Same Old Games, New Hardware

So the word is that Microsoft has decided not to support backwards compatibility for Xbox 2 and the nerds have come out like villagers to their Frankenstein's Monster. For those that don't know, backwards compatibility means that you could mosey your way down to your local game store, buy a shiny new Xbox 2 (as of now planned to hit in the fall of 2005) along with games designed to play on both the Xbox 2 as well as the Xbox 1 and play them all on one machine.

So yeah, this is a pretty cool feature, but in the scheme of things this isn't that big of a deal. Firstly, as the article says, only around 10% of people are even interested in this feature. I would actually wager that most of those 10% represent a sigificant portion of people that buy the system at launch, but I'd also wager that even these 10% mostly stop using the feature within a year.

My solution to the raging nerd horde is simple. Microsoft should redesign the Xbox 1 into a smaller, sleeker package, as Sony did with the PSone, and sell the thing for $100 or so at the Xbox 2 lauch and then reduce the price again in a year or two. Just my late night rambling thoughts as I read message boards filled with nerds acting tough.