Sony's Announces 'The Last Guardian,' Many More New Titles At E3 Event

[Guest]

The Great E3 Press Event dash is nearly over, with Sony as the final presenter. Numerous leaks have been spewing out on social media, and some titles are expected to be announced at the event. Everything will be out on the show floor tomorrow, so it’s tim

Sony's Announces 'The Last Guardian,' Many More New Titles At E3 Event : Read more

 

[Alec Mowat]

FF VII Remake.

They're going to f* up the combat. I know it. They'll f* it up. I have no faith in you, SE. Prove me wrong.

 

[clonazepam]

FF VII Remake.

They're going to f* up the combat. I know it. They'll f* it up. I have no faith in you, SE. Prove me wrong.

It has chocobos in it. I'm too old for dang chocobos. There's combat in FF7? I thought you just played a GUI and stuff happened.

 

[Vosgy]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3/description
Go back it, everyone, don't care if you have no spare money, sell your PC

 

[eklipz330]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3/description
Go back it, everyone, don't care if you have no spare money, sell your PC

i'm sorry but WHY? they were on the stage with SONY. SONY CAN BACK THEM. they are NOT a small independent developer trying to make ends meet. no. they have content created already and are pretty much guaranteed to already have investors backing them. and im damn well sure sony is behind because guess what? THEY WERE ON STAGE WITH THEM.

this was disgustingly blatant PR stunt to have the masses "support" this game. i don't care if people are waiting for it. they are pocketing any extra cash flowing in their direction. i hope they fail the kickstarter and i hope the game dies. this is a disgusting use of kickstarter.

 

[eklipz330]

they didn't announce a release date for ff7. so don't get too excited. square enix has a track record.

 

[Vosgy]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3/description
Go back it, everyone, don't care if you have no spare money, sell your PC

i'm sorry but WHY? they were on the stage with SONY. SONY CAN BACK THEM. they are NOT a small independent developer trying to make ends meet. no. they have content created already and are pretty much guaranteed to already have investors backing them. and im damn well sure sony is behind because guess what? THEY WERE ON STAGE WITH THEM.

this was disgustingly blatant PR stunt to have the masses "support" this game. i don't care if people are waiting for it. they are pocketing any extra cash flowing in their direction. i hope they fail the kickstarter and i hope the game dies. this is a disgusting use of kickstarter.

Or save yourself $31 by getting a day one Digital copy via kickstarted.

 

[back_by_demand]

Much as new games are the bread & butter of a console, I can't help but feel Xbox stole all their thunder. Backwards compatibility, cross platform, pro controllers, Oculus. Sony had a slim lead with performance but less entertainment options, so the gaming purists went to PS4. Sony has been caught sleeping at the wheel as Xbox comes screaming past them.

 

[Pedasc]

Much as new games are the bread & butter of a console, I can't help but feel Xbox stole all their thunder. Backwards compatibility, cross platform, pro controllers, Oculus. Sony had a slim lead with performance but less entertainment options, so the gaming purists went to PS4. Sony has been caught sleeping at the wheel as Xbox comes screaming past them.

I don't really see it that way at all. I agree with the backwards compatibility but it isn't essential, Sony found that out in the last generation. I'm still hoping for it though. Cross platform is nice but I'm reserving judgement on how well it works. It's got a shot at working well but there are a lot of potential issues. Pro controllers are only going to be for a small selection of people and are a bit gimmicky really. Oculus support on the Xbox One sounds like it may be a bit cumbersome with the need to stream to a Windows 10 PC. It sounds more like they needed a response to Morpheus. Most of this is nice and I want it but none of it is really needed or even a particular selling point over the PS4 to me, yet.

This selection of games on the other hand is much more varied and interesting than Microsoft's and I just can't get excited about another Halo which was a big part of the Xbox event. No racing game though but the Gran Tourismo always seems to take a long time between releases.

I my mind Sony still slightly wins this.

 

[back_by_demand]

Of course you think Sony wins, the question here is if Sony had announced these instead of Microsoft, then Sony would be the ones with a "slam dunk". As a PC gamer I am agnostic towards consoles, but even I have to admit Microsoft now has a clear advantage and the only console to be doing any real innovation.

 

[back_by_demand]

Plus if you are not excited about another Halo game, does that go for the remake of Final Fantasy VII? Surely the only game franchise to flog itself more than Need For Speed or Madden.

 

[10tacle]

Overall I was NOT impressed with Sony's presentation. A lot of multiple-platform games being shown and two games shown that were shown last year are *still* in development. I specifically remember the fuss last year about No Man's Sky being a rip on Star Wars with the look of sentinels (AT-ST Walker) and even the character's crashed spaceship (X-Wing).

 

[RedJaron]

FF VII Remake.

They're going to f* up the combat. I know it. They'll f* it up. I have no faith in you, SE. Prove me wrong.

It has chocobos in it. I'm too old for dang chocobos.

I choose to remain hopeful on this one. They've offered a lot of reasons/excuses over the years as to why this was not done sooner. I never bought the "we lost the source material" line. Any proper remaster would require completely new character models and renderer, so what good would the original source code or graphics do? You still have the original concept art, as well as the art for Crisis Core and Advent Children, and that's what you would use for building new character models. Extracting the dialog text and background 2D images from an existing game disc would have been easy ( especially from the original PC release.)

I do believe Nomura when he says that he and the team have been very scared to attempt this. FFVII is one of the most beloved games in the last 30 years, so if they don't get it perfect, they will definitely hear about it. If they're really anxious and try to improve upon the game, it's gets very risky. Some people may consider it overly safe and boring, but simply taking the original material, cleaning up the dialog a little, and rewrapping it in a current rendering engine is all this really needs.

As for combat, I really hope they don't try to "improve" it. They make this like XII or XIII combat and I'll be very sad. I wouldn't mind them stealing FFX's combat though. The two are basically the same except it figures whose turn comes up next so you don't have to wait for the ATB bar to fill up. Hot swap party members would be awesome as well. But leave Materia alone. The system is already near perfect.

And I don't care one way or the other on chocobos. They were important in the original, so why not keep them?

Much as new games are the bread & butter of a console, I can't help but feel Xbox stole all their thunder. Backwards compatibility, cross platform, pro controllers, Oculus. Sony had a slim lead with performance but less entertainment options, so the gaming purists went to PS4. Sony has been caught sleeping at the wheel as Xbox comes screaming past them.

I'll wait and see how well the backward compatibility works out. The 360's software BC was very spotty. Anyone who's dealt with software emulation knows how tricky it can be. Each game can require drastically different settings, renderers, and cheats to get them working correctly. It's possible that MS can make the right settings for each title, but I'll believe it when I see it. My guess is it will be like the 360 where the most popular titles worked well enough, but a lot of other games were either buggy or just incompatible.

I think BC is more important right when a console launches. At that point you don't have many titles for the new console, but usually have quite a few for the older one. Then it reverses. Same happened to me with my first-gen PS3. I loved that my entire PS library worked on a single device. But after a few years, I rarely played anything but PS3 titles on it. That PS3's optical drive finally failed last summer and I replaced it with a super-slim. I was originally worried that losing BC would be a big problem, but I haven't noticed it at all. If I ever want to play a PS2 title that's not in the PS store as PS3 compatible, or been HD remastered, I can pull out the PS2 that's still in the closet. Considering how infrequent that happens, it's not a big deal to pull out an old console once a year. No different than going through an old PC title and getting a DOS game to run in Win8.

Has the XB1 already passed that time frame? Are people still worried about 360 titles when we're 18 months after XB1 launch? I wonder now if Sony had it figured out with the PS3. The first units had perfect hardware compatibility when PS3 titles were scarce. The second ones had imperfect software emulation that worked for the most popular PS2 titles that were the most likely to still be played. The next dropped all BC because the PS3 had a full gaming stable. I know I complained a lot about it at the time, but I can see now that it was a much smaller issue that I thought it was.

 

[Pedasc]

Of course you think Sony wins, the question here is if Sony had announced these instead of Microsoft, then Sony would be the ones with a "slam dunk". As a PC gamer I am agnostic towards consoles, but even I have to admit Microsoft now has a clear advantage and the only console to be doing any real innovation.

You seem to be making assumptions about me here. I am a PC gamer as well and I found the "pro" controller came accross as a cool gimmick, the Oculus support to be tacked on (I hope I'm wrong about this), cross platform which is cool will bring all kinds of issues I don't see worked out for a while, and the ability to play old games I already own and probably can play on a 360 since if I have the games I probably own one. Nothing here is going to make me pick an XBox One over the PS4 unless they can get the VR working better than Sony's own Morpheus and even then it will probably be even better on PC.

Also, where did I state that I was excited for the Final Fantasy remake? I can like the list of games without it, actually I barely noticed it was on there.

Honestly I own both a PS3 and 360 but both are gathering dust now as the reason I bought them were for their exclusive games. As time has gone on I've transitioned to be pretty much PC exclusive. I am looking for games I want to play, Sony's list was better for me although after 10tacle's comment I did take a look the list again and he seems to be right. A lot of this is multi-platform, Sony just invited them up to present with them. I am a little less impressed now.

 

[PaulBags]

Sony has platform exclusive games, Sony will never see my money. Simple.

 

[RedJaron]

Nearly everyone has platform exclusive games, or games that aren't available on every platform.

 

[back_by_demand]

Simple fact is every platform has their own take on technology, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it has been going on for a while. One thing I know for sure is if you are in the lead you should push your advantage to the limit and not assume you can stay number one on name value only. Nintendo did that with the Wii, the controller was something totally left-field out of the R&D labs. Very soon afterwards both MS and Sony had their own motion controller. Sony's was a compete hash, a desperate copy and ultimately obvious. Kinect was a direct response but more like a retaliatory strike from a cruise missile. It may not be everyone's cup of tea but the technology behind it is like trumping a Horseless carriage with a Space Shuttle.

I get that all these companies probably have moles and corporate espionage going on so either Microsoft has really strong secrecy and trusted engineers, or Sony deliberately chose not to match some of the features. Performance is not as far apart as the obvious fanbois would make out, to the naked eye the difference is almost imperceptible and you have to rely on professional benchmarking software to see any improvement. Simply put, backwards compatibility is something that PC gamers have taken for granted forever, I have DOS games that I can still play on Windows 8.1 and have reason to believe will not continue with Windows 10.

So Sony followed a pre-programmed script, as they always do, announce a shit ton a games. Well done, I expect games to be released, all the time. As a games console that is the absolute minimum I expect. Todays gamer is more demanding though, gone are the days of casual Mario Kart with a buddy in the living room, we demand more and we will buy from the company that gives us what we want. Some people may decry the backwards compatibility issue, but if you spent hundreds buying Xbox 360 games and wanted to upgrade to a next-gen console, do you go PS4 and definitely not ever play them again, or go Xbox One and keep playing. It also sets a precedent that any successor to the Xbox One should retain the same feature and be backwards compatible again, just like PC gaming. As a long term strategy, it makes a lot more sense as that ties gamers to your product between generations. Sony will either not copy this feature, just to make a point, or it will copy it but as it did it well after Xbox it will be an embarrassing admission that it only did so because it was forced.

This is not what a single gamer thinks, no matter how vocal they state "this is my opinion", this is the strategy of marketing to masses and locking in customer loyalty. Microsoft has the money to push this much harder than Sony and all it would take for E3 2016 would be a CPU refresh, similar to the Jasper on Xbox 360, RAM and perhaps even slimlining the case. Make sure that if Sony do the same you trump them by having your own moles feed you their plans, and Sony would lose the hairline performance edge too.

Sega went the way of the Dodo, to give rise to Nintendo, then Sony joined in and Nintendo dropped back, then Microsoft joined in. History has a funny way of repeating itself and unless Sony starts to really invest heavily in R&D and something other than just "more games" then PlayStation could become a fanboi exclusive, with the mass market going where it gets the most features. Watch this space.

 

[Pedasc]

Simple fact is every platform has their own take on technology, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it has been going on for a while. One thing I know for sure is if you are in the lead you should push your advantage to the limit and not assume you can stay number one on name value only. Nintendo did that with the Wii, the controller was something totally left-field out of the R&D labs. Very soon afterwards both MS and Sony had their own motion controller. Sony's was a compete hash, a desperate copy and ultimately obvious. Kinect was a direct response but more like a retaliatory strike from a cruise missile. It may not be everyone's cup of tea but the technology behind it is like trumping a Horseless carriage with a Space Shuttle.

I get that all these companies probably have moles and corporate espionage going on so either Microsoft has really strong secrecy and trusted engineers, or Sony deliberately chose not to match some of the features. Performance is not as far apart as the obvious fanbois would make out, to the naked eye the difference is almost imperceptible and you have to rely on professional benchmarking software to see any improvement. Simply put, backwards compatibility is something that PC gamers have taken for granted forever, I have DOS games that I can still play on Windows 8.1 and have reason to believe will not continue with Windows 10.

So Sony followed a pre-programmed script, as they always do, announce a shit ton a games. Well done, I expect games to be released, all the time. As a games console that is the absolute minimum I expect. Todays gamer is more demanding though, gone are the days of casual Mario Kart with a buddy in the living room, we demand more and we will buy from the company that gives us what we want. Some people may decry the backwards compatibility issue, but if you spent hundreds buying Xbox 360 games and wanted to upgrade to a next-gen console, do you go PS4 and definitely not ever play them again, or go Xbox One and keep playing. It also sets a precedent that any successor to the Xbox One should retain the same feature and be backwards compatible again, just like PC gaming. As a long term strategy, it makes a lot more sense as that ties gamers to your product between generations. Sony will either not copy this feature, just to make a point, or it will copy it but as it did it well after Xbox it will be an embarrassing admission that it only did so because it was forced.

This is not what a single gamer thinks, no matter how vocal they state "this is my opinion", this is the strategy of marketing to masses and locking in customer loyalty. Microsoft has the money to push this much harder than Sony and all it would take for E3 2016 would be a CPU refresh, similar to the Jasper on Xbox 360, RAM and perhaps even slimlining the case. Make sure that if Sony do the same you trump them by having your own moles feed you their plans, and Sony would lose the hairline performance edge too.

Sega went the way of the Dodo, to give rise to Nintendo, then Sony joined in and Nintendo dropped back, then Microsoft joined in. History has a funny way of repeating itself and unless Sony starts to really invest heavily in R&D and something other than just "more games" then PlayStation could become a fanboi exclusive, with the mass market going where it gets the most features. Watch this space.

Nice response by the way, I still don't completely agree. You are right however that Microsoft did a better job showing their hand at what their R&D has been doing. I was impressed that they had so much on the go. One thing I want to do however is note that my comments are more console centric right now. A lot of what Microsoft showed was related to PC, Windows 10 and HoloLens but I try to separate out what relates to the consoles in this context. That might be a mistake, Microsoft has been trying to integrate the Xbox in with Windows gaming for a long time.

I don't see Sony's R&D as being sitting idle. I see Morpheus as a big, more ambitious project than what Microsoft has specifically on the go for the XBox One right now. Now that they let the cat out of the bag a lot hinges on this. It needs to work well. This isn't the motion controller, it is much more complex. Microsoft basically just now out-sourced this to the current industry leading experts but they need a PC to make it work. In this case why not just use the PC, most of the Oculus titles will probably be there anyway.

Microsoft's Xbox projects don't seem to be all that big or game changing with the exception of integration VR which Sony is also in the race for. Backwards compatibility is probably the next biggest one but that needs to work better than it did for the 360. What happened in the last generation was that most people, although they appreciate being able to play their old games, are going to want to play the latest and greatest more and backwards compatibility is almost never used. Nothing here is something specific to one that will make me want that console.

I'm fine with this but I want games and it will always be the games that sells the systems. Console history is full of companies making console technology that kind of flops. You mention Sega and they are the perfect example of the opposite of your point. When Sega went down it was the Dreamcast, a wonderful, powerful machine that was full of promise and easily the most advanced when it was released. It was the fact that they didn't have the games and Sony (this was when the Playstation came in), with the inferior machine at the time, did have games and that made the difference.

Although Sony only really showed off the games, I think this was making the point that they understand this. It is the same tune they have been singing this whole generation and I say this is why they have a slight lead right now.

That said I still don't want either enough to spend the money right now I just don't see that changing.

 

[back_by_demand]

Nice response by the way

Yours too, it's refreshing to have comment reply that isn't laced with swearing, personal insults or references to "your mom". I gave up on Tom's for a few months because the average poster was clearly 12 years old and full of hormones.

It's about time Microsoft did something with PC gaming, I saw a long term vision of playing a Steam game multiplayer with somebody playing the same game via a console and the only company that could do that would be Microsoft. The steps being taken are excruciatingly slow, but we are getting there.

The ultimate dream would be if Xbox One, having a Windows 10 core on x86, could somehow run Steam. Merging the hardware so console and PC are essentially the same would reduce huge amounts of effort in having to program for both PC and console and effectively double the customer base.

Very long way off anything like that happening and may never happen at all, but if it did happen it would be awesome. We live in exciting times!

 

[Pedasc]

...it's refreshing to have comment reply that isn't laced with swearing, personal insults or references to "your mom". I gave up on Tom's for a few months because the average poster was clearly 12 years old and full of hormones.

That was obvious in the way you initially reacted to my first comment. To be fair, I really didn't do a great job getting my point across and calling a minor Sony "win" was a mistake. I guess some of the 12 year old mentality wears off sometimes. I do think Sony knows they need to release games now.

It's about time Microsoft did something with PC gaming, I saw a long term vision of playing a Steam game multiplayer with somebody playing the same game via a console and the only company that could do that would be Microsoft. The steps being taken are excruciatingly slow, but we are getting there..

As far as integration with PC Microsoft isn't the only one that can do it. Sony could figure it out if they wanted to (maybe Sony Linux) but they probably wont try. Nintendo definitely won't try. Microsoft have a big advantage and I think it is going to start fairly soon. Here is where I see complications and it isn't the hardware or software. I don't see Valve and Microsoft getting along well enough for Steam to be the platform of choice on X-Box One right now. I see Microsoft bringing the X-Box marketplace to Windows 10 on PC to try to compete with Steam. I think Valve is starting to see this and it is a big reason why it is trying to cut out the reliance on Microsoft with its new Steam OS. Then there are the Desura/GOG crowd which will not want to go along with it for fears of the extra DRM. Also the Origin/U-Play bunch that have been trying to carve out their own slice for a while now. It may all come to naught but it is going to be interesting to watch.

 

[Pedasc]

...it's refreshing to have comment reply that isn't laced with swearing, personal insults or references to "your mom". I gave up on Tom's for a few months because the average poster was clearly 12 years old and full of hormones.

That was obvious in the way you initially reacted to my first comment. To be fair, I really didn't do a great job getting my point across and calling a minor Sony "win" was a mistake. I guess some of the 12 year old mentality wears off sometimes. I do think Sony knows they need to release games now.

It's about time Microsoft did something with PC gaming, I saw a long term vision of playing a Steam game multiplayer with somebody playing the same game via a console and the only company that could do that would be Microsoft. The steps being taken are excruciatingly slow, but we are getting there..

As far as integration with PC Microsoft isn't the only one that can do it. Sony could figure it out if they wanted to (maybe Sony Linux) but they probably wont try. Nintendo definitely won't try. Microsoft have a big advantage and I think it is going to start fairly soon. Here is where I see complications and it isn't the hardware or software. I don't see Valve and Microsoft getting along well enough for Steam to be the platform of choice on X-Box One right now. I see Microsoft bringing the X-Box marketplace to Windows 10 on PC to try to compete with Steam. I think Valve is starting to see this and it is a big reason why it is trying to cut out the reliance on Microsoft with its new Steam OS. Then there are the Desura/GOG crowd which will not want to go along with it for fears of the extra DRM. Also the Origin/U-Play bunch that have been trying to carve out their own slice for a while now. It may all come to naught but it is going to be interesting to watch.

 

[10tacle]

Much as new games are the bread & butter of a console, I can't help but feel Xbox stole all their thunder. Backwards compatibility, cross platform, pro controllers, Oculus. Sony had a slim lead with performance but less entertainment options, so the gaming purists went to PS4. Sony has been caught sleeping at the wheel as Xbox comes screaming past them.

I'm a PS3/PS4 owner and agree only somewhat. Yes, there was very little to get me excited about. Yes, cross-platform gaming is something I as both a PC and PS console gamer have wanted for YEARS! The logistics on that however, specifically online gaming server logistics between different platforms will be a challenge to overcome for some time. And like Pedasc mentioned above, they've got at least two other cogs in the wheel to work into the Steam/Playstation/Microsoft cross-platform online gear sprocket: GOG (Witcher 3) and Origin (Battlefield 4).

With that said however, it was two years ago when Sony came out on top of Microsoft (remember that big egg Microsoft laid about forcing users to be online even when they want to play offline solo that they backtracked on, among others). However, I hardly consider what MS revealed as anything earth shattering to go "screaming" past Sony. Not by a long shot. For example, let's look at the "backwards compatibility" definition for Microsoft:

1) Can you use your 360 game disc? No. You put in original disc and a repackage digital version will download. If you owned a D/L version it will show up in your list to download a repackaged digital version.

2) Will all 360 games will work? No. Just 100 titles will be available for play (downloaded) by Holiday Season 2015.

Now is that truly backwards compatibility? No. Which is why only select titles will be available, it's not the original game code. Each game must re-coded to work with the emulation. That's certainly not "backwards compatible" based on the past meanings of backwards compatibility. Microsoft is simply digitally repackaging select titles via software emulation. It's like me buying and downloading an old Win98 PC game on Steam like Quake II coded with a Win7 emulator and calling my Win7 gaming PC "backwards compatible" with Win98 games. The devil is in the details.

My original PS3 "fat boy" was true backwards compatible and played PS2 game discs. No downloads, no hoops to jump through. Pop in the old disc and done...you are PS2 gaming. However, Sony removed that capability on its new "slim" updated console, which I bought after the fat boy died (it was a HUGE problem and over half my friends had to replace their fat boys with slims...one spent $150 to send it to Sony for repair out of warranty, but it died again in less than a year...BIG Sony design fail that we all should have been reimbursed for, or had fixed for free with a working solution).

 

[RedJaron]

My original PS3 "fat boy" was true backwards compatible and played PS2 game discs. No downloads, no hoops to jump through. Pop in the old disc and done...you are PS2 gaming. However, Sony removed that capability on its new "slim" updated console, which I bought after the fat boy died (it was a HUGE problem and over half my friends had to replace their fat boys with slims...one spent $150 to send it to Sony for repair out of warranty, but it died again in less than a year...BIG Sony design fail that we all should have been reimbursed for, or had fixed for free with a working solution).

I had the same problem. My original fat overheated in 2008 because I put it in too small a shelf. I paid that $150 to have it fixed and made sure it had proper breathing room after. Unlike your friend, mine lasted many years after that. When it died last summer, I was saddened to lose the BC and the media card slots, but I really haven't missed them now. Five years ago I surely would have, but not now. I'm wondering if the XB1 has already passed, or soon will pass, the point where BC is no longer a big deal because people will have enough XB1 titles to keep them busy.

 

[10tacle]

When it died last summer, I was saddened to lose the BC and the media card slots, but I really haven't missed them now.

Well at first I was upset at having to go down to 2 USB ports, but a simple and inexpensive 4-port USB 2.0 hub solved that problem. I have since upgraded to a 3.0 hub (I always buy a self-powered, plug in the wall USB hub for ensuring complete device stability even if they do have their own power like external drives and wheels). I never used the media card slots and had always used USB thumb drives for removable media.

I'm wondering if the XB1 has already passed, or soon will pass, the point where BC is no longer a big deal because people will have enough XB1 titles to keep them busy.

I think for the most part this is true for those who sell/trade their games and consoles these days. But I'm a retro PC and console gamer. I like to replay games after many years. I have held onto all of my original consoles and games since an early 90s Sega Genesis. It's not much effort to break them out, hook them up, and roll.

But with the increased D/L content and slowly decreasing retail box copy sales going on, the future of backwards compatibility will be in software emulation if anyone else even cares to do it besides MS. But like you said, with the newer generation of gamers coming up and in my opinion increased short attention span kids, maybe retro gaming will be a thing of the past, so to speak, for the future.

 

[RedJaron]

Well at first I was upset at having to go down to 2 USB ports, but a simple and inexpensive 4-port USB 2.0 hub solved that problem. I have since upgraded to a 3.0 hub

Yeah, I miss the extra USB ports for sure. It made charging multiple controllers very easy. I have a hub I use when doing stuff like Rock Band, but I don't leave that on the shelf with the unit since there's not much space. The card slots I actually used a lot. It was much easier and faster to transfer PSP content that way instead of over USB cable. Granted since buying Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD, I haven't used my PSP for much of anything lately.

But I'm a retro PC and console gamer. I like to replay games after many years. I have held onto all of my original consoles and games since an early 90s Sega Genesis. It's not much effort to break them out, hook them up, and roll.

I'm the same, except for my NES which my mom threw out 20 years ago with my gold cartridge Zelda inside it. Of course with everything switching to digital signals, I wonder how much longer we'll have RCA and component video jacks on TVs. I also have my last two computers still in the closet ( Win98 and XP ) since I tend to go seven years between builds, so nothing is worth carrying over. The XP box doesn't do much, but the 98 comes out every now and then for games that can't run past DX7. DosBox on my current machine works for most other things. I actually just fired up War Inc again from the 90s and GOG's summer sale has my wallet twitching

But with the increased D/L content and slowly decreasing retail box copy sales going on, the future of backwards compatibility will be in software emulation if anyone else even cares to do it besides MS. But like you said, with the newer generation of gamers coming up and in my opinion increased short attention span kids, maybe retro gaming will be a thing of the past, so to speak, for the future.

I suppose that depends on how the console architecture changes from here. If the XB1 and PS4 successors stay on x86, it's feasible that games could be compatible across a few generations, provided the APIs don't drastically change.