Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: Retro

Xbox Series X Has a Nice Backwards Compatibility (But Far From Full)

Posted on by Viljami

My Xbox 360 has been suffering. It doesn’t read game discs anymore. Otherwise it is fully functional. I tried opening it a bit through the disc unit as was insturcted on an official guideline I found from internet. I read from the guide that you should first power the device off, remove all cables and then try to push the wheel of the disc unit so that it opens up a bit. This was instructed to do with paper clip that has been straightened. Then you should bloww some compressed air to it.

I did mangae to do this and it fixed the problem. I was able to start a game once again. Then some weeks went by. I wasn’t playing anything with my Xbox 360. I played my other game conmsoles. As you might know Xbox 360 has a backwards compatiblity with original Xbox games. 463 games out of all 996 published are backwards compatible. We can make a quick calculation and find out that this makes 46,5 % of all games that were published for original Xbox.

If you think about PS3 and PS4 and their backwards compatibility you can propably figure how differently Microsoft and Sony deal with this issue. PS4 wasn’t at any moment backwards compatible at all. This pissed off some people. You were able to play PS1 games on PS3. Some PS3 models you are able to play also PS2 games with. PS5 however has limited backwards compatibility for PS4 games.

Xbox Series X, the latest Xbox, is fully compatible with older Xbox consoles’s games. However every game is not supported. There are 63 original Xbox games out of 996 and 633 out of 2155 Xbox 360 games compatible with the latest Xbox console. Xbox Series S doesn’t even have a disc drive so apparently it doesn’t support older consoles’s game discs. All Xbox One games are compatible with Series X.

With this information available I decided to remove my oddly acting Xbox 360 from my current setup. This meant actually that I had to remove also tens of games from my lineup. I like to keep every game that I am able to play with any console in my setup in this huge shelf. I had to remove many Xbox and Xbox 360 games.

I have now only six original Xbox games left in that shelf. The picture related to this post shows my current games that I am able to play with my Xbox Series X. I didn’t count the games that I removed so carefully. I think I set aside maybe 70 games in total. I had to put games like Halo 1 and 2, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 and many others to storage. These were games that I haven’t had time to get into thoroughly.

I would like to be able to play every game that has ever been released for any Xbox system. This is just the way that things go. You are updating your setup and getting into some new or retro consoles. You don’t actually play every game that you own. Some games and systems you just have to set aside at least for a while. Xbox 360 is an old gaming console. It was first released in 2005. I bought my Xbox 360 as a used copy. This was about six years ago. So maybe it was time for me to move on.

Games do get old. Systems do get old. There are many games that you just can’t play, buy or enjoy in any way no more. I think there should be something that could be done to this issue of great games just disappearing somewhere. We seem to be still moving so fast forward that we can easily completely forget a nice old game.

I don’t know the exact answer to this question. Will there be in the future some websites or collectins of old games. Are we going to be able to finally play these games with an emulator? Would it be nice to have a museum that could hold many old games? I know that there are already some websites that are dedicated to old Commodre 64 games. They have archived thousands of games which are also available as downloads.

There cetainly is some knowledge about gaming that also I as a gamer have been able to develop in myself. From the moment when I first gazed at a video game in some arcade I have been curious to find out more about games. I went as far as studying the field. I dreamed I would be able to make a game or something similar. And I think I am not alone with my knowledge and I think this is an interesting topic all in all.

Competition Between Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation

Posted on by Viljami

Yesterday I ended up watching a video from YouTube. It dealt with some difficulties that Sega Saturn had and how it could compete against Sony PlayStation back in the 90s. The person that was interviewed was Hideki Sato. The interview took place in 2018. I will place a link to this video at the end of this blog post. So, just keep reading.

There were differences in hardware between these two gaming consoles. PlayStation was able to bring 3D environments to gamers while many Saturn games had 2D graphics that were based on graphics created with sprites. Although Sega tried to bring some developers that had some ability in designing 3D games they weren’t as successful. Sega did have games like Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing that were also popular in arcades.

Sony had an opportunity to utilize hardware that they manufactured by themselves while Sega had to use contractors. Parts that were needed were different kinds of chips, processors and, for example, CD drives. Sega was more of a software and game development company. This was a matter that would be stressed to Sega by Sony several times. This was also the direction that Sega finally took later when also Dreamcast seemed to fail.

Sony also made it easier for other game developers to make games for their new console. We were then living the age of 1990s. Sony PlayStation was released in 1995 and so was also Sega Saturn. Sega relied on assembler code while Sony gave game developers a full SDK (“software development kit”) that they could develop their games with.

If you think that Saturn ended up selling 9 million units in its lifespan while PlayStation sold 102 million units it isn’t hard to figure that there were also much more games sold for PSX than there actually were for Saturn. As usually manufacturers have to sell consoles with a loss and make up with game sells. This was difficult for Sega and they made a strong loss in sales. They took a beating.

In the end of the 1980s when Sega’s last console, Mega Drive, or Genesis in USA, Sega had the most powerful gaming console in the markets. It competed mainly with Nintendo Entertainment System or NES for short. This console also sold nicely. It sold 31 million units while NES sold 62 million units. With all this information available Sega wasn’t done with manufacturing their own consoles. After all, still, Sony was unbeatable. Sony has remained a top console manufacturer since it released their first console PlayStation. Microsoft entered the competition when their Xbox was launched in the beginning of the 2000s. Xbox mainly competed with PS2 but also with GameCube and Dreamcast.

When it comes to who won the competition between these two gaming systems Sony PlayStation is a clear winner. Saturn still remains a popular console in minds of serious retro gamers. It has games that are unique and cannot be found on other retro consoles. This topic seems to be very interesting. At least it is that way in my mind.

You can find the video that inspired me to write this blog post here.

PS2 Games That Are Still Worth Playing Today

Posted on by Viljami

I have many PS2 games. I wanted to pick some of these games that I do still enjoy playing. Here in this image there are three games. They are Gran Turismo 4, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and Resident Evil Code Veronica. Yesterday I wanted, first, play Gran Turismo 2 on my PS2. I’ve owned that game for a long time but haven’t had time to get into it. I even removed some saved games from my PS1 memory card. As soon as I started the game I just couldn’t stand these awkward 2000s PS1 graphics. It was too muddy for me. So, I turned to Gran Turismo 4.

I wrote about Gran Turismo 4 earlier. It is definitely a great game for someone that loves racing and cars even in a technical point of view. So I started playing. I finished A International license which opened up some new competitions for me. I also drove some races with one of my favorite cars – Dodge Viper. I really enjoy Gran Turismo 4. I have only completed a bit over 12 percentage of the game. I have to say it has been fun playing this game. Graphics aren’t as nice as in some newer games in Gran Turismo series.

“Which Gran Turismo is best?”, one might ask? I really enjoyed the first game in the series. That was of course over 20 years ago. I think there have been many improvements in graphics and also on some other perspectives also. I liked the sixth game and also enjoyed the latest that was Gran Turismo 7. I have played third and fifth but I didn’t like them so much. This is of course my opinion and you can think however you want. All in all it is a great and realistic racing game series.

What about these two other games? There certainly isn’t a debate about if THPS 3 is a good game. I think I heard someone mentioning that it is among one of the best games of all time. That isn’t a light statement. It might be the best THPS game ever released. First Tony Hawk Pro Skater was and is a good game. The second comes very close but I think there isn’t a game in this series that can really beat the third THPS game. The graphics were as good as can be. They were definitely better than the graphics of the first two THPS games that were released for PS1.

Why did I pick Resident Evil Code Veronica? It’s just this traditional style of Resident Evil game with some upgraded and good looking graphics. It is still a traditional RE game and not something that we would play in first person view on a more modern hardware. It might be the last traditional survival horror game in this series of great games. Maybe there is something reminding me of those times in some Resident Evil Revelations games that were more recently released.

I am not satisfied about every PS2 game that I have acquired. I have recently bought Forbidden Siren, Ecco the Dolphin and Ratchet & Clank. Guess what? I didn’t really get into those. I just hadn’t enough time to learn to play them well. Also I am a bit sad about how PS2 games look on my 4K television. I know I should get a decent HDMI converter but I don’t know if it would make my mind any easier. Dual Shock 2 controller hardly makes things any easier for me, also.

There are some verry good games for PS2 that you might want to play even today. I am not so sure if you should get this system. I think it is also possible to play these games as emulation. There is so much about PS2 that I love. But there is also a lot about it that I hate. I never had PS2 when it was the latest system. It reminds me of an era of the past. It reminds me of watching movies as DVDs. Is that an experience I don’t want to forget?

It might be a time for me to move on and enjoy more about modern games. I have PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC and Xbox Series X. PS2 might still remain as a system that I play sometimes. I just think it isn’t worth spending days on. It did enable a break for me in my streak of playing NBA2K23. NBA is just basketball and if you know anything about me and basketball you will understand why it keeps getting my interest so heavily. Did you see just a week ago as Finland played against Lithuania in Tampere. Did you see Lauri Markkanen? He is that Finnish basketball player that really made an impact on that game that was played. There were 13 000 people watching the game at the stadium.