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Otakumegane said:
richardhutnik said:

What is appearing to me is a cold, harsh reality that companies have really no interest in supporting anything, unless it means ongoing revenue streams for them.  For them, the used game market is of ZERO interest.  Included in this is the very likelihood that Sega doesn't really care about the old carts about, or heck, even Nintendo.  In light of this, why would they care about supporting backwards compatibility, if they can't make money from the sale of content in the past?  Sure, the backwards compatibility provides a way to have a good library for your system out of the game.  But, financially, if you own the games, why are the companies motivated to continue backwards compatibility support, outside of not ticking off their base?  Eventually you sees stuff with Nintendo and their portable platform, where they quietly phase out compatibiility to older stuff on their handhelds.  Like, the DSi did away with the GBA compatibility, and so on.

Ok, so the reality is that companies then don't have a drive to support backwards compatibility, so they want to phase it out.  So, this then means that, if aligned as companies want, you can't play your old stuff.  It eventually will expire.  So, in light of this, if you can't play your old stuff, what is the point of backwards compatibility?

So, can someone explain what the point of backwards compatibility is in the end, if you eventually can't play your old content?  And companies don't benefit from ti at all?

Because when my GC broke I kept my best games and can play them on my Wii?

That is benefits of it.  What I was talking about is the reasoning behind it.  It is not in the financial interests of companies to support this long term.  As it is now, they want you to rebuy stuff you had in new formats.  I believe, for example, that the Wii model now is phasing out Gamecube compatibility.  Once Nintendo made its money, it isn't motivated to have you keep it.  They want you to rebuy the HD versions, for example.  Look at what they did with Pikmin and Mario Tennis on the Wii, for example.