CONSOLE COMPATIBILITY

If you’re a retrogamer like our Joni then you’d agree that a handy feature on some consoles is the ability to be backwards compatible – specifically the hardware. Simply being able to play your old games on your new console. That’s the perfect way to support RETROGAMING!

His first experience of this was when learning you could play your original PlayStation games on your brand-spanking new PlayStation 2! Some consoles go to greater effort; the most common example is the first version of the Nintendo Wii which included a full GameCube hidden inside. Just lift the flap at the top and you’d find the controller ports and memory card slots!

If there’s one thing gamers notice as they get older, it’s that the timeless systems, while altered slightly, will always win out. The biggest release of the year, Baldur’s Gate 3, is still using a digitized form of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, so there are very real skills you can take with you no matter what gaming era you prefer. Console compatibility is one thing, but as Arkane Atlas shows in its writings about game systems and lore, player compatibility can serve you forever.

THE GAMING CONSOLE TABLE

But then there is also another handy feature on home consoles worth mentioning – being able to play foreign imports. Now some gamers like to modify their consoles (this was called being “chipped” in the old days) and make them do all sorts of tricks but for those of us clean-living types – who still keep the box the console came in – it’s good to know which of the major consoles released in the UK, are region free? Well looky here:

ONE MORE THING…

It is worth noting that there a number of ways to engineer (legally, and illegally) a console to play the software of another console or region either by emulation or by other means. A few worth mentioning are:

• As a general rule, the SEGA Mega Drive can play Genesis versions of games pre-1992
• The discs/cartridges that have been sold legally to provide cheat codes to games (a good example would be the Game Genie) also often make a console multi-region
• Soft mods are a safer way to open up your console to emulation, the PSP in particular has been particularly good at handling this. Being handheld these days offers great flexibility as a gamer but it’s also quite simple to hook up to a laptop/PC to upload ROMs and the necessary files…
• Google “Free McBoot”