One of the issues with Xbox One that Xbox 360, and I believe, Xbox Live Arcade games, cannot be played on Xbox one because of “[CPU] architectural differences.”

Pardon my French, but that has always seemed to be to be complete merde!

While trying to put together a little Server 2012 assignment for my nephew a little while ago, it hit me: “Why couldn’t Microsoft virtualize Xbox 360/Xbox Live Arcade games on Xbox One?”

I’m serious.

Why not?

The primary impediment would be that in use, a virtualized Xbox 360 – hereinafter used for both Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade games – may be inelegant, as the UI wasn’t created for consumers.

Yes, maybe true. However, Microsoft has had enough time to architect Xbox One, and I have no doubt that they could have found a way to encapsulate a consumer-friendly UI and user experience within the new Xbox One experience.

Heck, they currently tout the 3-screen approach, which seems to be working just fine.

A more plausible answer is that being PC-based, Xbox One will be subject to more hacking attempts and successes than Xbox 360 ever was. That situation would have the unintended consequences of opening up both systems to piracy, and killing off Xbox 360, which happens to be a very productive golden goose which currently shows no signs of slowing down, thank you.

For which I would understand. Completely.

Listen, Microsoft has the unfortunate distinction of being the company with the most pirated products on this planet, a fact that must tee Microsoft executives off to no end!

So, you can imagine their reluctance to create a solution that would assist software pirates in siphoning off Latinum from a device for which they have subsidized the hardware?

However, I guess I want Microsoft to be more forthright with customers and end users instead of coming at us with these condescending statements.

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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