I wonder why Sony was able to add Trophies to PS2 Classics but MS couldn't do the same for Xbox Originals? Not that important to me but I guess I just wonder why one can do it and one cannot.
Lack of widescreen on some updated Xbox BC games is an ugly blemish
- Thread starter SilverX
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I wonder why Sony was able to add Trophies to PS2 Classics but MS couldn't do the same for Xbox Originals? Not that important to me but I guess I just wonder why one can do it and one cannot.
Because Sony changed the original games and thus charge you again for them. Microsoft is bringing the games as they were with improvements where they can for people who had them to enjoy. It's not that they can't add achievements, it's that it's not their focus or intention.
Game cameras don't work this way. You'll end up looking out of the world at the edge of the screen etc.
This would crop some of the screen and would be arguably worse than stretching because you'd lose visual game information.
I hated non widescreen gaming when I had my plasma because I had to limit my playtime. On my 900E, the black bars disappear and I'm fine with it. Would I love proper widescreen? Sure. But we're receiving this BC and resolution/performance upgrade free of charge, so I can't complain. Conker looks glorious on my set.
Zooming would result in cropping out whole sections of the scene and changing the framing of cinematography. There's not a one-size-fits-all answer to changing aspect ratios, and even within the same game, some scenes cause problems when others won't. The scope of these games would go from testing a customized emulator packet to new development on a game-by-game basis.
I have to wonder just how many people are so bothered by this that it is in Microsoft's interest to even look into it, much less implement an option to force widescreen display accompanied with a warning. I'm betting it's just a negligible minority losing sleep over it, and that there are far more people (unreasonably) pleading for achievements or online play for these OG Xbox games.
Yea, that's what I was referring to as a separate release. They had to code those trophies in and release them as separate releases. It's do-able and we are getting separate wrappers of these games to play on BC here(XBOX) too. It's a lot more work than people give Sony credit for. It's an extra hurdle to pass through and is likely why there are so few PS2 classics(relative to the console library) available. It's also probably why those games all cost a lot more than these Xbox releases(at least in Canada)
I was saying that whoever wants 16:9 should just zoom on the TV, I did not say anything about game options.
I'd absolutely love online play to return and all the DLC that went away when the servers died to come back, but I don't see that happening anytime soon(security reasons would be a big one, and lack of overall demand).
That's wild considering it often looks like nothing is done to any PS2 Classics and there's the input delay stuff with those... which I haven't noticed with any Xbox Originals but maybe I just haven't noticed it.
I believe so as any game that was 16:9 on the original Xbox should be on X1 as well. Also, I think NGB plays in native 4k.
Yeah, that's 16:9. Any of the games with a native widescreen have it in these versions, so same with Panzer.
The same reason why Sony is asking for people to buy their PS2 Classics again at $14.99 or more, and why the PS2 Classics releases have been so stagnant.
Achievements on Xbox originals would be great! But $9.99 and allowing owners of the physical discs to play for free is worth the trade off.
Microsoft definitely has an issue with their store though, with regards to these releases. I still can't play SSX3 which I bought yesterday.
It's usually not a good idea to force games to render in widescreen when they didn't originally support it.
Hell, even in Widescreen, a lot of Oxbox games have weird quirks. Halo 2, for example, doesn't render water on the left side of the screen (including multiplayer) because it assumes it'll be behind a bezel, even though it supports widescreen. Now imagine doing that to a game assuming it's in 4:3, and as the Prime video shows, that will likely happen with Conker. Messed up rendering.
It's also to be considered that these games are also LAN capable with the original Xbox itself and 360s emulating it, so you don't want to go breaking the game for that either.
Amusingly, Rare DID support anamorphic widescreen in a bunch of their later N64 games - except for Conker. They were the only developer to actually support it on the N64, though.
Conker was also weird as it was also a late stage N64 game by Rare that made no use of the expansion pak.
Hell, even in Widescreen, a lot of Oxbox games have weird quirks. Halo 2, for example, doesn't render water on the left side of the screen (including multiplayer) because it assumes it'll be behind a bezel, even though it supports widescreen. Now imagine doing that to a game assuming it's in 4:3, and as the Prime video shows, that will likely happen with Conker. Messed up rendering.
It's also to be considered that these games are also LAN capable with the original Xbox itself and 360s emulating it, so you don't want to go breaking the game for that either.
Amusingly, Rare DID support anamorphic widescreen in a bunch of their later N64 games - except for Conker. They were the only developer to actually support it on the N64, though.
Conker was also weird as it was also a late stage N64 game by Rare that made no use of the expansion pak.
I feel like I should hack widescreen into my Conker on my original Xbox and post my results just to put some questions to rest.
I can't wait till more titles come on BC. We already have a few Conker/star wars titles. I'll likely only play Crimson Skies(I own 2 copies and my friend owns one so we can get 6 players in a LAN across different consoles). We will likely get PGR2, Unreal Championship 2 and many Tom Clancy titles(Ghost Recon/Splinter Cell/Rainbow Six series)
As the biggest DKC2 fan I still consider N64 to be their golden years in terms of their production capabilities. They absolutely made the console sing in terms of hard they pushed it(with or without expansion pack)
Non of the OG xbox games are native 4k, but they get close (1920p I think). Similar to the standard Xbox One which gets close to 1920x1080 with 960p
Neither of those things are worth trading image quality for. If all you care about are black bars then stretch the image. It's about as destructive to picture quality as hacked in widescreen.
I don't understand, a hacked widescreen with proper FOV just shows more of the image, how does it ruin IQ?
Widescreen hacks often introduce various visual bugs and glitches, sometimes even gameplay bugs.
Define "Not a huge budget".
To do a simple remaster like VooDoo Vince likely cost at least $500k and more likely in the range of $1M to $1.5M and that is with all the code in hand. This is also without paying for a full fledged test pass through the likes of VMC or hiring your own in house contractors to do a deep test.
Comparatively, MS probably gets about a dozen games for OG Xbox on Back Compat for around the same price.
Sorry for resurrecting this thread, but while waiting for PSO2 to be fixed, I decided to randomly play Black. Is it normal for this game to have these black bars on the sides? They're not fully black too, more like a bit red/grayish. Seems like the game is half way between 16:9 and 4:3