Pemalite said:
Xbox's backwards compatibility is much more complicated.
The Xbox One actually included hardware support for some Xbox 360 stuff like texture and audio formats.
However they recompiled the entire Xbox 360 software environment, OS, API's, Drivers, the lot and virtualized it.
They also repackaged the games, they take the PowerPC code, reverse engineered it into an intermediate, then emulate for x86.
Basically Microsoft did a hybrid approach. They have emulation, they have virtualization, they have partial hardware support, they recompiled and they used a translation layer to achieve backwards compatibility.
Nintendo isn't doing the same approach here, there isn't any need, they are relying on the fact that the hardware and software is an evolution rather than a clean slate. |
That's a good point regarding the difference between Xbox backward compatibility and the Switch's approach. You're right that the Xbox required recompilation for many titles, resulting in a more limited compatible library, whereas Nintendo seems to be targeting full library compatibility for the Switch.
The core idea of a translation layer remains relevant. It's similar to how Proton enables Windows games to run on Linux or how Rosetta allows x86-64 software to run on Apple Silicon ARM. These layers are crucial for bridging architectural differences.
