<i>Ok, the big question is...why isn't the xbox360 backawards compatible out of the box....why should you need to do anything at all to make it backwards compatible. Especially if all it takes is installing some stuff from a CD or the web. Why doesn't MS just sell completely configured backwards compatible machines in the first place?</i>
Because the xbox 360 is a totally different architecture than the xbox... and Microsoft couldn't licence the same old technology from NVidia (where as Sony does all technology in house).
So xbox 360 emulates the xbox in a virtual machine. The virtual machine emulates the old games pretty well, but not good enough to meet the QA standards for xbox games. So the 360 will not play xbox games without a patch that brings it up to the proper QA standards. They develop a patch that fixes whatever random bugs happen because of emulation.
It would be nice if Microsoft would allow the 360 to run all games, but strongly reccomend the patch. I should be able to play the game and take my chances. But because of all the legal agreements, and QA standards, I can understand why they are not doing that.
Because the xbox 360 is a totally different architecture than the xbox... and Microsoft couldn't licence the same old technology from NVidia (where as Sony does all technology in house).
So xbox 360 emulates the xbox in a virtual machine. The virtual machine emulates the old games pretty well, but not good enough to meet the QA standards for xbox games. So the 360 will not play xbox games without a patch that brings it up to the proper QA standards. They develop a patch that fixes whatever random bugs happen because of emulation.
It would be nice if Microsoft would allow the 360 to run all games, but strongly reccomend the patch. I should be able to play the game and take my chances. But because of all the legal agreements, and QA standards, I can understand why they are not doing that.