space on the NES was used for optional on-cart WRAM, with optional battery backup. Games that used CHR-RAM, and didn't do any terribly extreme remapping might be able to work right, as they'd upload to the SNES VRAM area. The sprite table works a bit differently though, which would further complicate things.
The SNES itself has three individual busses, the CPU/cart bus, PPU bus A, and PPU bus B. A NES cart would have to tie into all three to properly feed all the data to the right places, and you can't just tweak something at the start, as the mappers serve as a gatekeeper for every single access either the CPU or PPU do, period.
It would work great, if everyone stuck to simple straightforward use of the NES PPU. However, I don't think there's a console in history that didn't have developers eventually pulling every last dirty trick the hardware would allow. The older the console, the ever dirtier the tricks.
Hell, there's exactly 3 unused bytes in the SMB1 rom, and that was their US launch title.
Agreed.
There were way more than 6. Ignoring the straight TTL mappers, which were generally rather simple bankswitches, and the unlicensed Tengen stuff, they broke down like so:
MMC1: Basic bankswitcher, no IRQ support, used for a lot of the early first-parties. Most notably the FDS ports, so Zelda, Metroid, etc.
MMC2: Only used in Punchout. Extremely quirky, switched CHR banks out mid-frame based on tile accesses.
MMC3: Main workhorse mapper, really full-featured. Wide variety of bankswitching configurations, as well as a scanline IRQ. More below.
MMC4: Never made it to this side of the pacific, generally identical to the MMC2, used in some Fire Emblem games.
MMC5: The craziest mapper ever conceived. Had a multiplier, and could greatly expand the tile and color limits, by way of carefully munging data as the PPU pulled it from memory. Also had a couple of extra sound channels, but those were unusable on the NES -- the audio pin on the famicom cart connector has no equivalent on the NES. Used for the US version of Castlevania 3 (JPN version used a custom Konami mapper
with 3 extra sound channels, and a much simpler bank scheme. Koei used this in a number of places, as it allowed for 512-1024k of PRG.
MMC6: An MMC3 with the save ram built in.
There were generally two styles of scanline IRQ avaliable on the NES, straight CPU cycle counters, and the MMC3. The MMC3's counter snooped the upper PPU address lines, watching for transitions from the pattern tables to the name tables. The way the PPU worked, there were exactly 42 of those per scanline. By abusing the VRAM access registers, you could fake out the MMC3 and get an IRQ earlier than requested.
Older games, like zelda and SMB1, used the built-in sprite hit trigger coupled with cycle-timed code.
Not all of them, but a large number of them. Nintendo themselves tended to pull some rather evil tricks, and RARE was legendary for them. BackCompat tends to look really bad if you can't even run all of your first party titles, much less the second parties.
The PS3 is more like the 5200 or 7800. The closest thing to the CV/Intellivision thing on recent consoles would have been Bleemcast, and we all know how that turned out.
To use the carts, without some *serious* pcb acrobatics would require some fundamentally different architectural decisions.
ahaha oh wow, seriously?
That goes past lolsony and heads straight into facepalm.jpg
Wii: 5024 6786 2934 2806 | Steam/XBL: Arcibi | FFXI: Arcibi / Bahamut
It's just that if I've got to pick between the PS3 and the 360 (and I do; no way I've got the money for both), this removes the PS3's biggest advantage to me as a PS2 owner.
This whole thing has gone from LOL SONY to
I never asked for this!
From a business perspective though, which is where I follow the industry a lot more closely: there was a level on which the SNES didn't need BC (neither does the PS3 really, I'll get to that in a bit.) By the time the SNES was ready for release in North America, the NES had already sold millions on millions of systems, and Nintendo was angling to sell again to that market they had already created. There wouldn't be as much point in BC because a lot of customers would be NES owners anyway, making BC redundant.
Even beyond that though, the NES was officially supported for years after the SNES came out. There was even the NES 2 hardware revision, which came out in 1993. That revision is important, because it retailed for $49.99; cheap even by 1993 standards. Nintendo knew that they could just keep selling the NES on the strength of its by-then-legendary software library, even years after the system was out of date. There was no need for BC in the SNES since the NES could still be sold for super-cheap as a seperate unit for those few SNES owners who didn't have an NES already. Nintendo knew who they were marketing to and planned accordingly.
Now, the big irony here is that Sony should be in the same position today. They have New Hotness hitting the streets, but they are also possessed of a console which possesses possibly the greatest software library in the history of the industry, and a library which is STILL getting titles. The PS2 should be a sales boon to the PS3, due to incredible brand loyalty. But Sony has bungled the PS3 with an anemic first year library, odd controller issues, titanic price confusions and now they're saying that the old, incredible PS2 library shouldn't be played and that players should focus on the PS3 library instead, which will greatly endear third parties to Sony who don't have titles on the PS3 yet. Sony could be doing the same thing as Nintendo - using their existing base to build up the PS3 further - but they're stumbling on doing so at every turn, and now they seem to be disowning their previous library instead of encouraging it.
For your sake, I hope they don't disable it in a later firmware update to force you to buy newer games.
"But that would be crazy!"
...
The scary part is that this wouldn't even be surprising anymore.
Das Untergang?
I think a later model is going to reimplement hardware BC. It'll have a huge hard drive (Say, 120 or 160), the EE+GS chip, and a Dualshock 3 and will be the $599 model. You know it's going to happen. I'd say right after the Holidays.
You know that scene in The Simpsons where Bart writes something on the back of Homer's head, and Homer ends up twirling around on the floor trying to see what it says? At first, the rest of the family laughs at his stupidity, but eventually the sad shame of his behaviour sinks in and they fall into an awkward, unhappy silence.
That's how I feel watching Sony's continued failures with the PS3. At first it was kind of funny, but now it's just pathetic.
olol son... oh wait, that actually seems very likely.
(Also, run on sentence ahoy!)
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cykstfc
Hur hur hur.
Damn. That is some shit right there. Damn.
0431-6094-6446-7088
Sony never ever ceases to amaze.
Good thing there are plenty of greasy fucks out there who don't know shit about what they're buying, or Sony would be completely fucked.
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