Austin Daily Herald

There’s a ton of speculation about the latest consoles now that the historic five year cycle of the current generation is ending.

Every five years or so companies roll out new and improved consoles for people to throw money on. While Nintendo may win the console race (the Wii 2 could come out next year) and Sony’s handheld NGP could come any time, there’s a bigger issue these companies need to address, and soon: Backwards compatibility.

I don’t care if your Xbox 1080 has a bajillion gadgets and gizmos on it. I don’t care if your PS47 has the best graphics ever. I don’t even really care that your 10DS has the best 3D experience. I, and many other gamers, want to have the games I’ve played on previous systems still work on my current one.

I’ve bought a lot of versions of the same game. I own a SNES cartridge and a PS1 disc of Final Fantasy 6, the best game of all time. When it comes out on the Playstation Network and the Wii’s Virtual Console store, I will buy them on each platform (the PSN version has upgraded content, but the battle rate is ridiculous on the PS version).

That’s why it’s disappointing to me that companies have only now figured out people want to keep their games around longer.

Gaming is an expensive hobby and it’s asinine for current systems to have compatibility issues. Why does the 360 not play every Xbox game yet? Why is Sony making people buy PS2s for our older games if they have a PS3?

Developers are slowly putting their wares onto online stores, but it’s not fair for those who don’t have Internet connections to their systems or people with tons of physical game copies. These technologies will wear out before long and it’s time to make sure we gamers can play our games regardless of however many new consoles come out.