Back compat games showing up on Gamercards
by Richard Mitchell 
{ Dec 19th 2007 at 3:00PM }
It seems that the Fall Update brought with it more than we realized. A befuddled Knuckles Dawson IMed us the other day, noting that backwards compatible Xbox games are now showing up on Xbox 360 Gamercards. We checked our own console, and sure enough, a recently played Xbox game (Ninja Gaiden) was displayed. The games do not appear on Xbox.com Gamercards, only on the 360 itself (under the Games Played tab in the Games blade). Also, only games you've played since the Fall Update will show up. In other words, our jaunt with the Halo 2 maps released earlier this year isn't recorded. The most curious bit of all is that the games are listed with the notice "0 of 0 Achievements."
There are a few possibilities here. The most likely is that Microsoft thought it was a good idea for all games to show up on the list, especially given the arrival of the Xbox Originals service. Much less likely is that Microsoft is looking for some way to implement achievements in old Xbox games, which Major Nelson has stated isn't the case. No, we imagine it's there simply for convenience (or inconvenience, depending on whom you ask).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cameron @ Dec 19th 2007 3:09PM
I've known this since day one. you guys are slow.
E.J. @ Dec 19th 2007 3:47PM
Good for you.
Next time, save us all the eye-rolling and don't comment.
Knuckles Dawson @ Dec 19th 2007 3:06PM
Color me inconvenienced. We get trial games taken off of our Gamercard from the Dashboard Update moving forward, and Xbox games put on. A step forward and a step back. A choice to whether it's displayed or not would have been preferable.
DjDATZ @ Dec 19th 2007 3:16PM
Definitely...we like our options. :D
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 3:37PM
Yes, this really irks me too, Knuckles. Luckily I had forewarning by way of the Xbox.com forums, so when my backwards compatible version of "Leisure Suit Larry" I bought off eBay arrived in the mail, I played it on my silver account.
For what it's worth, they don't seem to show up to others when they are using 'Compare game' via the Friends list.
Sorry for not sending this in as a tip, it slipped my mind.
Jonah Falcon @ Dec 19th 2007 5:31PM
Yes, they do appear in the Compare Game option. I saw my comparison of KOTOR with another person. I was 0 and they were --.
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 10:26PM
@jonah
that's not what I meant. of course it's going to show up to YOU when you compare yourself to someone else.
compare games with Knuckles
You will not see his burnout 3.
HALO 3 ROCKZ @ Dec 19th 2007 4:34PM
i knew this a long time ago too. this is even worse than the live arcade games showing up
webster1990 @ Dec 19th 2007 5:25PM
i dont see how it is worse than that
with the xbla games it it showed up as 0/(how ever many gamerpoints were possible to get)
it looked as though you just sucked at the game
with the xbox games showing up as 0/0
it just lets people know what you have been playing
not if you suck at it or not
NitroFrost @ Dec 19th 2007 3:15PM
I hope they allow you to use the dashboard while playing cuz I really hate talking to a bud on the phone when he and I both are on live but i am playing Ninja Gaiden and hes playing a 360 game
mike @ Dec 19th 2007 3:17PM
few.. Thanks for warning me. Could of accidently tainted my gamercard with these. Do xbox originals on the download service count too?
They need to implament a way to remove all games from your gamercard with 0 gamerscore, that way I can rid myself of those trial games that were added before the update. This way a new game wont be added to your card either unless you get at least 1 achievement.
elmersglue @ Dec 19th 2007 3:49PM
Why the ef do you people care so much? Honestly, you guys need to grow up and realize how stupid it sounds when you complain that a game showed up on your games list... Jesus Christ!
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 3:53PM
@elmers
I have gamercard OCD, and I'm ok with that.
JakubK666 @ Dec 19th 2007 3:41PM
Technically they could have achievements. Xbox could access game's save games and give 30g for every mission complete etc. Again it would probably cause a huge wave of gamerwhoring and cheating but this proves that it's pretty much possible.MS is just to lazy to work on it.
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 3:44PM
"MS is just to [sic] lazy to work on it."
pretty much says it all.
minimum effort for maximum profit.
E.J. @ Dec 19th 2007 3:54PM
You don't know how difficult it is to do that type of thing.
Lazy? Dude, i wanna see you try programming that. And collaborating with publishers. And testing the feature. Good luck.
And by the way, look out for people bitching at you because your effort sucked.
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 4:05PM
it really doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to read a save file, determine what level the player is on, and grant an achievement based on how many levels they've completed.
sure the achievements might not unlock until you got back to the dashboard or something, but it would be way better than the zero effort they've put forth as it stands.
Adam @ Dec 19th 2007 4:40PM
Achievements are very heavily integrated and coded into the games themselves, it's not a simple case of reading save files because how the save files are read is goverened by the game not the xbox itself, thats why the only thing you can see about a save file is the name of the game (and maybe date etc i cant remember off the top of my head).
For BC xbox games to have achievements would mean title updates from the developers themselves, not a 10 minute job for microsoft.
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 4:55PM
I'm pretty sure that if an individual poked around in a save file with a hex editor you could determine what level the player was on.
and you're telling me a multi-national billion-dollar corporation like Microsoft can't do better?
come on...
zlionsfan @ Dec 19th 2007 6:32PM
Well, for one thing, as others have said, it's not Microsoft's code. I don't think MS is particularly eager to be hacking other people's applications, and I doubt most people would prefer that the companies that do own the source code work on adding achievements to these games rather than working on new games.
For another, if the developers really were going to get into these games, I doubt they'd be able to get away with only adding achievements: graphics, controls, live play, co-op play ...
David(Postal) @ Dec 19th 2007 4:00PM
I think its kinda cool how it shows these games now so you can see what people have been playing. I think you all are a little too obsessed with gamerscores and percentage complete
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 4:04PM
as I mentioned above, they only show up to the local user and not when comparing games.
sillymikey @ Dec 19th 2007 4:18PM
Im thinking that it has something to do with the xbox originals downlodable games and not the B/C ones. To show user which of the xbox originals downlodable games you bought and played.
xenocidic @ Dec 19th 2007 10:27PM
disc based versions (including games not available for download) show up as well
hellvector @ Dec 19th 2007 5:19PM
Too bad I still can't put my Halo 1 and 2 saves on my memory card...
Not to mention Forza 2 either! :(
ken @ Dec 19th 2007 5:22PM
Or it could be that since the game has zero out of zero achievements, and that portion of the UI is programmed to list X out of X achievements, it says zero out of zero.
I am not a programmer, I just play one at work.
HALO 3 ROCKZ @ Dec 19th 2007 5:31PM
@webster1990
yea i guess ur right
Doom3killer @ Dec 19th 2007 6:32PM
Guys, this doesn't show up on Xbox.com.. it only shows up if you compare achievements with someone, which works much easier on xbox.com then through the guide... If you don't like it, just compare through Xbox.com or any other 360 online site...
colin @ Dec 19th 2007 7:55PM
play more alien hominid!
soviet missile mastar and headchomp are pretty tough
CDN Crockett @ Dec 19th 2007 9:01PM
This sucks ballz!!!
Bidz99 @ Dec 19th 2007 11:20PM
sounds interesting?!?!?
Ian Charles @ Dec 20th 2007 7:48AM
....... I cant belive how some are reacting to this. Its not really that big of a deal
refinedsugar @ Dec 20th 2007 4:02PM
Tell that to xeno, lol.
James @ Dec 21st 2007 1:38PM
OK, dumb-ish question: can XB1 games that had Live support be played multiplayer on a 360? I never had a Gold account on my XB1 (running XBMC was more important ;-) so I don't know a lot about the multiplayer experience there, but could I take e.g. Halo 2 and play it online via my 360? If so, maybe it makes sense to list XB1 games in your Games Played tab, so that you can see if your friends own any of the same Live-capable games you do.
Maybe?