Every time I see a classic title available for download on a console, I let loose a sad little sigh. I already paid for this game, why do I need to pay for it again? It’s because Backwards Compatibility is slowly dying a painful and expensive death. The powers that be have chosen to reduce support for backwards compatibility in favor of digital distribution.
Cleaning out your gaming cabinet one day you find Metal Gear Solid 2. If your PS2 was taken by the electronic gods a while ago, you turn to your PS3. If it’s not a launch PS3 you are done for, the game will not work. Why? It worked on the PS2, it’s the same product line from the same company, but you get no love there.
Your options are limited to either get some antique hardware running or lay out some cash to download the title, if it’s even offered to download of course. If you remember you hated the game and that’s why it’s buried in the back of the cabinet, there is no chance you can return it once you downloaded, or even sell it used for a few bucks. The man got your nuts in a sack and just stomped on it twice. Was it worth it? I get fed up every time I see a game I already have, not working in my current console. On PC it’s not an issue because you can play around with the settings until it works. Consoles aren’t that flexible.
I understand this is a business and money needs to be made, but everyone is trying to squeeze more money out of the consumer at every turn. From additional DLC to rehashes, re-releases, and ports, gamers keep coughing up the cash. Instead of being stones not yielding cash, gamers are cheese gushing potential profits. I can see a case for ports or special editions but for a plain old re-release on the next generation, I’m not buying. I’m willing to pay for an emulator to run all of my old games on the new generation, but I’m not paying for each game again. Unfortunately with digital distribution becoming all the rage with publishers because it cuts back on used sales and cuts out the retailer, I don’t see Backwards Compatibility coming back to our consoles any time soon. Anyone else fed up?
I re-bought FF7 on the PSN. I had sold or lost the game years ago and it was cheaper on the PSN than on disc. I did not re-buy MGS because I had no desire to play it.
What will be interesting is with the launch of Games on Demand on 360. Will people want to buy games they already own on disc just for the convenience factor of not needing a disc?
The only game I’ve owned in the past that I’ve bought again digitally is FF7. Much like Matt, I lost the discs somehow years ago and the download provides a fairly inexpensive way for me to play it again.
Remember that any PS3 can play PS1 games with software emmulation, I’ve been casually replaying FFIX for a while now. Its likely that if they start releasing PS2 games en masse they’ll have to add software emmulation for that, at which point we’ll be able to play our PS2 discs. In the mean time, I still have a PS2, so its no big deal for me.
That being said, I would have thought it would be beneficial on Sony’s part to leave BC in all their PS3 systems, for the simple fact that PS2 games are still coming out, even good ones. Its a disservice to themselves, as well as the consumer who stuck with the company and purchased a PS3, only to not be able to play these new PS2 titles (assuming they didn’t keep their PS2 around).
I agree, but to play devils advocate and take a suits perspective: why would a company bother allowing emulation from discs when they can allow emulation for Downloads only. Charge people for the downloads, if they really want to play they will pay again.
i have a launch 80 gig ps3 with BC. but the only game i have used it for is katamari. once that finally comes out for ps3, i will probably not use it at all.
This article needs A LOT of homework.
He’s talking about PS2 games and PS2 games ARE NOT digitally distributed. And if they were you can be sure that the same emulation that allows them to work would allow the physical disc versions to work as well meaning you would never have to re-buy it if you still have your old copy, like the situation in this article describes.
If the argument were about PS1 games, which ARE sold on the digital store, he’d still be out of line since ALL PS3s play ps1 games, DISC and digital.
Because of this article failing in those two major aspects this article should not exist altogether. The entire article would have to be changed into talking about the Wiis virtual console games only.
FamilyGuy I think you missed the point on this one. MGS & Sony was simply a sample situation. The article refers to consoles in general and the direction of the business. While PS2 games are not digitally distributed at present what stops Sony from doing so? And providing a firmware update that prevents PS3’s from emulating disc based titles, forcing customers to pay to download instead? Nothing.
And if the industry moves to a streaming model (Onlive) then you can forget backwards compatibility, you will have to pay for a new copy to stream and play online because a streaming console won’t have much space to play your old disc based console games.
Hence why Digital Distribution is slowly putting an end to Backwards Compatibility.
you can bet that once the PS2 goes out of production, sony will start digitally distributing PS2 games. It’ll prob even be in the same press release.
BTW, My PS3 isn’t a launch PS3 and it plays PS2 games, 80Gb MotorStorm bundle here. It only cost me $400 so I avoided that $600-$500 launch cost as well. And I never play PS2 games on it…
i got tired of sketchy support for a lot of PS2 titles on my ps3, so i went on ebay and got a ps2 for $40. It was worth it for me, not sure if $40 is worth it for you.
“While PS2 games are not digitally distributed at present what stops Sony from doing so? And providing a firmware update that prevents PS3’s from emulating disc based titles, forcing customers to pay to download instead? Nothing.”
What prevents them from doing this? How about mass negative press. Sony would not do this even if they wanted to because it would hurt their reputation as a business overall. What makes you assume that they would do something so underhanded?
They released the console with the ability to play disc-based PS2 games so I assume they have no problem with it. The reason why they havn’t created a full PS2 emulation is because they can’t properly emulate PS2s GPU. It would cost them time/money to develop the software so at MOST I could see them charging for the emulator but it still working for disc-based PS2 games.
FamilyGuy, you miss the point again. For one thing, backwards compatibility- hardware and software- was taken out of PS3’s months ago. I have a launch 40 GB PS3 with zero backwards compatibility; this was the beginning of the end for PS2 BC for new PS3 systems. The reason the reference to “lack of” BC compatibility is the fact that it was removed.
The only discrepancy I find in the article is that ALL PS one games are compatible with the PS3…if you can find a disc, you can play it. I don’t think any company gives you “good will” credit if you lose your old PS one games… In other words, If you lost it, its not Sony’s fault.
In many ways digital distribution is a boon for consumers. If you have a PSN account, you can transfer your downloaded games to another console (up to 5) if something happens to your PS3. Additionally, the availability to purchase certain gems you can no longer find is awesome, not to mention they are priced to sell. Bottom line: digital distribution isn’t all bad.
By “launch PS3″ you can have a system that was built even several months after the true launch of the system and still have a BC PS3. It basically refers to any system that was built prior to their 40GB non-BC system (which is what I have, btw).
Digital distribution has its pluses and minuses, that’s for sure. I understand the intent of the article and, in some ways, definitely agree with it. As for whether Sony will start to release PS2 games without adding software emulation for PS2 *discs*, I doubt it, since they added compatibility with PS1 *discs* when they started releasing classing PS1 games on the PSN. Still, I wouldn’t put it past them to only allow emulation for downloadable titles…but if they do that, I would probably lose my faith in Sony altogether, because it would be royally and purposefully screwing people over, even more than getting rid of BC originally. =/
i found a bunch of my old ps one games in the cupboard yesterday, while am working my way through the final fantasy series. I would like ps2 bc at some point, but not amazingly fussed. It is somewhat disappointing thought hat my ps3 gets much much more use as a psone emulator than for a next gen console.