Brilliant - Why backwards compatibility matters!

[Landguy]

The Fury said:

Landguy said:

 The thing is, BC isn't a one time thing and all the games are available and we stop talking about it.  It will be a continous thing that people will talk about for the next couple of years as publishers look to mine extra $ out of their old titles and want to put the games in the Xbox store.  Why do a remaster when you can get more money for close to nothing?

I don't think that this will change the sales rankings, as the PS4 has clearly decided that.  But, we may yet see the sales gap stop increasing so much.

The BC you are talking about is different to companies making it so a game works on Xbox One and selling it on the store. BC allows a customer to play the games they already own (hard copies), if a customer was sensible that also means they won't buy the $40 version from the store but the $5 version from the 2nd hand shelf if they don't already own it.

Why do a remaster? Because that is far more profitable than allowing a customer to just play the game already. It's a great feature for consumers but not very profitable for the publishers.

I know that they can play the games that they own...

 

But, the BC capability will alllow them to direct sell DIGITAL versions to people who have sold their old copies or new people to their old content.

Remasters have a significant cost to produce if done right.  Most games may not really gain much from a remaster.