360 degrees of hype

Microsoft's second foray into the world of home video game consoles, the Xbox 360, is only a week away. As the noise surrounding the launch gets louder, Microsoft has added to the buzz by releasing tidbits of information on a regular basis. This past weekend, it revealed the full list of backward-compatible games, coming in at just over 200. While that number is more than many expected, some are still disappointed. The problem for Microsoft lies in the fact that the Xbox 360 is running on an ATI-built chip, while the original Xbox ran on an Nvidia chip. This requires the 360 to emulate the original Xbox architecture, rather than play the software natively. Microsoft also provided an informative Q&A on the subject, for those unfamiliar.

But really, the "Catwoman" and "Barbie Horse Adventure" games make the cut, yet no Splinter Cell? No Star Wars: Battlefront?

But there's good news: Since the emulation is all done through software and requires the "Pro" Xbox 360 with a 20 gigabyte hard drive, updates to the emulation code will be made available through a free download. Because of this, Microsoft can (and will) add the ability to play additional old games on the 360... as soon as the company figures out how to make the games run, that is.