Xbox Originals to be achievement'less
by Dustin Burg 
{ Nov 15th 2007 at 9:45AM }
Our good friend Major Nelson had to be the bearer of bad news yesterday when he revealed that the upcoming downloadable Xbox Originals will NOT include achievements. Boo, hiss, boo! The reasoning is simple, the games are direct ports of the original games and so, aren't 360 enabled for achievements. We guess that's why they will still have problems. So, come December 4th when you'll be able to purchase Halo, Fable or Psychonauts, don't expect any achievements or anything enhanced for your 1200 Microsoft points. Hell, don't expect much at all ... just don't expect anything from anyone![Thanks, Boff]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
h0mi @ Nov 15th 2007 9:54AM
Ugh. No sale then. Looks like I won't be picking up that elite after all.
BURGLARKING @ Nov 15th 2007 9:58AM
Now we know there's absolutely no reason to buy these titles, as you can get almost any of 'em brand new for less than 15$ (except psychonauts) and save some HDD sapce...
queuebit @ Nov 15th 2007 9:59AM
Xbox Originals
Achievement Unloc (Wait - How did you do that, expect me to actually produce something good?)
Come on do they really expect people to pay $$ for a game that is no different than buying the $2 version at gamestop? I don't think they grasp the number of people who would shell out $20+ dollars if they could play Halo1 online.
LiveResistance @ Nov 15th 2007 10:07AM
Yeah, I would rather pay less, have a game on disc, and save hard drive space. I'm not sure what they were thinking here.
Bravo6 @ Nov 15th 2007 10:06AM
This just keeps getting better and better!
DarkNightRJ @ Nov 15th 2007 10:12AM
not a smart move. alot of people wont get them if they dont have achievements
SadisticHam @ Nov 15th 2007 10:16AM
They want me to buy buggy (they are buggy, they have the exact same BC problems the disk ones do, they don't even bother to fix those errors), none-dashboard supported (again, you can't access FL and things, exactly like the disk versions.)over priced ports of there old games when i can buy them cheaper and get more for my money in a store?
LOL.
jge @ Nov 30th 2007 4:45PM
The downloadable games and other content are a ploy simply to get people to purchase the larger HDD's. With their DRM issues, I for one, am not interested. I'll stick with using the discs. I bet they're banking on making a quick buck off of the uninformed and the people who never owned an original xbox.
lharmon @ Nov 15th 2007 10:27AM
seriously, achievements are addictive. We all know that. Some like to say "it's supposed to be about the game!". I have to admit that cheevos are and awesome thing, and make a game more fun for me. Speaking of that... just hit 10 grand last night with Assassin's Creed! w00t!
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 10:29AM
Yea, these WILL sell , but not as widely as they would have if they would have enhanced them.
MDJ2010 @ Nov 15th 2007 10:37AM
Sorry to be off-topic but is anyone else not able to sign into live? I was looking forwrad to my free game download and I cant get in, needless to say if this carries on for the rest of the day i'm gonna be PISSED!!!!
Neon Jebus @ Nov 15th 2007 10:40AM
Well it saves me money so I'm okay with no cheevos. I will just not buy any of them. Oh well, but it's good for people who never played these games the first time around and can't find them.
I mean, you can find them used everywhere but when you want it NOW...well downloads are sweet...
Wilson @ Nov 15th 2007 11:04AM
Well then I'll just keep my money, the achievements were the only reason why I was thinking about getting some of the old games.
Microsoft, you're not Nintendo, you can't pull stuff like this and make it work.
BTex @ Nov 15th 2007 11:16AM
I wish people didn't use the word 'cheevos'.
lharmon @ Nov 15th 2007 11:22AM
CHEEVOS!!!! CHEEVEROONIES! Maybe something a little more l337 for you? Like cH33v0z! w00t!
Signed:
Cheevie McCheeverson
VOS @ Nov 15th 2007 11:24AM
Cheevos
Cypher09 @ Nov 15th 2007 11:26AM
No Soup for You.
DjDATZ @ Nov 15th 2007 11:37AM
Well, I guess I won't be buying ANY of these. If they were enhanced, with achievements and such, I would consider buying them in the future (Jan-Feb) but since they DON'T have this, I'll save my cash-strapped ass and not buy ANY of them.
Lianne @ Nov 15th 2007 11:42AM
They're going to take away backward compatibility because of this, aren't they?
Tony @ Nov 15th 2007 11:52AM
So go buy them cheaper at the store. What's changed? I still don't understand what the problem is. It's essentially a completely optional alternative.
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 11:54AM
@btex, I didn't like the word 'cheevos' either the first time I used it, but it's really grown on me.
try it out sometime.
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 11:54AM
@btex, I didn't like the word 'cheevos' either the first time I heard it, but it's really grown on me.
try it out sometime.
John @ Nov 15th 2007 11:54AM
Achievements are cool and all, but the junkies that play and cheat just to get them is silly. I wish every game you own you could download till your drive, this way if your dvd drive breaks you can still play games, or perhaps it would load faster, or perhaps you wouldnt have to get your rump off the couch as much :) I am all for downloading to my hard drive as a cheaper option... I hope they do it as an option for new games too, but as an OPTION. I still want to reserve the right to by it on dvd.
Ben @ Nov 15th 2007 11:56AM
I haven't played to many back compat games on my 360, but I can't understand why they would release these with known problems. I can't imagine spending 1200 points on a game that would crash if I picked a certain option in the game.
erivera3 @ Nov 15th 2007 11:56AM
lol, achievements mean shit, I can't believe people flip out over them. Higher gamerscore doesn't mean you are "better" at video games than someone, it doesn't really mean anything actually.
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 11:58AM
@25 achievements let you keep track your gaming history and they also encourage you to complete your games
Knuckles Dawson @ Nov 15th 2007 12:03PM
If I truly voiced how I felt about the bastardization of the word "Achievement" with "'cheevos", I would be accused of being prejudiced.
Boff @ Nov 15th 2007 12:07PM
It's just kiddy talk, my personal favourite is "what's your addy"?
It's called a fucking email address you little twat.
God I feel old.
Anticrawl @ Nov 15th 2007 12:15PM
Yeah I'll just go to a pawnshop if I ever wanna play any of those games again and only have to pay about 0-3 dollars. Fuck wasting 15-20 on an old game with nothing added in. Halo 1 with online I'd pay full price for, stupid people take my money!
Gemini Ace @ Nov 15th 2007 12:15PM
So if the games don't have achievements, what's the point?
AmplifiedJ @ Nov 15th 2007 12:16PM
Seriously, guys - did you really expect for them to add things like achievements and 360-enabled features into the games? That would take an entire re-writing of the original code for the game, so Major Nelson was just announcing what common sense could tell anyone. XBL multi for Halo CE? Seriously? Bungie is hesitant enough as it is to try and fix freaking unlocked armors from showing up because "if you fix one bug, you never know if the system will crash." That would take major resources away from Bungie's next project and Halo 3's additional content. It is completely unrealistic (emphasis on realistic) to expect that sort of thing.
Just putting old games up on the marketplace for download doesn't necessarily mean they will have all of the usual 360 bells and whistles. From a business standpoint, of COURSE it makes sense for them to do this, as it is an additional revenue stream for MS, is another point on the comparison checklist with the PS3, and other reasons x, y, and z related to making more money. My biggest complaint would be that they are buggy - why would a person knowingly purchase a product with flaws is beyond me. But MS obviously feels that it is a plan that can work, as time and time again the numbers have shown that despite all the bitching that goes on at video game sites and blogs and forums (cough cough GH2 DLC), they are time and again successful endeavors from a business perspective. PEOPLE BUY THEM.
You people and your expectations.
Anticrawl @ Nov 15th 2007 12:18PM
Oh and I've never heard anyone refer to Achievements as 'cheevos' but now that I have if I ever hear anyone say it again to me I'll slit their throat, or just teamkill them repeatedly if it's in a game.
Mr BoomStick XL @ Nov 15th 2007 12:38PM
Another Microsoft blunder!! Why would I want to revert to playing a game without achievements on my 360.And for MS to charge 1200 points for unchanged games is a JOKE!!!!!
No HD and no Achievements........WOW, what a rip off!!! Why should we bother?
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 12:43PM
I'm not gonna lie - a self-proclaimed booster complaining about the bastardization of the word "achievement" rings hollow.
fretster @ Nov 15th 2007 12:58PM
No achievements = no reason to purchase. Plain and simple. The no XBL in Halo:CE I can understand, but no achievements??? Come on.
Darkharmony @ Nov 15th 2007 1:12PM
Dear microsoft,
Don't expect ANYONE to use this useless waste of time.
Knuckles Dawson @ Nov 15th 2007 2:43PM
And a self-righteous latecomer has a leg to stand on to begin with?
If I've done anything wrong in acquiring my Gamerscore then it'll be reset to zero by 2008.
mike @ Nov 15th 2007 2:45PM
i lost interest in gaming but then the 360 came out and revived the interest with achievments. Achievments give me sort of a goal and also let me see 1000/1000 for a game I played knowing I completed it, and letting my friends know. I dont care about gamerscore at all. An achievment worth 0gs is just as important to me as one worth 800gs. I just want to get all achievmenets for all games I played, and so far I have done that (well except for a couple games). Its come to the point where if a game does not have achievments I wont playt it at all. I cant even bring myself to play zelda TP on the gamecube which i purchased long ago because there are no achievments and I know ill get nothing from beating it. Cant play the wii either as I see the game as a mass of games that just mean nothing.
If xbox 720 does not have achievments, I wont be purchasing the system... Ill be done with gaming, simple as that.
And whoever says "cheevo" is a retard. If you want to shorten achievements at least say chievement or call them a bonus or something. Cheevo sound like a tasty cheeto, not something you earn for completeling a task.
lharmon @ Nov 15th 2007 2:51PM
@ Anticrawl... CHEEVOS! Run and grab the razor!
Another victory for slang and abbreviations!
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 3:20PM
was jmho - you know I don't pull punches.
don't see what being late to the party has anything to do with it
self-righteous...yes, i deserved that =)
Etchasketchist @ Nov 15th 2007 3:27PM
I don't think you guys understand how software development works. You can't just magically put achievements into a game without totally re-writing the thing. That would cost a ton of time and money and people. Instead, they get to make money off the back catalog instead of all that loot going to Gamespot and Ebay dealers. It's sound, simple business on MS's part. I fucking hate video game stores and never ever go to them. This will save me money in shipping fees from Amazon so i'm totally going to snag Fable and Psychonauts. And I'm not going to bitch about it like a little baby.
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 3:34PM
@Etchasketchist, I dunno, it seems like it wouldn't be too hard to add some code in the backwards compatibility engine that hooks into certain events within the game to provide the achievement triggers.
I'm not a coder, though, so I could be wrong.
I agree that these games will be bought and enjoyed by some (especially Psychonauts, which everyone seems to be on about), but I think they could have reaped a much bigger audience by including cheevos.
(yes, I said cheevos).
joe @ Nov 15th 2007 3:56PM
Cheevos.
And this idea of downloadable old Xbox games is stupid. Please, just fix backwards compatibility some more and stop with these distractions.
Knuckles Dawson @ Nov 15th 2007 4:14PM
Well, you got your 360 in mid December of 06, right? At least, that was the earliest Achievements I could find on your gamercard. At that point I had already reached my primary goal of a year on my streak.
By that time, Achieve360Points.com and Xbox360Achievements.org were both thriving, and Microsoft had already drawn a line in the sand on what they felt about gamesaving by blocking the IDs of saves commonly used in files found at 360saves.com, thus making them inoperable, along with other actions taken against gamesavers.
The two aforementioned Achievement sites had slightly differing stances on the methods used in acquiring, one, which housed many of the same members as 360saves, didn't really care and just was happy to have more registered users. The other was strictly against cheating to get Achievements illegitimately and would ban members on the spot if caught. I was a member of the latter. It also encouraged members to play together to acquire Achievements as a means of growing the community. So those forging ahead and exploring this new Achievement system on the next gen console were setting the standard for what was acceptable and what was not.
Anyway, you what your saying is the equivalent of accusing anyone who competes at MLG of using performance enhancers if they have caffeine in their system during a tournament. A.) You're a little late to be making those calls B.) The people running MLG have deemed it acceptable for gamers to drink BAWLS.
After reading some of your Achievement FAQs I would say that yes, you do deserve that title.
xenocidic @ Nov 15th 2007 5:27PM
I guess we're both entitled to our opinions.
Post 40 was my attempt at a peace offering, since I didn't want to get into another back-and-forth debate
Will @ Nov 15th 2007 6:56PM
So let me get this straight: they're overpriced, they're fraught with technical problems, and they don't have any cheevos? Lame!
mietha CAG @ Nov 15th 2007 11:43PM
Please DO NOT support this pathetic cash grab. If you want the games, go buy a disc. If you spend 5 minutes (or less), I promise you will find most, if not all, for less than $15. Yet another blunder by MS. They would be running away with this generation if they would stop fucking up every other day.
Peeeet @ Nov 16th 2007 4:50AM
Worse than them not having achievements? Mjor Nelson's explanation of why: He said something about preserving the integrity of the original gameplay, then later updated his post, actually saying that for various reasons it was "impossible" to add features.
Of course he's just a MS marketing guy, but IMO it's never been so obvious as it is right now.