There is a Forza sized hole, in the Xbox Backwards Compatibility Catalogue

BarrelTerror18 · Nov 16, 2021

I know that the recent drop of 70 BC games is meant to be the last of the BC titles, however, there is one series, that is missing. Forza. The worst part, they have done it before on the Xbox 360. Now I don't know if my feelings are shared, but, an Xbox without Forza, is not an Xbox. SO I find it, infuriating that you CAN NOT play every Forza game with BC. I feel the same way about this, as many would if Halo was absent from the Backwards Compatability list. This Year was the 16th anniversary of the Forza Franchise, and yet, 6 years of Forza, HALF OF THE FRANCHISE, is left to rot, as slowly but surely, the discs from which they can be played, decay.

Forza Motorsport, the game that birthed the franchise, is NOT backwards compatible on Xbox One & Series X|S. YET, If you insert a Forza Motorsport disc into an Xbox 360, it will boot and can be played. The game is backwards compatible on Xbox 360, but not Xbox One nor Xbox Series X|S. HOW? How is a game that was backwards compatible with the Xbox 360, yet isn't on any console after? I don't see how it is unable to be added "due to licensing, legal and technical constraints", Because that certainly didn't apply for the Xbox 360, even though the Xbox 360 and the Original Xbox don't even share the same architecture, whereas the Original Xbox and the Xbox One do. This one needs an explanation because Technically, there is no issue, If anything, getting an Original Xbox game to run on the Xbox 360, would be more of a technical challenge than running it on an Xbox One. As for licensing, isn't that already sorted? Microsoft did it once before, Why can't they do it again?

Forza Motorsport 2,

Forza Motorsport 3,

Forza Motorsport 4,

These are the other omissions from the catalogue, They are all Xbox 360 games. NONE OF THEM, are compatible with any other Xbox Console.

There is one issue, the only issue that would reasonably be able to deny these games from being preserved. The bane of Video Game Preservation, that dreaded licensing. It is an issue that plagues Motorsport Video games. I find it disappointing, that there is no Forza Motorsport game, that can be purchased as of now, the Licenses of Every Forza Motorsport game has expired. this includes the ones mentioned above, Forza Motorsport 5, Forza Motorsport 6, and Forza Motorsport 7. I find it sad that a series as quintessential to Xbox as Halo, is dying. Need I mention, this issue appears to have only affected Forza Motorsport. Forza Horizon, is as a whole, playable on Xbox One, & Series X|S. Forza Horizon, Forza Horizon 2, Forza Horizon 3, Forza Horizon 4, and Forza Horizon 5 are all playable and Backwards Compatible. As for re-negotiating these licenses, Most if not ALL of the relevant licensees are still operating and/or still held by an operating organisation (example, Holden, is still operating (in a reduced servicing and support only state), despite being axed by general motors, the latter of which, still holds the licenses for the brand.)

I wouldn't care how long it takes, to sort out, I wouldn't care if some functionality is removed, I wouldn't care if it took so long that the Xbox Series X & S are EOL by the time it happens. I just want a core part of Xbox, to be preserved. Is that too much to ask for?

:)

Obsessive Power

"I don't see how it is unable to be added "due to licensing, legal and technical constraints", Because that certainly didn't apply for the Xbox 360, even though the Xbox 360 and the Original Xbox don't even share the same architecture, whereas the Original Xbox and the Xbox One do."

The thing is, the Xbox 360 achieves BC with the limited number of games that it did because unlike Xbox ONE it uses a traditional emulation solution. A piece of clever software that takes the original Xbox's Intel x86 instructions (and NVIDIA API) and converts them to run on its very different IBM PowerPC processor (Xenon) and bespoke graphics processor (Xenos). Bear in mind that the original Xbox and the Xbox One and Series consoles architecture similarity only applies to the CPU, the original Xbox used NVIDIA hardware for graphics.

The Xbox One/Series consoles don't use the above traditional method, in fact it can hardly be described as emulation. For Xbox 360 and the very small selection of original Xbox titles, the BC team took the original games and converted/reverse engineered them individually to run on the Xbox One.

The Xbox Series X|S are the same but considerably more capable hardware of their forbears, this is why all Xbox One (excluding Kinect) titles run on these next generation machines.

As for licensing, I’m not sure what the deal was with the original Forza game, but I suspect that the agreement terms were different and longer than what they are now, plus this game came out in 2005, towards the end of the original Xbox life cycle. Which is why it was included as BC on the Xbox 360.

“Most if not ALL of the relevant licensees are still operating and/or still held by an operating organisation (example, Holden, is still operating (in a reduced servicing and support only state), despite being axed by general motors, the latter of which, still holds the licenses for the brand.)”

Gaming licensing, especially for sports titles are negotiated per game. It doesn’t matter if the owners of the brand/IP are still running or not. Microsoft pays for the licenses for fixed term durations from the IP holders. The terms probably state that they can’t be renewed for one game. Then there's the music and other types of licences. It's not all about just the cars. Why? Money of course.

I’m afraid you won’t see the likes of those old classic Forza’s again. Luckily though the same won’t be true of the current Forza games.

SwordofWhedon

These cars, music, etc are licensed on a per title basis for a set number of years. The cost of reacquiring them is prohibitive for the income it will generate. Very few people want to play these, and you can make entire games for what each would cost to reissue at all. A permanent buyout isn’t done for the new games, and that should tell you how expensive that would be.

This is the nature of licensed IP. People don’t carry about playing football unless it’s the NFL. People want to drive real cars, and so they can’t just make up their own

Forza Horizon 1,2,3 are all delisted. You’ve had 4 years to buy 7. The plan as far as I know was to launch the new one alongside Series, but then like everything else COVId threw a wrench

Last time I looked, there were plenty of FM 5,6,7 at my local GameStop. People will make it through until the next one,

ngocphi

You are forgetting with October just passed the forza 7 and older titles licenses were expired

Horizon is done by another team completely

.in order to be in bc you need to have approval by the developer

Since it is a sports license and advertising yes licenses do matter

Disks are fine but you are forgetting disks don't need to be sold currently and the games have been our of circulation for awhile

StuartATrueRed

The Xbox and Xbox 360 backward compatibility program has ended, and no more of the games are being added to the backward compatibility catalogue.

StuartATrueRed

Hi, No it's not currently avilable on the backward compatibility catalogue yet. Keep an eye on the back compat list for updates when they become available

majornelson.com/.../xbox-one-backward-compatibility

There is a Forza sized hole, in the Xbox Backwards Compatibility Catalogue