Console Manufacturer - Backward Compatibility

Backward Compatibility

Recently console manufacturers have begun considering backward compatibility as an important feature in their consoles. Nintendo has had much success making their Game Boy Advance compatible with the regular Game Boy and Game Boy Color handhelds, as well as their new handheld Nintendo DS which is compatible with games made specifically for the Game Boy Advance. Nintendo’s Wii is compatible, after a fashion, with all four of its previous consoles, in that it can play games from its immediate predecessor, the Nintendo GameCube, and users may download select games released on all of Nintendo’s older home systems (and those of some defunct competitors) using the Virtual Console feature. Sony employed the same making its PlayStation 2 backward-compatible with its PlayStation, and continued with this strategy by making their PlayStation 3 backward-compatible with PlayStation 2 and PlayStation games, although many games had serious problems until a firmware upgrade 3 months after launch. The Xbox 360 is backwards compatible with 394 Xbox games as of the July 12, 2007, update; fewer titles are backward compatible in European markets (295), Japanese markets (101), and Australian markets.