jeffdsmith

I just finished up playing several hours of Prime on my fathers Plasma (home for Christmas) and I have to say its so nice to be able to do that on my Wii.

People knock the Wii for its graphical limitations (rightfully so) but its so sweet to be able to play any of the GC games without any worry that it won't work or that it won't look right.

How many here are glad the Wii has 100% BC vs those that don't care?

SteelgearX

Yep, other than Wii Sports, Pikmin 2 was the first game I played on it. Freakin' sweet!

SuperBatMan

I'm glad for it. I can pack up my Cube and put the Wii in it's spot. I can also put in Metroid Prime, or RE4 anytime. I also don't have to worry that if I pick up a Cube game, 'well, is this BC with the Wii?' like you do with the 360.

Plus, easier to find the component cables for the Wii, so 480p for those games too.

chrisih8u

I havent put in a gamecube game yet. You just put it right into the slot where you put regular games, right? Seems weird to me. I'm afraid that it won't work for some reason.

Joe Molotov

I have a group of friends that I get together with occasionally and play GameCube games (Super Smash Bros Melee, Super Monkey Ball, WarioWare mostly). Now I just bring the Wii when we get together, and toss in some Wii Sports as well.

dvd182

I'm loving the Wii backwards compatibility. A friend sold me his Ocarina of Time GC disc, so I'm playing through that in preparation for Twilight Princess. I skipped getting a GC the first time around, so the somewhat longish game droughts will be killed by playing through GC classics I haven't hit yet.

Supermallet

It's funny, at my store we have a PS3 demo and it says in a video: "The PS3 is the only console on the market that is 100% backwards compatible." It pisses me off. I suppose if you consider the Wii as being unable to natively play NES, SNES, and N64 cartridges it isn't, but give me a break.

MAH4546

I never had a Gamecube, but have been looking at picking up a few Gamecube games since the Wii is backward compatible. The way I see, the Wii is more than just Backwards Compatabile, though: it truly is both a Wii and a Gamecube, down to the dedicated Gamecube ports.

Michael Corvin

Speaking of, do you have to hold down the button for 480p on the Wii for GC titles? Or are they all automatically run in that mode by default?

jeffdsmith

It will ask you automatically on start up, no button pressing required.

(first post on my Wii... )

Josh H

I'm glad its there, but I don't care much as there really isn't much on the GC that I have any interest in replaying as the library was fairly weak (and I don't replay games often in general, aside from NES/SNES platformers).

edytwinky

I love it. There were quite a bit of games I always wanted to get on the GC but never got around to it. Now it's awesome with the just purchasing up all those used GC games.

Astro

I'm not sure how its an unsung hero. Yeah its nice, but all of the systems support backwards compatability now. Prime isn't exactly an obscure title so I don't think it really shows off the 100% BC part of your argument.

taffer

The Wii's 100% backward compatibility is an unsung hero because it is the only system this gen that actually has 100% backward compatibility.

The 360 is BC only with about a hundred or so Xbox games and most of them are crappy titles like Barbie Horse Adventures.

The PS3 does not have 100% BC. There is a list somewhere of PS1 and PS2 games that will not play on it at all. And the games that do play have butchered graphics because of the PS3's faulty BC. Look at that youtube video comparing Final Fantasy X on the PS2 to the PS3 to see what I am talking about.

Astro

Uh, the 360 has just short of 300 games BC now. And they have the capability of taking advantage of the 360's increased hardware.

The Gamecube has about 500 titles and lets be honest it has its fair share of crap titles too.

taffer

Exactly how do they take advantage of the increased hardware? The graphics are not suddenly upped to 360 caliber with more polygons and better textures. The graphics are still the same as they were on the Xbox.

The 360 may have more than 300 games on the BC list now (I haven't stopped to count them), but many many are still missing. They are not anywhere near 100%. MS promised 100% compatibility, but it hasn't happened and probably never will happen. They have had over a year now, and it is still nowhere near 100%. Nintendo is the only one that has kept their word.

Astro

Full screen anti-aliasing and increased resolution.

Don't say there are only 100 games then if you don't even bother to check. What key titles are missing?

When did MS promise 100% BC? I agree that it'll never happen; the focus should mainly be on new games. Its the price you pay when you provide BC via software emulation.

Its pretty easy to guarantee 100% when your hardware basically hasn't changed. Wii can get away with hardware emulation.

sniper308

There are quite a few titles missing. I think the descriptor of key is one of perspective.

Several that I wish were on the list are not... most of it depends on what MS has been able to test and certify, as well as titles using a common engine, etc.

The point is that Nintendo can apparently claim 100% while the other 2 consoles cannot (at least not and be accurate).

tonyc3742

I think the 100% BC is very attractive, because while there are some GC games that look interesting to me, I never bought a GC; with the Wii I have access to both platforms. And (this is good and bad), since the Wii is not lightyears ahead of the GC graphically, I'd be more likely to play a GC game, whereas I didn't find myself playing too many PS1 games on the PS2.
I do agree, the PS3 shouldn't be saying "100% BC", because it's not true; from what I've heard it's something like 90-95% , which is still good and does deserve to be a selling point. And no, the Wii can't claim 100% BC, because it's what, the fifth generation or so, whereas the PS3 is only third.

lordwow

I've been playing through RE4. Very awesome.

sniper308

I don't think anyone here is defining BC as all previous consoles from the same company; i.e. all of Nintendo's previous consoles.

porieux

Something else that is overlooked sometimes: HARDWARE backward compatibility. This is something that neither the 360 or the PS3 have, which means that games that need special hardware don't work (ie guitar hero, DDR, karaoke, etc) and all that hardware is deprecated.

taffer

Riddick, Panzer Dragoon, Mercenaries, Prince of Persia 2 and 3, Morrowind, Voodoo Vince (this is lesser known but still treasured by a lot of people). Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. I am sure there are others I am forgetting.



In the infamous Q&A session, MS had before the 360 even launched. Q&A with Todd Holmdahl. Taken straight from that link:

Q: "How far back into the Xbox game library are you going to go?"
A: "When we say Xbox library, we mean the entire Xbox library. This ranges all the way from our launch in 2001 up to games that haven't even shipped yet."

Of course, they later retracted that saying they "under-promised and over-delivered."

dvd182

Great point. I liked that I could use old controllers and stuff on my PS2, but it really irks me that I can't on my kazillion dollar PS3. It's really nice on Wii to be able to use the Wavebird and Bongos and other stuff.

Astro

Heh. That quote seems to just say that time of release won't be a criteria for backwards compatibility... number of sales is.

The very next sentence: "As we've said before, we prioritized the top-selling titles and those games with a large Xbox Live following for launch, and we're going deeper into the portfolio every day."

Anyway, I just think being "100%" BC is a bit overrated. I don't think I'd be too upset if Pac-Man Fever or Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure weren't backwards compatible on the Wii.