Backward Compatibility in Games

Peter Moore, VP of Microsoft's gaming division, gave a interview with Kikizo Games, making the following claim:

"Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility. We under promised and over delivered on that. It's a very complicated thing... very complex work. I'm just stunned that we have hundreds of games that are backwards compatible."
He added: "more are coming, but at some point, you just go, there's enough, let's move on, or people aren't as worried about a game being backwards compatible - and I like to think we've upheld our end of the bargain in making at least two or maybe three hundred games backwards compat."

I think backwards compatibility is one of those features that has to be done right in order to benefit the gamer. The compatibility on the Xbox360 is done incorrectly -- because they rely on software patches to make the games work, which will require code modification at some point by a programmer somewhere, the backwards compatibility comes at quite a price, but when it's done right, when such modifications are done in the hardware initially, the cost of adding backwards compatibility is minimal (as it was with the Playstation and Playstation 2). The Xbox unfortunately doesn't really have many games that would be considered "classics". With the emphasis on graphics rather than gameplay, the number of games destined to be classics and actually having the timeless nature neccessary are few. He's right that people don't care about whether a game is backward compatible or not -- but that's more reflective of their game choices in publishing -- the emphasis on the Xbox is graphics -- the reason to upgrade to the latest version of a game is not because of new gameplay innovations, but rather because the graphics are better -- and given the choice between playing Dead or Alive 3 (Xbox) or Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360) most games with an Xbox 360 are going to prefer the one that makes full use of their system rather than the old version of the game.
I think having an actual game library that can benefit from backwards compatibility is more important than simply listing backwards compatibility. Nintendo's Wii has it done right -- while it's not really backwards compatible (as far as I know), they are putting the old classics up available for download, and that's definitely worth something.