That brings us back to today. The first entry in this generation's battle was the Xbox 360 which is backwards compatible with the original Xbox through emulation. The downside to the emulation approach is that some games aren't yet playable, some might never be. Every few months a new patch is released but you have to figure at some point Microsoft will stop caring about supporting feature. I don't know Microsoft's exact reason for offering any backwards compatibility. I presume the popularity of the Halo series was a key factor. Someone looking to play the first Halo games today would be inclined to buy the newer Xbox offering since it will be around for a while.

The Nintendo Wii, due to a similar architecture, is natively compatible with Gamecube games. It fits in perfectly with their Wii strategy. The system is aimed at families and non-traditional gamers. Having a back catalog stocked with Mario Party and Mario Kart games helps appeal to this segment. Being in third place for the previous generation means they have less to lose by offering backwards compatibility. It's not like publishers are going to forgo the Wii to develop new Gamecube games.

The Playstation 3, in the United States, offers backwards compatibility by nature of essentially having a Playstation 2 embedded inside. In Europe, and presumably down the road everywhere else, they opted for the emulation route. Of the three, Sony is the most harmed by the strength of their previous generation console. At the time of this writing the Playstation 2 is outselling the Playstation 3 by a wide margin while the Gamecube and Xbox don't even register on the radar. It's not a big selling point to say "it can play Playstation 2 games" when everybody owns one.

Therein lies the challenge for Sony. Backwards compatibility helps the Xbox 360 and Wii because their predecessors weren't a fixture in every home. The Playstation 2 outsold the Xbox by a 4:1 margin and the Gamecube by even more. Someone deciding between a Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 might reason "if I buy the Xbox 360 I can get all those Xbox games I never had for cheap."

This didn't happen for the Playstation 2 because it's only initial competitor, the Dreamcast, had yet to make a significant impact. The Xbox 360 managed to get off to a much better start than Sega's final system which puts Sony in a tough position. The Playstation 3 will need some "killer apps" if it is to see the dominance of its previous incarnations. "God of War II" could have been one of those titles, but the publisher opted for a Playstation 2 release instead. Perhaps this is the exact situation Nintendo feared when they decided to rapidly kill-off the NES.