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How Often Do You Actually Use Backwards Compatibility?

Backwards compatibility is a very useful feature. It's convenient to have one device playing a lot of your old games as well as newer ones.

But how often do you actually use it?

I used Wii backwards compatibility with Gamecube games quite a bit. But with the Wii U, I rarely went back to play a Wii game since I am not a fan of motion controls. As far as handhelds go, I used GBA with GB/GBC backwards compatibility only a little and DS with GBA a bit more. With the 3DS, I played DS games on it maybe once or twice a year.

For Xbox, my brothers and I got a 360 as a Christmas gift in 2005 and we played a ton of original Xbox games on it. During the Xbox One era, I also went back to my original Xbox and 360 games quite a bit. Xbox is definitely the brand I use backwards compatibility on most.

As far as Playstation goes we used to have a PS3 fat and played some PS1 and PS2 games on it from 2007 until it stopped working in 2011.

What about you?
 

Jimmu

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For me the most use of backwards compatibility would be the 3DS with DS games and the Wii U with Wii Games. While the backwards compatibility of the Wii killed the need for a Gamecube at the time, now the backwards compatibility of the Wii U has killed the need to ever dust off my Wii and given new life to the GameCube once again.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

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I never owned a GB or GBC, but I do have games for them which of course I play on my Game Boy Advance, same thing for DS games on my 3ds

I do mostly use my Wii for GameCube games but I noticed some games that have scratches refuse to play at all on my Wii, not the case when I play it on an actual GameCube, so that puts it in weird spot

I used to use my PS2 for PS1 games, but my friend gave me a PSone as a birthday gift a couple years back, and I do honestly get in the mood to use that sometimes so it varies there
 

Princess Niki

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I have never owned a PS or a GC so I use a PS2 and Wii to play their games.

I no longer own a GB or DS so I use a GBA and 3DS to play their games.
 
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Very very often, actually. The majority of games on my Xbone are for the 360. I also play a lot of DS games on my 3DS.
 

twilitfalchion

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Pretty often, I'd say. I play DS games on my 3DS quite frequently, and I sometimes use my Wii for GC games when I want to game in the living room of my home instead of going to my setup in another room.
 

MW7

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I use it extremely often. I skipped out on buying a DS, and I found myself buying more DS games than 3ds games once I finally bought a 3ds. I don't think I've played a game on the Wii in nearly a decade but I've played plenty of Wii games on the Wii U since then. I also bought a number of Xbox games to play on Xbox 360 as well. I really appreciate it when companies extend the lifespan of games because the old hardware could go bad and any other number of issues can happen.
 
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I only have a New 2DS XL and the original model of the Switch, so my backwards compatibility options are limited. If the Switch had a peripheral for disk based games, though, I would use it no end. Backwards compatibility is something that every console should have in some form.
 

Turo602

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Very often, actually. While I've played backward compatible games on PS2, 360, Wii, Wii U, DS, and 3DS to various extents, the Xbox 360 and Xbox One are easily the largest libraries in my collection. Since I juggle between all 3 platforms every generation, I always end up with a massive backlog of games to play. I had a ton of 360 games I never got to by the time the Xbox One rolled out, that I either played through current gen remasters or backwards compatibility and I'm still not done. With next gen coming in just under 2 weeks, it's the same story with a lot of my Xbox One games, which is gonna get some serious attention on Series X to fill in those droughts, especially now with game prices increasing.

I'm actually currently finishing up another playthrough of Red Dead Redemption on my Xbox One X before I jump into the 2nd game on Series X, which I have yet to get to. So I've definitely taken advantage of backwards compatibility and plan to for the foreseeable future. I can't wait to get to games like Borderlands 3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Assassin's Creed: Origins on Series X where they'll also perform better.

It's such a useful feature that should be embraced more and become standard. Just thinking about how amazing the Switch library is right now and all the effort Nintendo has put into porting all of their Wii U hits on the system just makes it feel like such a shame to not be able to bring these games with us to the next generation of Nintendo and the generation after that. Having people be stuck with old hardware they have no room for or can't replace once broken just seems like such a waste of money. It's not only convenient for consumers but it strengthens brand loyalty when you know you can play everything you have in one place.
 

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