Rant: Why Isn’t Backwards Compatibility a Thing?

A few weeks ago we had a brief power outage, and thought my XBox 360 was hosed. Luckily, it ened up only being the power supply that was fried (side note: always check the grounding on your outlets). But before I figured that out, I started looking at the Xbox One and PS4. I figured if I had to replace a system, may as well do it with the new version.

But then I looked at the games. And there wasn’t a ton I was interested in.

Sure, Titanfall looks amazing. And Watch Dogs could be fun. But that was basically it. There are some games coming out later this year, but for now there’s not much. So if I hadn’t found out it was the power supply, I would have bought a used Xbox 360, because it has games I want to play.

Backwards compatibility isn’t possible on the new consoles. (Well the Wii U can play Wii games.) Scratch that, it’s not available on new consoles. I have games I’ve purchased on Xbox Marketplace for my 360 that won’t port to the XBox One. This….just doesn’t make sense to me.

I guess it’s because Sony and Microsoft want to sell more games on their new consoles. They don’t want people buying the cheaper old games. But I think this is excluding an entire group of gamers. I know right now I’m only buying dirt-cheap older games (I bought Fallout: New Vegas for $5 last night). Because I don’t want to buy new games for a console I will replace. But I don’t want to buy a new console when there’s not a ton I want to play.

I’m stuck in this weird limbo. Where I’m not spending money on gaming, where I normally would be. Am I the only one? Or do you find yourself trapped as well?