Get your techie hat on; Sony has filed a patent for Emotion Engine (PS2's CPU) emulation tech for the PS3's Cell processor.
Techie jargon aside, that basically means Sony has the tech to make the PS3's microchips do what the PS2's brain does - i.e. play PS2 games. Which points to the possibility that PS2 backwards compatibility could be on its way back to PS3 soon.
Sony hasn't confirmed this, nor would it pass comment on the patents when we asked earlier today, but it's an encouraging sign.
Although PS3s currently on sale contain no support for PS2 games, the first PS3s released in Japan and the US in 2006 had both the Emotion Engine CPU and the PS2's graphics processor chips in them, allowing for full backwards compatibility with PS2 games.
The EE chip was later removed for the PAL (Euro) release of PS3 to cut costs, but early PAL PS3s still played most PS2 games using the remaining PS2 graphics chip and software emulation.
Hopefully the new patent means Sony will be able to re-introduce PS2 support using software emulation via a firmware update. Fingers crossed for version 3.0 then.
The Lik-sang travesty and the removal of the PS2 chip for the UK market were the major reasons why I had no intention of ever buying a PS3.. I'm still not convinced though.
If they make the PS2 emulation region free then I'd be very tempted.
Well, it would be about time. Non-BC was, in my opinion, one of the worst business decisions Sony could have made early on in the life cycle of the PS3. Talk about spiting your existing customer base.
Since the PS3 is no longer the best blu-ray player on the market I pretty much forgot about it. I still play my PS2 just as much as I play my wii and 360. It looks like after this new bc compatible PS3 is released, I'll finally get a chance to play uncharted 2 and the other 5 PS3 exclusive games I want to play.
Sounds good. I haven't got a job, so I cant get all the new games I want at the moment, it'll be nice to play some of my old games again, even though my ps3 does that already....anyway, Destroy All Humans 1&2, Bully and some Gta titles are getting my attention again until I can get Ghostbusters and God Of War 3.
Only problem with this idea is that the main problem for PS2 emulation is the GS. The amount of overdraw it could manage (sheer pixel throughput) is still incredibly good, and can't really be simulated on the RSX. (That's why they still put a GS chip in the Euro PS3s.) Emulating the EE better than the Euro PS3 does might help a bit, but it's not going to be perfect without an on board GS chip. And they've already removed it once to save production costs, so I doubt they'll put it back in??
I think this is likely to be a move on sony's part to allow PS2 games for download on PSN like the xbox originals are on 360 to be honest.
I mean sony would have potentially more to gain by hooking people to re purchase the ps2 games through psn rather than buying the games cheap 2nd hand thus they get no cash.
If they did this, it would be arguably the best decision Sonyy have made in regards to the PS3. It coukd also signal the death of the PS2 (finally lol).
If they did this, it would be arguably the best decision Sonyy have made in regards to the PS3. It coukd also signal the death of the PS2 (finally lol).
I don't agree. Forget about PS2 games on the PS3. Upgrade the game to HD as they did with Wipeout HD and release it on PSN. Don't just fire out old PS2 games. Shadow of the Colossus HD, God of War HD etc all on PSN would sell easily at £15. Sony have plenty of in house developers that could do this easily.
@grasshopper A great many PS2 games are certainly not garbage. Look at FFX and FFXII, God of War 1&2, all of the Persona games, all the other Megaten games, and many more. Sure, they aren't pretty by todays standards but they were stunning then (in fact many still are) and graphics aren't everything anyway, I mean I still play FF7 and that remains my favorite game of all time, despite the polygonal sprites. If you don't like PS2 games then don't play them, but some of us would like the option. I still play my PS2 and when it breaks it will be nice to know that my PS3 will play all of my back library. Putting BC back in would entice many to upgrade from the PS2 as well, so it would attract new gamers as you say.
noone is spending £££'s to play ancient games they have already played a hundred times and burnt out.
many ps2 games still look stunning today? stop smokin crack.
people who upgrade to a brand new console want to see what it can do. and not with a ten year old game.
when i put on what i thought to be the best looking ps2 game last gen, on my BC ps3, i was fucking horrified at how ghastly it looked. certainly not what i remembered. consoles have moved on. they were good at the time (ps2 games) but they dont compare now.
Sounds ecouraging for people who regard BC as a big issue(people like me). Some people like to play their old games as well as their new ones, and havn't got endless room for a Ps1, Ps2, Ps3 as well as other machines. My Ps3 can already play my old games and I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't have even considered buying it at the time if it wasn't backwardly compatible.
@Grasshopper God of War 2 looks graphically superior all of the PES games. On a semi-decent TV, Persona 4 looks very good, better than Folklore and Genji anywho. Final Fantasy 12 knocks the socks off of Enchanted Arms and Disgaea 3 (even though I heart Disgaea 3). All of these games still beat most Wii games. They certainly all beat Two Worlds (I bought for my PC, arguably the worst game ever lol). Like I say, it's as much about peace of mind as anything else as well. I missed too many PS2 games and am still playing catch up while I wait for more PS3 RPGs. I didn't buy the PS3 to test it's graphical capabilities either, I bought it for quality games, which means good gameplay. I have played games with s**t hot graphics like Assassin's Creed and the gameplay has been broken or boring or both. Why do you think Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time and FF7 usually top 'best game ever' competitions? Because the core gameplay was perfect, not because of amazing graphics. The thing is 'Ancient games' are oft better than new ones. I mean, would you really sooner play Professor Hienz Wolff's Gravity than God of War 1?
Having missed the ps2 generation as I had an original xbox, and having swapped back to ps3 - the backwards compatibility is ace! Im playing many ps2 games and only Killzone 2, quite happily
oh please do so Sony....I could get around to playing and doing these games I wanted to play b4 I get the PS3: Ico, God of War 2, FFX, FFXII, FFVII Dirge and just a couple others as PS2 works great on component on HDTV (576i) and the PS2 is firmly fixed in my son's room now as I got a PS3 along with 360 so I didnt finish of a few games as moving the PS2 and switching between scart/component was a hassle and having a PS3 now I kinda gave up with the PS2 and games...the CRT TV is in my son's room, I dont want to sit in his room playing games really, so emulation like the 360 did would solve the problem, PS1 games work on PS3! Also forget the 10 year lifecycle of PS2 as that is what it is all about really, making sure the console has a 10 year lifecycle!
Okay, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to be the only person ever in the world who has had no trouble playing my old ps2 games on my ps3. Like I said earlier, Destroy all humans, gta and bully have been played a lot by me recently on my ps3, along with god of war, burnout revenge and mgs3. I haven't had a problem at all, ever. Most people moaning either bought it at a later stage when sony took out the backwards compatability and dropped the price (boo hoo, they gave you a price drop and you still cry like pussies) or Xbots who seem determined to undermine sonys machine with mislayed and untrue information. I raise my hat to you people before giving you spare change and carrying on my way.
I cannot see sony making the games look any better tbh PS1 games from PSN have no graphical upgrades as for adding other features to them like trophies or online play forget it.
and as I said before I can see them bringing this feature only for downloading games so if you got a big stack of PS2 games sitting idle hoping sony are going to let you enjoy them i cannot see it happening when they can put the games up on psn & charge more cash for them.
as for someones comment about adding improved visuals & that they have plenty of devs that could do it maybe they do but most of their resources are better spent making proper ps3 games rather than enhancing old ones.
wtf, ps2 games still stand up today. What the hell are you people moaning about? Not everyone likes FPS's. Persona 4 is heads and shoulders above 90% of the crap put out on the 'next' generation. Gameplay over graphics. I still play the old scumm games, and Day of the Tentacle on the most part stands up today. Seriously, people, get over yourselves and your shiny new toys.
they should never have taken ps2 compatibility out to begin with.
They didnt. Remember 'to begin with' the 60gig PS3 does play almost ever PS2 game anyway. I have a launch PS3 and only found one game I couldn't play on it which was Outrun 2. Although that might be playable now as there has been a few firmware updates since I last tried.
What makes me laugh is that people complained about the PS3's price, so Sony make a cheaper version. To make a cheaper versio it means you have to lose some things. They dropped PS2 playback and people still complain! Sony just can't win!
Oh well at least my PS3 plays PS2 games, and has amazing backward compatablity. Unlike my 360 which plays almost naff-all xbox 1 games.
they should never have taken ps2 compatibility out to begin with.
They didnt. Remember 'to begin with' the 60gig PS3 does play almost ever PS2 game anyway. I have a launch PS3 and only found one game I couldn't play on it which was Outrun 2. Although that might be playable now as there has been a few firmware updates since I last tried.
What makes me laugh is that people complained about the PS3's price, so Sony make a cheaper version. To make a cheaper versio it means you have to lose some things. They dropped PS2 playback and people still complain! Sony just can't win!
Oh well at least my PS3 plays PS2 games, and has amazing backward compatablity. Unlike my 360 which plays almost naff-all xbox 1 games.
Your point about them having to remove something is a wee bit short sighted euro PS3's had emulation for backwards compatability so they actually did not remove anything except some emulation code which if thats the case then it hardly cost them anything.
And I will agree there are some classic xbox games that are not compatible with 360 but the majority of big titles are present & accounted for.
wtf, ps2 games still stand up today. What the hell are you people moaning about? Not everyone likes FPS's. Persona 4 is heads and shoulders above 90% of the crap put out on the 'next' generation. Gameplay over graphics. I still play the old scumm games, and Day of the Tentacle on the most part stands up today. Seriously, people, get over yourselves and your shiny new toys.
jazzy man, you r chump-chang to me i lauth at yous *haha. and may spit too *pttt (ps-crap fan boy) noob
Sweet. My ps3 60gig was killed by a mate and I was in the middle of replaying God of War on it. If the PS3 was patched I could get back into it and get on with Persona 3 & 4 as well as San Andreas, Res4 and Okami and my PS2 collection of Singstar titles. So come on Sony bring it back - girls love me Singstar As for the cynics and critics on this forum, if Sony gave you a 360 emulator on it you'd still bitch!
PCSX2 emulator on the PC is now able to run a lot of PS2 games at full speed and with better graphics, higher resolutions and AA, so no need and too late Sony
Hopefully the new patent means Sony will be able to re-introduce PS2 support using software emulation via a firmware update. It had better be this or it'll just secure the fact Sony are the biggest for screwing fans, there should be no reason why PS3 can't do this 360 did and PS3 is "more acvanced". This could be an added extra for me as I see games as more than a visual stimulant and would like to play some of the good RPG's on PS2 and as due to shoddy build quality my PS2 broke it would save me waiting for PS2 slim to hit £30 new.
May I point out that the CPU was already being emulated. If the GPU was the remaining chip on our 60GB unit and what hindered the complete catalogue from playing then it is GPU emulation we now need, which will likely also need to be done on the CPU, due to the slightly differing architechtures.
Cell should be powerful enough, and could probably convert commands for the nVidia GPU if it needs the extra muscle of that chip. Plus more post processing.
I see this as news that the older software emu machines (so our launch machines, and the US 80GB machines) that are long sold out still should get near perfect emulation now (so almost if not 100% compatibility like the US and JAP launch machines). We should still need GPU emulation to complete this package and get full PS2 emulation.
they should never have taken ps2 compatibility out to begin with.
They didnt. Remember 'to begin with' the 60gig PS3 does play almost ever PS2 game anyway. I have a launch PS3 and only found one game I couldn't play on it which was Outrun 2. Although that might be playable now as there has been a few firmware updates since I last tried.
What makes me laugh is that people complained about the PS3's price, so Sony make a cheaper version. To make a cheaper versio it means you have to lose some things. They dropped PS2 playback and people still complain! Sony just can't win!
Oh well at least my PS3 plays PS2 games, and has amazing backward compatablity. Unlike my 360 which plays almost naff-all xbox 1 games.
My point was that the newer PS3 consoles dont play PS2 games at all and was a mistake to change that. While the original 60gb PS3's dont play every PS2 game, the list of games that do work seem to be a lot bigger than 360's list of compatible original xbox games.
Your point about them having to remove something is a wee bit short sighted euro PS3's had emulation for backwards compatability so they actually did not remove anything except some emulation code which if thats the case then it hardly cost them anything.
The 60gb PS3 has the Emotion chip and doesn't use emulation for backwards compatability.
Didn't own a PS2, so if they can release a patch for PS2 games on my current PS3 then I'm up for some of that.. there are quite a few games I feel I missed out on. bring it
What makes me laugh is that people complained about the PS3's price, so Sony make a cheaper version. To make a cheaper versio it means you have to lose some things. They dropped PS2 playback and people still complain! Sony just can't win!
There was a news article on here a while back where a senior Sony bod (can't remember who) said they didn't make any significant cost saving from removing backwards compatibility and it was actually more about stimulating / forcing sales of PS3 games...
Your point about them having to remove something is a wee bit short sighted euro PS3's had emulation for backwards compatability so they actually did not remove anything except some emulation code which if thats the case then it hardly cost them anything.
The 60gb PS3 has the Emotion chip and doesn't use emulation for backwards compatability.
PAL region 60gbs have the graphics chip. Not the main processor. It actually uses a mixture of both.
So technically it is software emulation.
However if you imported your PS3, it basically has a PS2 inside it.
I've got one of the PS3's with (some) backwards compatability, but the only thing I've ever used it for was Rogue Galaxy, anything else I either don't play anymore or still play it on my PS2 so I can use my save files.
The other possibility for this news is that it's going to be a required install for any upcoming PS2 games about to be added to the PSN.
I'd love to have a BC console so I could get Enthusia and some of the other titles I missed out on (since before this generation my last console was an N64), but I really doubt Sony are going to help out 2nd-hand game purchases. There's no profit in that for them.
Okay, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to be the only person ever in the world who has had no trouble playing my old ps2 games on my ps3. Like I said earlier, Destroy all humans, gta and bully have been played a lot by me recently on my ps3, along with god of war, burnout revenge and mgs3. I haven't had a problem at all, ever. Most people moaning either bought it at a later stage when sony took out the backwards compatability and dropped the price (boo hoo, they gave you a price drop and you still cry like pussies) or Xbots who seem determined to undermine sonys machine with mislayed and untrue information. I raise my hat to you people before giving you spare change and carrying on my way.
And you wonder why Sony is losing the public relations battle?
PCSX2 emulator on the PC is now able to run a lot of PS2 games at full speed and with better graphics, higher resolutions and AA, so no need and too late Sony
That does seem to be the order of the day for Sony as of late.
Actually to be honest, sony are losing the battle for more reasons than that. Firstly the console is too damn expensive, and releasing a psp upgrade for more than an xbox is mad. PSN here in europe is better than nothing, but still crap compared to other areas. Games are beginning to become more homogenous as a whole, not just a problem for sony but microsoft as well...the popularity of the wii and casual playstyles has on the whole has removed the more hardcore innovation from the developers in return for money making sequels which will sell (COD, GoW etc) because of the name alone. The problem in regards to people who actually are interested in games is Fanboyism. The internet has lead to an explosion of this, and people now hold illogical beliefs in one console's superiority to the other in regards to games. Of course the main problem is people like to complain and feel that they are owed something more than they payed for and they buy into the hype surrounding games. Thus when they dont get it, they act like spoiled brats (ie not being able to run and gun in RE5)
PCSX2 emulator on the PC is now able to run a lot of PS2 games at full speed and with better graphics, higher resolutions and AA, so no need and too late Sony
That does seem to be the order of the day for Sony as of late.
bigtime, my PS2 died a year and a half ago but i still have around 22 great games for it. Have had a useless PS3( in the sense of BC ) for the past 8 months but been enjoying most of my games now on my PC Some pix http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6366/gow21.jpg http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6185/gow22.jpg
and of a Final Fantasy 12 save game from a BC PS3 working on my PC ( pity the guy was doing crap lol ) http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/1624/ff12.jpg
Okay, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to be the only person ever in the world who has had no trouble playing my old ps2 games on my ps3. Like I said earlier, Destroy all humans, gta and bully have been played a lot by me recently on my ps3, along with god of war, burnout revenge and mgs3. I haven't had a problem at all, ever. Most people moaning either bought it at a later stage when sony took out the backwards compatability and dropped the price (boo hoo, they gave you a price drop and you still cry like pussies) or Xbots who seem determined to undermine sonys machine with mislayed and untrue information. I raise my hat to you people before giving you spare change and carrying on my way.
oh dear a sony fanbois!
Owning both consoles I get advantage...more gaming...no I wasnt prepared to pay over £400 (not inc. accessories) for a 60GB BC model on launch..way too expensive...but now its still too expensive at the 80GB model price but i still forked my money on it...jeez, give a fanbois a bone...seriously, I dont care abourt fanboisism..I just want BC in my PS3 at affordable prices not inflated
This'll probably be for the PS3 Slim, and not the standard PS3. Sony always does things bottom about face. I doubt it'd be included via a Firmware update very much.
This'll probably be for the PS3 Slim, and not the standard PS3. Sony always does things bottom about face. I doubt it'd be included via a Firmware update very much.
they should never have taken ps2 compatibility out to begin with.
They didnt. Remember 'to begin with' the 60gig PS3 does play almost ever PS2 game anyway. I have a launch PS3 and only found one game I couldn't play on it which was Outrun 2. Although that might be playable now as there has been a few firmware updates since I last tried.
What makes me laugh is that people complained about the PS3's price, so Sony make a cheaper version. To make a cheaper versio it means you have to lose some things. They dropped PS2 playback and people still complain! Sony just can't win!
Oh well at least my PS3 plays PS2 games, and has amazing backward compatablity. Unlike my 360 which plays almost naff-all xbox 1 games.
My point was that the newer PS3 consoles dont play PS2 games at all and was a mistake to change that. While the original 60gb PS3's dont play every PS2 game, the list of games that do work seem to be a lot bigger than 360's list of compatible original xbox games.
The PS3 BC list is unreal, out of the 70-odd PS2 games I have only Outrun2 doesnt work.
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OMG giv it up sony FFS! the tim is over, 360 won ps-crap lost. may draw u a diagrame if it help? 
it's not software emulation technically or any other way.
