Microsoft's Missed Opportunity

Well, i do think Xbox original games are expensive, but really, why do achievements matter? Is it when you recieve a 'Beat the Game 30G', or is it when adding it up makes a difference. You don't play a game only you want the achievements, you play the game because you want to play it. I wouldn't want to not by a game just because I don't get a couple points. But really in the end I still wouldn't want an old game, I would want today's games that are the next-gen games.

I would definitely buy older xbox games if they had the possibility of Achievements attached to them. Whether you like achievements or not, they have had a huge impact on xbox gaming (for the better IMO).

But when I got my 360, I had about 6 original xbox games that I hadn't played yet. Riddick being one of them. I ultimately sold them back, because a few of them weren't backwards compatible yet and I was watching my friend's gamerscores steadily increase while I moved no where. So, I traded up and moved on to 360 games.

Achievements, IMO, return that element of points competition to games from back in the arcade and Nintendo days. And it enhances the experience for me. The only times ahcievements ruin the experiece, are 1) when the achievement is too absurd or difficult for it's own good (5 and 7 Day survivor on Dead Rising .. who, besides teenagers, have 14 straight hours to kill?) ... or it's a ranked multiplayer achievement. Online farmers annoy to no end, because then the competition in the game itself is lost.

I'd certainly go back and play xbox originals if they had achievements. The only problem I could see that having, is that it could possibly cause a slump in new games sales. But that's really a stretch, especially if we keep getting fantastic games like we did in 07.

I would buy original xbox games for acheivements. Plus I miss playing Knights Of The Old Republic

Deciding whether or not to buy a game just because it has achievements or not means one of two things, either you have no care for playing a great game and only care about your gamerscore, or you just don't like playing a game for the sake of playing it. Either way you should take your gamercard and turn it in, ASAP.

Well I like your opinion Casey, but I prefer mine for 2 reasons:

It's not as easy to put achievements into these originals as you think. Just because Halo did something like that means it's easy elsewhere

Oh and you pay $15 for a convenience and if you own the games, then just don't buy em

I agree big time on this! I would have totally bought a couple of those games for the achievements. They are, in fact, awesome games that deserve another play through, but only with achievements! I already have most of them, and have played them to death. Why would I buy them for $15 and a chunk out of my hard drive? The are leaving money on the table, I don't think they realize the power of achievements.

My three reasons for never buying an "Xbox Original":

1) I already own almost all of these
2) They're more expensive than buying a new/used copy
3) I'd like to be able to play them whenever my 360 dies (again) and Microsoft replaces it (again)

Let's keep this short, I will not buy an Xbox original from marketplace for these reasons:

1. I own all of these that I want.
2. I beat all that I don't want.

I would pay for them again if There were something to warrent extra money like, achievements, behind the scenes, or developer commentary. I WILL NOT BUY THEM OTHERWISE.

Let's keep this short, I will not buy an Xbox original from marketplace for these reasons:

1. I own all of these that I want.
2. I beat all that I don't want.

I would pay for them again if There were something to warrent extra money like, achievements, behind the scenes, or developer commentary. I WILL BUY THEM OTHERWISE.

I think it's pretty sad that someone only plays games for an achievement that goes towards a gamerscore. I mean all that score does is show people that you have too much time on your hands.

first off i own the good games already ,released for download .second microsoft is smart on the idea .not the price 800 microsoft points was the right price.why you say. they are not targeting the people who already own them. the are targeting 8 to 10 year olds who got microsoft points to blow.who don't own the games .they are forceing people who do download into 120 gig harddrive,because these 3 gig monsters are well monsters.and the 20 gig hard drive will fill up quick.maybe missing some sales with no achievments but ,taking away the buisness of selling used copies at gamestop where they get no cut at all. come on you try and find these games new.and it's all pure profit the burned the disk to harddrive and then allowed sharring and ah no packing and shipping.

JC, right now, I won't have sex with you, but if I got an Achievement for doing you, I'd jump at the chance.

Case closed my friend.

Hey JC, thanks for sounding off. It appears you're a tad confused on a few things so let me clarify if I may: I'm not an OXM staffer, I'm a freelanceer and I write for pretty much every print and online gaming outlet around so I have zero interest in trying to earn any kind of credibility for any one magazine or another. My point in this blog, which I came up with totally on my own after what I thought was an interesting lunch conversation with a friend, isn't any deeper than what I said: Microsoft is missing a huge opporunity by not including achievements. And contrary to popular belief (or at least as some folks have suggested here) it isn't soooooo difficult to attach acheivements to pre-existing code, look at the PC version of Halo 2 for instance, it wasn't a mulit-year process that required a 200 man team and 15 million bucks. Lastly, if you knew me at all or have read any of my other articles, like The Scoreboard, which reviews games soley for the achievements in a game, you'd know I'd NEVER complain about MS spending money to work on old games if achievements were involved. So... if you want to do a random drive-by flaming, especially if I deserve it, that's fine, just make sure you know what you're talking about when you do; in this case, you're wrong. :)

I think you guys are soooo eager to show off your (supposed) independence from MS, that you're just jumping on an opportunity to buy some cred by finding some inconsequential something to stick it to MS with, something inconsequential enough that really nobody cares much about it.

You're pretty tech-savvy, Casey, and I bet you know exactly how much effort it would take to alter old xbox games on the 360/Live platform to support Achievements that had any meaning. And, of course, no good deed goes unpunished, so it's important to find a dark side to it all. If MS had put in all that effort, including negotiating agreements with original publishers to even allow them to alter the original games, I bet your criticism would be just a vocal about how MS missed a big chance to invest in new games by wasting so much effort to add Achievements to old games that no one cares about.

I would buy and re-play Halo C.E. and Fable if they included Achievements. Personally I do believe that Microsoft and Xbox Live are making a huge mistake by not including the point, when they know how big the gamerscore craze has become in the Xbox live community.

Casey you want something that a lot of people want. Although to add achievements Microsoft needs to release a SDK to add achievements to theses games and modify the current xbox live infrastructure to handle these new games. Right now all they are doing is releasing a file that looks like a disc and play on the 360 like a demo. Although adding achievements would require developers to reprogram the game. This current method shouldn't require a lot of programing on the developers side at all. If you want achievements in xbox originals then the games would take forever to come out and it would be a waste of resources to spend time on program old games instead of new ones.

this sounds like a good idea to me i mean i have all these xbox games already and i would love to get achevements for doing things that i try to do anyway. so if im gonna pay out an arm and a leg to get the xbox games, i want them to have the replay value that achevements provide

i totally disagree with all of the comments here. its like saying since the wii has motion control all of nintendo's archive should have the same ability. it would take to much time and cost to much to put achievements in all the old games. looks like nintendo's not hurting from not have motion control in the older games. i know i will get flamed for this, but original xbox games would be cool to get, just maybe cheaper($10).

I think most people would want achievments for XBOX Originals. Personally I don't care. I'd be happy if developers made achievments available for actually achieving something in 360 games. Some games award points for not really accomplishing anything. Where's the fun in that?

This is why I appreciate the OXM guys so much; dead nuts honesty. That one little thing (achievements) took the XBOX originals from potentially amazing, to weak sause.

Wow, that was the best read so far on this site.

The names/achievements you came up with are so perfect you should be M$'s personal Achievement Creator, I'm serious. And hell yes to Riddick being BC, WTF is taking so long?

I say YES add achievements to xbox originals. I know that if a game like Halo: CE had achievements I would be more motivated to download it from the marketplace and go through it once again, eventhough I've already passed it before. I know most of the friends on my friends list were dissapointed that xbox orginals have no achievements. I have a feeling that the people over at xbox realize that gamers want achievements on these games and would result in more downloads and profits if they add them. Eventually I feel (and hope) that achievements will be included in xbox orginals. It makes common cents!

in one form or another, everyone's an achievement whore, so why not?

They would sell for sure, and it would give more incentive to go back to the old days of LAN parties with Halo:CE.

YES, YES, YES!!! There is currently no reason to spend money on these games.

And what about Xbox live support for games that originally did not have it. I couldn't begin to tell you how much I would love playing Halo C.E. on xbox live.

I totally agree.
No Achievements = No Sale.

I pretty much completly agree with you, Casey. Sure, perhaps not EVERYONE is into Achievements, but the majority would probably say "Hell Yes! I'll download that Original Xbox Game just for the 360 Live Achievements. (I mean, I know I would probably be good for that. Games like Fable & Ninja Gaiden could definitly give you more play-value and accomplishments.

Microsoft should seriously re-think their idea of Original Xbox downloads. Nobody is gonna buy them when they could get them half-price at some store, and then go "Hey, I've done all this? Why not anything new?!"

Achievements for Original Xbox games would be a huge success. But, they have to make the final call. Hope they will listen and try something.

Considering the amount of space that these titles take up on a hard drive, not to metion the time it actually takes them to download, there's no way that I'll buy a single one. My original Xbox still works great and most of these titles can be found used at a game store or even eBay for dirt cheap. Now most of these Xbox Originals will be popular games with high marks to begin with. Also, I'm sure that there's some programming details that have they have to go through just to get them to run as a download. Why not add achievements along the way? Even 500 gamerpoints would be enough to entice us score whores; although we would prefer more. As I see it, it's not to late to go back and make it happen for the recently released titles and then include it for new ones. Microsoft would see an amazing increase in sales for these no doubt. But until then: no sale.

I would payed 1200ms points gladly for Halo CE if it had included achievements. This was also the ONE reason I decided against downloading Pyschonauts which I have heard nothing but great things about(especially in OXM). Instead I think I will either put it on my modded old xbox just buy it at my local used game store to give it a shot.

i would have to agree, and the games were great, but no one wants to go throug a game anymore with achievements. thats why i havent downloaded any yet, and it is sad because pyschonauts was a good game, but if you cant add something fresh to a game that has become obslete in some way it doesnt carry the same intergity at all. games have become so much more advanced in the last few years then in 20 years before, and plus we have come into a hd era. the games are a waste if you dont have anything fresh to add to the gameplay i mean its been played, done and beat. so why would you want to buy a game or download a game that has nothing new or different to it? there are games that pushed passed so far of orignal xbox games as such as full spectrum warrior, punisher, fable, and even the first halo. microsoft why are you breaking your own legs for, i mean come on your fans are loyal and not demanding, but you should give us a new inspiring reasons to live the old days of orginal xbox.

They only original Xbox game I would download (if it was being offered) without Achievements would be MechAssault. None of the other games are worth my time and money without Achievements.

I agree, i think that they should add achievements for the games to sort of make it worth it; and get us interested in buying it for a bigger sum than if we just got it at gamestop or something.

hellz to the yeah if there were acheivmenfor these games i would buy them i mean hey how many people have have played halo 2 ? how many people would go back to it for acheivments i just felt a 4 million hands go up

When I heard that orginal xbox games where coming to 360, I thought awsome I can play them and get achievments, it wasn't even a question in my mind that they would not have them. Then I read the interview online that you did with microsoft, and was extremely disapointed. I own most of those games, and would have paid extra to download halo again, along with fable, and crimson skies in order to get some gamerscore. Achievments where a great idea, I've played through Mass Effect twice allready, and I'm on my thrid playthrough trying to get the insanity achievment, the game has amazing replay value, but I don't know if I would have foud as much stuff or done as much in the game without the achievments. They help people become more immersed in the game, or they do that at least for me. Microsoft missed the boat I completly agree, and I hope somebody from there looks at this blog to see the outcry. Integrity of the game my *ss, let me have the pop of an achievment win I beat Halo orginal on insane.

Casey is on point here. Not only do I own the original Halo CE, but also I would buy the DLC version in a heart beat if Achievements were part of the package. Plus, if I were new to the Xbox community, why would I care about Xbox Originals when there are so many "next gen" games out? It seems that Achievements added to the Xbox Originals would be the incentive needed to purchase these games.

I wonder what Microsoft will do when they release Halo 2 as an xbox original. Since they did go back and add achievements to Halo 2 for the PC release, wouldn't it be easy enough to release that version as an xbox original?

Not to mention the fact that they put fable and not fable lost chapters, what were they just too lazy to make the extra 2 or 3 hours of gameplay work?

No one here, including me, really knows if it's trouble or trivial to put achievements in. Well no, we do. For arcade versions of old games, a developer was there. This is just Microsoft ripping the game disks to .iso files and uploading them and a virtual drive mounting program to play them with. To get achievements in, they have to get their hands on the unprocessed code for each game that may or may not be sitting on a hard drive somewhere and pay a coder or two to fiddle with it (and testers to make sure it didn't break). Suddenly, it's a much bigger deal to bring out an Xbox Original than they think its worth.

Now, as far as Halo is concerned, they should already be aware of the potential in a live-enabled, achievement-packed special edition. Bungie's not under their complete control anymore, but who needs 'em? I bet the code for Halo still belongs to Microsoft; they need to reallocate some guys to getting that up and running pronto. I can't think of any excuses not to, and perhaps they already are.

I wouldn't call it lazy - why haul all these devs out to start working on older games? Why refine them at all? I think getting achievements has affected the way we play, yeah, but I don't sit there thinking "Damn! Suikoden II would be so much better with Achievements!!!" when I use my PS1 back-compat.

Though I do agree, there is no incentive to go back and play these games. I can't chat with people while I play Fable? No thanks. Can't send messages. Pffft.

Still, I don't expect MS to create a team to crack code and add or subtract things.

-- http://www.nukoda.com --
Gamertag: MitchyD88

I've often thought it was a missed potential. Though I would be outraged if they only attached the achievements to the downloaded versions of the games, and not the retail available ones, since I still own a massive collection of Xbox originals and won't rebuy them. But I can see one peril they may be trying to avoid. How many letters would they receive from people claiming "I already beat Halo on Legendary - I demand you give me the achievement without me having to do it again!" The achievements are meant to showcase what we've "achieved" as gamers... is it really fair that some kid who's willing to replay his entire original library will be noted as having beaten certain games, when millions of others who have already done the same thing will not be? (That all being said - I officially support attaching achievements to original titles!)

Do I want them? Hell yeah. Will I buy them? Not until they do. However, I could see all the new Xbox 360 owners who never played them and don't want to have to mess with finding new or used ones buying them. $15 isn't a bad deal if you've never bought or played them and maybe that's their target audience. Who knows.

Personally, I think Major Nelson's response is crap too, but I'm not totally convinced that's the exact reason behind the move. He just used that reason to get people off his back. We don't know what's been going behind the scenes, so there could be all kinds of reasons why they didn't add them. I'm sure they have seriously looked at adding achievements to backward compatible games since even before the 360 shipped. Maybe there's a licensing issue with the publishers and developers? Maybe there is a technical road block that they can't get through. Maybe adding achievements slows down the emulator and the game? There's already technical issues and some slow downs with the games as it is. So maybe adding achievements and full 360 OS background support just makes it a more miserable experience. We already know it's workable on Vista with Halo 2 and they didn't have a problem there adding achievements where the system resources are not a valuable commodity. Something just tells me there's more to the story than what they're telling us, but I seriously would love for someone to have an in-your-face chat with the people responsible for this and get real reasons why they are not doing it. I think you and OXM are the best people to do it. What do you say?

Tommy McClain

It sounds to me like the dashboard developers are running out of work to do so they come up with some dumb new thing that won't sell just so they have something to go to their boss and say don't fire me I am working on this.

Unless you add some value to it besides not having a disc no one will buy it. Adding achievements will get all the achievement hounds out there to buy it.

MS has seriously become lazy and complacent lately, especially in areas they pioneered.
XBLA is a great example...there isn't much variety out there, and you see the Virtual Condsole and PSN taking over a bit there.
Then, you have these lame retreads of old games at high prices...and someone at MS will say, "this didn't work so scrap everything."
Lame.

Here, here. I can understand the difficulty in adding these things to an already existing game, but to not go through that effort and expect $15 a pop? When you can get these games on disc for less than half of that? Not only is it a missed opportunity, it just doesn't make good business sense.

Of course, I think the even bigger dropped ball in this situation is not doing whatever they needed to do to make Halo: Combat Evolved Xbox Live compatible for multiplayer. Forget $15, I would have already paid $30 or $50, and stopped playing Halo 3 already if I could have that experience.

Well, I certainly have no plans to purchase any "Xbox Originals" soon. The pricing is just stupid. I own most of them anyway. And I wouldn't want to clutter up my HDD with something that's not gonna earn me achievement points - EVEN if I had the 120 gigger! Fifteen bucks?! Hell no! Momma didn't raise no fool!

Now, had they added about 500 achievement points to each of these "new" titles, they might've got me to pay for "Psychonauts" again...

gt: cart00nstrip

i will not buy any Xbox Originals for the same reasons...too expensive and no acheivements.

well one reason i like the xbox originals is the fact that i am super lazy and i like being able to start a game from my dashboard and I dont need to change discs

i am surprised make a penny every chance Microsoft didnt do this. how much you want to bet they will change their minds and put it in? and that you will have to pay for it again?

I think is a very lame argument. Xbox 1 games did not have achievements, if you put in the copy of a game you buy at a store for an xbox 1 game, it does not suddenly have achievements. So, no, is not a big deal. Would they be nice, yes, are they relevant in those titles, no.

I think that they should've included achievements. Before the 360 came out, I had sold my copy of Fable because I had beat it in everyway possible. Heck, this was before the expansion pack! Lately, before the announcement of Xbox Originals, I had been wanting to play Fable again, and when I heard about them releasing it to Xbox Originals, I jumped for joy. I had thought that maybe they'd make achievements, most of which could be secret stuff that people, like me, knew of. Instead, I found out it was the same old stuff...

I went to Gamestop and bought Fable: The Lost Chapters for $6.

Microsoft screwed up this time around.

I like microsoft but some of the decisions they make are pretty brainless.