I imagine that they are simply wrapping the 360 games with an emulation VM that is designed to run on the Xbone Game VM (or possibly dynamically load a separate 360 VM).

This is why I choose Xbone over the PS4. At the end of the day, Microsoft is a huge company of talented software developers that, once management allows, can bring the latest and greatest software design to the console. In fact, Microsoft is going through a little software renaissance if you ask me. Sony has always been fairly poor in the software department I think.

Also, your JIT angle does make some sense, however they generally go a little lower and compile out object code first. For Microsoft this is their .Net framework which copied Java (which copied someone else etc) wherein the more a program runs, the better the hosted code performs as it learns how your code is executed.

FYI it makes benchmarking performance in Java and .Net fairly annoying :)

The app is a complete emulation of the 360.

If it is truly complete, can I do some Vex-style crap and use the emulated 360's backwards-compatibility emulation to play original Xbox games? 0_0

Yep, this is one reason I consider it a big deal. I mean, who knows? Chances are there's some drawback other than what we've been told about, but if the games are playable as they describe, it's pretty awesome.

Yeah, I played Mass Effect and was pretty impressed, and apparently so was Kotaku.

A few thoughts:

Backward compatibility is a big deal. I hope this causes Sony to scrap Playstation Now or at least reinvent it.

No opinion on the Sony side of things, but I'm just waiting to see what the full details of backwards compatibility entail. Say they bring Reach over. Will I get to play it on Xbox Live all the same as if I had it running on my 360? Same goes for other games that get the okay from third party publishers.

Phil Spencer spoke about this a little on the Giant Bomb E3 Day 1 live show. Basically, when you play a 360 game on your Xbox One, your One is disguised as a 360 to the game and to Live. The game thinks it is being played on a 360, achievements track as if you were on a 360, even Live itself thinks you are playing on a 360.

The Xbox One launches a "360 backwards compatibility" app, and the 360 game is then run inside that app. The app is a complete emulation of the 360.

Yep, this is one reason I consider it a big deal. I mean, who knows? Chances are there's some drawback other than what we've been told about, but if the games are playable as they describe, it's pretty awesome.

A few thoughts:

Backward compatibility is a big deal. I hope this causes Sony to scrap Playstation Now or at least reinvent it.

No opinion on the Sony side of things, but I'm just waiting to see what the full details of backwards compatibility entail. Say they bring Reach over. Will I get to play it on Xbox Live all the same as if I had it running on my 360? Same goes for other games that get the okay from third party publishers.

Phil Spencer spoke about this a little on the Giant Bomb E3 Day 1 live show. Basically, when you play a 360 game on your Xbox One, your One is disguised as a 360 to the game and to Live. The game thinks it is being played on a 360, achievements track as if you were on a 360, even Live itself thinks you are playing on a 360.

The Xbox One launches a "360 backwards compatibility" app, and the 360 game is then run inside that app. The app is a complete emulation of the 360.

Who am I kidding? I still have a dreamcast connected and my 360 makes R2D2 noises. It's not going anywhere.

• Go to "Xbox Preview Dashboard" app
  
• In the bottom left corner click the tile for "Invite Friends"
  
• An overlay pops up that allows you to select however many people you want to send an invite

Access to the preview program is a manual process on Microsoft's side, so it can take anywhere from a few days to weeks to over a month for a person to actually be accepted. Times like right now, where everyone wants to join the preview program cause huge delays in processing time. Then again, YMMV

I'd send invites out to all of you fine folks but I'm out of the country until July! Best of luck to everyone that is trying to get in. I'm really hoping that next month we get to preview the new UI and or Cortana features!

A few thoughts:

Backward compatibility is a big deal. I hope this causes Sony to scrap Playstation Now or at least reinvent it.

No opinion on the Sony side of things, but I'm just waiting to see what the full details of backwards compatibility entail. Say they bring Reach over. Will I get to play it on Xbox Live all the same as if I had it running on my 360? Same goes for other games that get the okay from third party publishers.

Microsoft made a major miscalculation pushing full digital, DRM, and non-gaming features at launch, and Sony took great advantage of that. I think the Xbox One has upped their game. I think Sony is now coming across as less generous to gamers.

Hell yeah they did, and the Xbox One has upped its game. At the same time, Microsoft's press conference just didn't do it for me. Hololens looks like it's the real deal and is gonna be something, but I can only imagine the jacked up pricing structure. As far as gaming goes, Microsoft's game announcements didn't do it for me. If I hadn't seen the Rare Replay and the Fallout 4 Xbox One stuff, I would have easily shrugged off Xbox One announcements. Instead, Xbox won my heart (good thing I already have one and am using it).

Then there was Sony's conference. Games, games, and more games. And many of the games they showed were just unbelievable. Sheesh. As far as exclusives go, Microsoft has Halo (which has become a joke), Gears (it's not Epic Games, so we'll see if the new company goes all 343 on the situation), and Forza. Not impressive at this day and age, in my opinion.

I really like my PS4 better than my Xbox in some ways, but man, their promotional content and store is lousy. On the Xbox I was able to quickly see all the E3 stuff from the Xbox keynote with minimal fuss last night. I spent 20 minutes trying to see the equivalent on the PS4. The live content viewer kept flaking out. Gave up finally.

It's a damn shame that the Xbox's UI is absolutely horrible, though. Luckily, they're overhauling it in the near future, and I love what I'm seeing so far!

I'd like to conclude by saying that Sony's conference made me begin to consider dropping money on a PS4 again. Aside from the fact that I have an Xbox One already, Microsoft's conference did not sell me on one.

You keep using "BC". What does that stand for?

Oh, duh. [blush]