Talking Point: What Happened To Xbox's 'Resolution Boost' Program?

It’s a system level upscaling feature I thought that does it for any backwards compatibility game. https://www.gamespot.com/amp-articles/how-xbox-series-x-backwards-compatibility-works/1100-6483246/

I hate the 'they ran out of titles' excuse for backwards compatibility, and I hate it just as much when other companies do that instead of just saying 'we're done' or 'we don't wanna devote resources to X anymore'. The news still sucks but I can at least respect it more if they're honest.

@shoeses It might not be an excuse this time as this involves licensing and other issues.

For example, Lollipop Chainsaw never entered backwards compatibility, and I didn't understand why, until recently the developers announced the remake (with some different musics for licensing reasons).

If your studio is doing a remake, the last thing you want is Microsoft making the old version of your game look great so you lose future sales in the process and risk the remake being meaningless. It is not beautiful, but it is what it is.

@Gr81 This is not the same thing. There may well be some wizardry behind upscaling OG Xbox & 360 Games for the newer systems, but this 'Res Boost' feature looked set to work just like 'FPS Boost'.
In that case there would have been a curated list of games that got higher resolutions, but it never happened, as evidenced by their demo game with Gears Ultimate Edition.

@Gr81 Nope. Doesn't work like that at all. AFAIK the only thing that blankets like this is auto HDR.

Higher FPS and resolutions have to be manually implemented. For example, Battlefield 4, an Xbox One launch title, runs at 720p on Series X. Even the PS4 version still runs higher at 900p

@eduscxbox This, I think it was around that time the industry decided they were just going to remake everything with even marginal popularity, and sell it as a new game at full price, so pretty much all publishers stopped playing nice and decided to not approve BC enhancement projects. I don't think we'll see them play along again, but MS already said they're considering BC at the OS level for future use, so I think as a platform and OS, games well be generally more likely to benefit, like PC games, on the platform starting with XS generation games just because the OS is keeping that in mind from the start.

And reaching out to MS and ask about it does not work ?
I have no idea how that works but as a fairly popular Xbox site you can always try to get some ( exclusive ) information.

@NEStalgia it's one of those victims of their own success things, it reminds me of the Wii Virtual Console. Third parties thought Nintendo was insane paying for rights for old games, then when VC was a huge hit they stopped playing ball with Nintendo, why share the profits and just release it yourself

@eduscxbox It very much comes off as an excuse if you look at what games are and aren't available though: They have every 360 Sonic game but 06 & the first Sega Racing (but have Generations, Unleashed, & the second Sega Racing), a second game in a trilogy but not the other 2 (DeathSpank), every version of SF4 but not both versions of P4A (again, they can get one but not both?), neither of the 2 South Park games Published by Microsoft and exclusive to the 360 and no other Platform, we have like 5 yearly MTG Sims (which are all delisted) but both the XBLA Yugioh games were somehow a no-go even with the majority of Konami's 360 games being BC (and they're vastly different from the 2.5 games on One/Series) - and those are just the ones off the top of my head.

The 'it has or is getting a remake/remaster' only goes so far too, as the new version will quickly become cheaper than the old, especially if it has DLC. It's a flawed logic even more so if the game in question actually benefits from updated graphics, bug fixes, & QoL changes delivering a better experience. If anything that'd give more credence to adding to backwards compatibility - they're still buying the game one way or the other.

But you know what? Maybe they did genuinely think they're reached their limit. But in that case it's incomitance, which I'd argue is much worse than just being unwilling to say 'we didn't wanna keep devoting money to this project'.

I always thought Red Dead Redemption & GTA 4 was a nice touch, I'm glad that got boosted or whatever.

@shoeses There's also games that the technique they used were tested and didn't work. There was an least one I remember they didn't include because there was a game breaking bug it introduced near the end. It's a mix of licensing issues and games it just won't work well with. Mostly licensing but not only that.

@KingDazzar afaik auto hdr only works in actual BC mode, so games running actual xsxs versions can't use it.

@abe_hikura Yeah, is sad, is everything cynical about the games industry. Everything is milked and milked and milked again, and they get away with it because the whole market resets to new kids every 7 to 10 years. Imagine Microsoft trying to revive Windows 3.11 and sell it for $120 because the new kids haven't seen it before 😂

some games got a resolution boost Gears of war 2 and gears 3 fallout 3 and fallout new vegas all run at 4k

i feel there for sure were some games that could have had some boost on series x.
lots of games with higher res got 2* to 1440 on series s and 3* to 4k on series x so i'm guessing plenty could have got two times to 1440p on series x that didn't.
biggest shame they just stopped bothering. with 360 games i think i would prefer a higher res to higher frame rate to make it more playable today.

@themightyant Minecraft RTX requires an insanely powerful gpu in order for the game to run smoothly, we're talking a 3080 level gpu. The one in the Xbox Series S is nowhere near powerful enough and even the Series X would struggle. Yes FSR 2 would help but as Minecraft RTX is an Nvidia technology I doubt Microsoft would use FSR in this case.

What bothers me more is the resolution of the PS5 home screen compared to the Series X. Every time I turn my PS5 on, it's looks amazing. When I turn the Series X on, it looks crappy - hey Microsoft, fix that.

If and when Microsoft do a mid gen upgrade Series X Pro they will probably announce a number of titles that will get a resolusion / framerate boost.
Depending on what those games will be I would be willing to upgrade.

@NEStalgia I can see that for a few, but the choices still make it very suspicious.

@shoeses The roadblock no doubt comes from the games' own publishers in many cases, like you mentioned (upcoming remasters, licensing issues, etc.). But I can confirm that Microsoft chooses not to pursue some games for back compat, despite the publishers' own wishes- I heard directly from a rights holder who pushed for MS to include their OG Xbox games, but got turned down for unknown reasons.

I know MS has officially stopped adding to the back compat and FPS Boost programs, but I hope they revisit them anyway. BC games make up a big portion of my library, and I'm not just talking old discs that I carried over- I actually still shop in their online store for Xbox and X360 games.

@InterceptorAlpha @NEStalgia Tekken 7 also runs at 720p on Series X because the game has never been updated, right?

@jrt87 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed plays great at 60fps on Series X|S but the resolution is still below 720p like on Xbox 360. Disappointing.

@KingDazzar In those cases where FPS Boost doesn't use the Xbox One X version, FPS is disabled by default, if I remember correctly. I also find it confusing because you are tempted to turn it on and not even realise that you're missing a more polished version of the game. There should be more information when enabling and disabling FPS Boost, like a warning on screen.

@shoeses Some omissions you mention involve licencing (South Park). Others are weird like Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing but who knows the real reasons. Some games presented technical obstacles to the backwards compatible team. Just like FPS Boost, I think they would have liked to implement it always but probably some games break. What I find disappointing is that the door is "closed" but I guess they had to say that because of the million tweets requesting more games. Internet era's side effects.

@Banjo- Yes, and it somehow looks WORSE than that. It's very very blurry on XB, unfortunately.

Why write "seemingly" in two consecutive paragraphs? Use a synonym, it's less annoying.

@Banjo- I could see the problem with the South Park games being licensing, but at the same time I feel like they didn't even bother asking. I can't imagine Ubisoft or THQ Nordic (I think one of them owns the game rights rn) would throw a fit for them just making them BC since it's not a new product being sold.

FPS & resolution boosts for old games were amazing, but if that ate up a big part of the budget I'd rather have just seen the missing games be added for the sake of preservation & convenience. Closing the door was the worst possible choice... even if the games added were just here 'n there, it'd be better than nothing. But we have now is worse than nothing, because nothing new is being added and more 'n more games are being delisted every day. So the worse of both worlds.

@shoeses With that I agree. Closing the door is the worst possible outcome. I hope that they open it but there are no guarantees. Some great games are stuck on original Xbox and Xbox 360 and I don't have neither.

@shoeses The licenses and contracts are per game, not per franchise, so it is possible a game from a certain franchise get licensed and other not. Also Sonic, Yu-Gi-Oh, South Park are all licensed IPs, they're not from Microsoft, even when they publish the title with exclusivity.

Some contracts and licenses have other limitations too, not only a due date to expire. For example, if in the contract says a game can only run on a 360 hardware Microsoft can't release the game on Xbox Series consoles without permission even if they still have the rights of 360 version, since emulation only simulates the hardware, but it would be running on another machine, which would be a contract breach.

Now, back to licenses that expire over time, one good example is Forza Horizon, that Microsoft has to delist the previous title every couple years because of music, and we are talking about 2 or 3 years after a forza horizon game releases.

Now, can you imagine how many expired licenses are in a game from 2006-2013 era? Its on earliest 10 year old games. Lots of content are for sure with license expired, even Microsoft can't go over contracts and agreements.

@eduscxbox Mmmh, yes, every possible game out of thousands was either a contract restraint, license issue, or a game breaking bug when running on new hardware. No matter if it was the same everything as another game also BC or by a company that had been very supportive of the practice more than likely willing to extend or renegotiate if asked.

The more logical conclusion than, 'they just wanted to stop', is that they tried every possible avenue for said thousands of games for the sake of the people, right?

@shoeses If it was a successful program, it doesn't even make financial logic to 'want to stop'.

The more games they have on BC and or improved, the more money they can make on those older games that don't make profit anymore.

Why would a company that depends on to earn money would stop a program that could make them lots of income?!

Because you have to think this wasn't only for people who already own those titles, but for new people who might be interested in playing them.

Recently I've bough lost odyssey and blue dragon from 360 as I haven't the chance to play back them, and I'm sure more people do the same with older games they didn't play.

So make more BC / Boost titles would also increase Microsoft income as they would have even more sales.

I just can't see why a company would intentionally want to stop making money 'just because'.

@eduscxbox Ah, but that loops back to what I said originally. They clearly didn't or even couldn't reach out to every developer possible, and even if they did the games that are and aren't available don't add up. Ergo, they lied.

As to why they would stop is another thing. Obviously everyone involved would make a little more money, but that still takes effort. And more successful things in gaming than Microsoft's BC Program have been axed because the people involved couldn't be bothered anymore. If you want my tinfoil hat theory, they maybe killed the program to divert more money to Game Pass Ultimate. After all, BC is all the Xbox One really had over the PS4, but this is a new Gen with new consoles. And Game Pass is the hot new selling point. It was never about game preservation or the fans, but Microsoft knows their PR and ran with it.

But that's just my thought. I guess they could be inept or lazy not knowing all the games they missed, but that's not much more flattering than lying.

@shoeses I think both things are true.
Yes, I think there were actually licensing issues. And yes, I think they could try to solve it, but it wasn't worth it for them.

I agree with you on game pass tho, it is obvious they're investing all they can on that service.

About games preservation and doing things 'for the fans', I also agree, that's all PR. I think they do those things while it's worth for them to do. And if they can get a couple of good image PR on the way, why not?! That is what I think they do.

In the end, I don't think they lied about licensing, they just thought it was not worth it to try to solve those issues, as it would probably cost too much and would make BC profitability go away. And from here on they did what you said about investing it all on Game Pass.