I care. I would've saved myself for a PS4 if it was backwards compatible. Since it wasnt i got a PS3 instead and wont be getting a PS4 for a while.

Oh.  You're one of those guys that doesn't count Atari consoles.  It's okay to be wrong sometimes.

Anyway, since the PS2, lots of things have become pretty much standard to some degree.  Are we entitled because we expect gaming consoles to have Netflix (for example)?  And hey, if there were some Genesis styled add-on for the PS4 or Xbox One, I'd pay extra for it.  Calm your boobies.

Ideally, every console should be backwards compatible, so definitely I see it as a huge plus. I can however live without it, as I usually don't get rid of my old systems.

Backwards compatibility is definitely a great feature, although its absence wouldn't prevent me from purchasing a console.

Pretty important to me. Not only for the sake of saving space under my TV, but if I ever decide to invest in another console, I'd like to know I can go back and play that previous generation of games that came from its predecessor.

Back in the day of CD singles, you could buy a plastic carrier that would allow you to snap a 3.5" disc into a 5.25" disc carrier.  Disc size isn't an issue.  To explain this further, initially when CD singles were released, they were released on 3.5" discs, however they fell out of favor for 5.25" discs.

The bigger issue is the fact that Wii and GameCube games work by including the OS used for the game on the disc.  If you're running the OS from the disc you can't alter the game to emulate hardware, which despite the Wii U using similar hardware, it isn't 100% the same.  Even if you just want to slow down the CPU performance so the game plays at a normal level, you can't. 

Not that important to me at all. I thought it would be when I got the ps3 and wii, but I can count the number of times that I played last gen games on in one hand.

Not sure how many games I own. I'd say easily 300 from the 7th gen home consoles alone. Don't even get me started on portables. Like I said in an earlier post, since the PS1 ended, games reached a point where (in my opinion) the graphics are good enough. They don't age like they used to. Even many 8-Bit/16-bit era games hold up very well. My thing is, I just don't see myself moving one of my 7th gen consoles from my precious few HDMI ports/power outlets near my TV to replace it with an 8th gen console that just doesn't wow me yet and has a limited library.

Have I purchased consoles without Backwards compatibility? Since the PS2, pretty much every console has been disc based and offered the ability (though limited sometimes) to their previous disc based generations. Gamecube didn't have a disc based predecessor and Xbox didn't have any predecessor. I guess the Dreamcast but, in my case, it was the first Sega console I'd ever owned. Will I buy a console without the ability ever again? I guess if I don't have any choice. I just feel that, right now, the newer consoles just don't have a strong library and the option to play my older games would help justify the purchase. 7th gen games are still pretty awesome to me.

Yes, it would have been nice, at least so I could still use my Wavebird for new games. BUT, it's a non-issue, considering the PS4 and Xbox One have zero backwards compatibility. At least Nintendo did keep the Wii comp. intact.

I use BC heavily. There are still tons of PS1, PS2, PSP games that I have yet to track down and still want to play even more so than most titles being released today. The death of my BC PS3 really broke my heart. I went ahead and picked up a 360 afterwards because without being able to play my old games that library that I had meant next to nothing and a 360 was the cheapest way to play Dragon's Dogma at the time(Plus try out some kinect games). If I had access to my old library I would have never even considered a 360.