Xbox Originals

[Spartacus]

I'm just impressed that they offer a downloadable manual. Are they the only ones doing that?

[kaedesdisciple]

I'm sure there are going to be plenty of people downloading these games. People like ourselves are a bit more into the gaming comunity and are aware of what certain values are and we also prefer physical over virtual for the most part. I agree also that this is a great new addition to XBL, but is it one for gamers like us? maybe not. M$ will most likely make thier profit off these titles, but they probably could have made a hell of a lot more by including some of those extra features to appeal to gamers like us.

Exactly. I would imagine it was a somewhat of a cost-benefit analysis. The cost to put the extra development effort into these older games likely far outweighed the minimal extra profits they knew they would make by trying to appeal to the more hardcore gamer. The casuals would buy it regardless of what else was put on top of it, so it was probably very little skin off of their backs. Who knows, if they see enough profit from it, maybe they will consider putting some more effort into these games.

[s1lence]

I have a feeling that regardless of what has been said, if these flop on the download side with out achievements that Microsoft will find a way to patch them with achievements.

Either way for the cost, I'm going to pass.

[Cryomancer]

Give me Toejam and Earl III with online Co-Op and acheivements and I'll download it for 20 bucks, despite already owning the game. And release True Fantasy Live Online too, damnit. Or the english version of Rent-A-Hero, the cancelled port of Illbleed, something. Give us things that never came out and I'll be all over this.

[Joker T]

No Online, no Achievements, no HD, no purchase for me.

This was a huge missed opportunity, if you want to play the original Halo than go buy it, its not hard to find. I would of bought the Xbox Originals version of Halo day 1 if it had online and achievements. But as is, its just an old game repackaged for $15.

I also find it hard to believe Microsoft, that it is "Impossible" to add achievements.

[diskoboy]

Already a topic on this:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109075

[DOL_001]

Wow, I already own 5 of those in physical form and they only cost me $5-10. I can't really see this feature take off.

[heybtbm]

FYI: Each "Xbox Original" has a free theme and gamer picture pack available for download.

[Daria]

According to the head of XBL, adding achievements to Xbox games would be impossible. They apparently would have to build the game up again from scratch. There's a decent interview with the guy on Gamespot (or IGN..whatever) last week that discussed the achievement issue.

I don't know. You think they could have put in at least a single achievement that triggered when you "beat" the game. Maybe not 1000 points all at once... but something. 250 like an arcade title would have been cool.

[Nature Boy]

So is anyone against buying games this way?

I'm not against it at all, although I wouldn't buy any Xbox 1 games at that price with no achievements to have fun with.

In the end all i want to do is enjoy games big and small. And it makes sense to me to distribute small games via a online service that keeps costs down. I'd rather pick up 2 or 3 retro games on XBLA rather than buy 1 or 2 compilation discs at much greater price with games I can live without.

[Nature Boy]

According to the head of XBL, adding achievements to Xbox games would be impossible. They apparently would have to build the game up again from scratch.

Building up the game from scratch certainly isn't impossible. It would cost them more than it's worth (at this point) for sure though, which makes it a financially impossibility.

[8-bitNesMan]

Building up the game from scratch certainly isn't impossible. It would cost them more than it's worth (at this point) for sure though, which makes it a financially impossibility.

This is what I wonder about. How hard would it be to take the existing source code and use it to build a new game with achievements and online play? It obviously can be done (looks at XBLA titles). I realize Halo is somewhat more complex than say, Smash TV, but why not wait and do it the right way? Sure there will be people who will buy these overpriced titles anyway but why not do it right and sell them to even more? Go for the folks like us who have the hard copies and wouldn't dream of buying the virtual ones. Seems to me they could sell a ton of 120 GB hard drives if they would give us more bang for our buck.

[kaedesdisciple]

This is what I wonder about. How hard would it be to take the existing source code and use it to build a new game with achievements and online play? It obviously can be done (looks at XBLA titles). I realize Halo is somewhat more complex than say, Smash TV, but why not wait and do it the right way? Sure there will be people who will buy these overpriced titles anyway but why not do it right and sell them to even more? Go for the folks like us who have the hard copies and wouldn't dream of buying the virtual ones. Seems to me they could sell a ton of 120 GB hard drives if they would give us more bang for our buck.

I understand exactly what you are saying, but there is more to consider.

MS would first have to develop a strategy of where to put the achievements and decide technically how best to place them into the games. Then they would have to take developers off of existing projects, putting those projects behind. If they don't take off existing developers, then they would hire contractors or obtain some other type of resource to do the grunt work, all at some cost. Of course the developers would have to familiarize themselves with this code that they may have not seen for years, if ever. After finalizing design and completing construction they have to test and re-test the software to make sure the achievements work as they should and that the insertion hasn't broken any other part of the code. After the implementation they have to monitor the software to see if any of the users break the software in some way they didn't think of in testing and possibly have to fix it based upon severity. That's just an overview.

The total amount of money and resources this effort would cost likely exceeds the marginal increase of revenue they would see from the extra few percent of gamers downloading the software as a result of said effort. Of course I don't know for sure, but given proper project management practice and the known idea that Microsoft likes to extensively test anything before placement on the Live network, it's a reasonable assumption.

[Nature Boy]

Sure there will be people who will buy these overpriced titles anyway but why not do it right and sell them to even more?

Diminished returns I'd assume.

The costs for getting the games to work on the new machines is non-existent (they've already downloaded patches that make the game work, right?) So for the $15 per game they get, it's pretty much all profit (assuming they've already written off the costs for making games backwards compatible).

If you build the game from scratch, you have to price it according to what it's going to cost you to make it. So instead of selling it for $15 you'd probably want to sell it for $30 or something to get your money back. And selling an older game, even with Achievements, for $30 is pricey.

Now my numbers are all made up surely, but the gist of what I'm saying is coming through I think.