I was going to blog about this some time ago, but it slipped my mind. Better late than never.

I bought an XBox One, and some games. Then I looked for secondhand games, and bought one or two, mostly stuff you can’t buy new anymore, like Halo remastered and Star Wars – Battlefront.

The Star Wars disc turned out to be faulty. The shop would happily take it back, but didn’t have a replacement they could give me.

It turns out that, provided it can be at least partially read, you can use the disc to prove to the XBox that you own the game, then install it off the network.

It’s easy: pop the disc in, cancel out of the installation, then go to the XBox store and find the same game. It’ll give you an install option, which will download it from the servers.

Unlike a game bought online, you’ll still need the disc in the console to play the game.

Neato.

(Source: This Reddit tip)

Back before Christmas, I had pondered getting an XBox 360. Hey, it would let me play the new Pacman, and that Braid game sounds really good.

Then I discovered according to Wikipedia and Microsoft, there are a number of XBox games we have at home that can't be played on the 360.

So I’d have to keep the old XBox going to play them. That sucks.

And at least one of them is a Microsoft game.

• Midtown Madness 3
• Shrek 2
• Wallace and Gromit
• Midway Arcade Classics
• Pro Evolution Soccer 4

Evidently each game needs an emulation profile. Which means I suppose that alas the XBox 360 is not sufficiently advanced as to be able to fully and properly emulate the original XBox, which is why each game needs to be made compatible individually.

We ended up getting a Wii for Christmas. Admittedly the old XBox hasn't been switched-on since.

At least Nintendo do their backward compatibility properly. Having seen how Microsoft's dealt half-heartedly with the old XBox, I wouldn't have wanted to buy into another technological dead-end.

I might see what's out there to turn it into a Media Centre instead.

Back when it was announced, it sounded like Nintendo's WiiWare would let bedroom coders get their games into their Wiis, just like Microsoft XNA lets anybody write for the XBox 360.

Not so. Apparently all the usual NDAs and licence fees apply. The difference is the games can be developed by small teams (within licenced developers) and the games are distributed via Nintendo's online service.

Nintendo snubbing small developers for WiiWare

WiiWare is a lie

I know I was never going to get around to coding any more games, not with my current workload, but all the same, I liked the idea, and it was helping leaning me towards buying a Wii.

If you’re like me, and clinging to your “classic” XBox while you ponder upgrading to your next console, now’s a good time to go out game shopping. Arm yourself with a copy of Metacritic’s index of XBox games (if you copy it into Excel and only print the half-decent games, say those rated above 70, you can probably get it down to a fairly small and inconspicuous size) and hit the shops.

For those in Australia, JB Hifi in particular are selling a lot of well-regarded games (and some crap ones as well) at good prices. Pro Evolution Soccer (rated 91 at Metacritic): $15. Want a racing game, but can’t decide between (the late) Colin McRae 2004 (84) or Rallisport 2 (87)? $10 each. Lego Star Wars (76): I think that was $15. Forza Motorsport (92): $15 too I think, but don’t quote me on it. They also had Star Wars Battlefront (80), Destroy All Humans (76), Oddworld: Strangers Wrath (88), Sonic Mega Collection Plus (75).

Or if you just paid $30 for Harry Potter: Goblet Of Fire for the kids a few weeks ago at EB (and it was secondhand), seethe with rage as you spot it for just $20. (Grumble)

(Different games showing up in different stores, natch.)

It’s amazing to see how quickly (original) Xbox games have disappeared. There’s still some on the shelves, but their space has shrunk markedly to make space for other platforms, and there’s nothing in most advertising — it’s all gone onto the Xbox 360.

Contrast that to the Playstation, where PS2 games are still being promoted along their PS3 companions, and even the newer games are still being developed and released for the PS2. Which reflects the massive install-base of the PS2 against the Xbox, I suppose. In fact, you can still buy a PS2 in the shops.

I have an old Xbox… I’m not ready to upgrade yet. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I rarely have time for it, but I’m still enjoying PGR2 and Halo. Will I still be able to find games on the shelves in six months’ time? Probably. Twelve months? Who knows. You can still buy GBA games new.

When I bought my Xbox a few years ago, I pondered that buying it was actually a good way to fight back against the dominance of Microsoft, because they lose so much money on them. Turns out Microsoft reckoned they lost US$4 billion on the venture.

Curmudgeon Gamer shows a History of Console Prices, trying to show that in inflation adjusted terms, PS3 isn’t going to be so expensive.

But the price comparison between it and the XBox360, wow. And the XBox ain’t cheap either. I can buy a PC for that kind of money.