With the recently announced PS3 price drop answering thousands of industry questions, some out there are reaching into their memory banks to ask the next best question on their mind, “Where is the PS3 backwards compatibility?” If you are one of the gamers out there that already have a PS3, let alone adopted the technology in the early days of the consoles lifecycle when it was $600 dollars, you just might have gotten your hands on a 20GB or 40GB backwards compatible PS3. These are extremely hard to find now days, and doing so will have you paying in upwards of $350 on Ebay.
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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.
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Sony decided to drop BC from all of their models to the chagrin of gamers everywhere. Unless you had a near launch 20 GB, 60 GB, or 80 GB console, you were shit out of luck if you wanted to play God of War on your PS3. Sony has patented Emotion Engine Emulation, which is a way for PS3’s to be able to read PS2 data without the PS2 chip in place. To oversimplify things, it would allow PS2 games to be played on PS3’s without any kind of modding. There is no guarantee that this is the reason they have this patent, but it would sure make a lot of sense and a lot of people happy. Click here for the in depth reasoning behind the new tech.
Sorry for the misleading title. When I heard that Goldeneye was confirmed for Xbox 360 I was harder than a diamond in an ice storm. Its not Goldeneye 64 that we are going to get. Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, the very bad spinoff from EA from 2004 is now on the BC list. I thought they stopped doing that? Either way, our consolation prize sucks balls. I want to play Stacks with remote mines. You could detonate them mid-throw. Fear my flying discs of death. Fear them.
It seems as if the 80gb PS3 is going the same place the 60gb went; the Island of Misfit Consoles. Anyone who wishes to buy a PS3 in the future will have to get the 40gb version and forfeit the ability for backwards compatibility. There have been grumblings of a 100 or 120gb model, but nothing is confirmed. The only explanation is the BC is no longer a necessity and is being phased out the way that MS did for the Xbox. Its not that hard to drop a bigger HDD in the PS3, but the average gamer won’t know this.
Microsoft looks to be stopped BC updates on the Xbox 360, according to Albert Penello, the group marketing manager for Xbox 360. At CES, Penello had this to say:
I don’t know if we have plans to do any more releases. It feels like we kind of hit the point of diminishing returns there.
Seems like no one really cares anymore about their last-gen titles. You can always plug in your old console (if you still have one, that is). Microsoft does have the Xbox Originals program, which looks like it will continue with updates every few weeks. That should satisfy the original Xbox lovers out there.
[via Kotaku]
Here are the recent games added to the BC list for the Xbox 360. Click more for November’s List. Good titles this month actually.
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Jack Tretton announced today that the gimped 40GB PS3 will be making it’s way to America on November 2nd for a cool $400. The differences between the stripped down console and it’s big bothers are a 40GB hard drive, two USB ports instead of four, no card readers, and no backwards compatibility.
Along with the new console, Sony announced a price drop for the 80GB PS3 to $500 in the US.
“We’re choosing to focus on the PlayStation 2 consumer with the PlayStation 2, which remains incredibly relevant, and focus on the PlayStation 3 consumer with the new 40-gigabyte model and the great software coming out,” Tretton said.
“Backward compatibility is a nice secondary consideration, but it’s far from the number-one priority.”
I’m still not a happy camper about Sony ditching BC with the 40GB console. For me, it’s a big downer. At least now with good PS2 games still coming out. What do you think? Will the 40GB PS3 succeed in the US?
I have to say, I think will move will bite Sony in the ass. In a statement to CVG, Sony stated they plan to stop supporting Backwards Compatibility in future PlayStation products.
I’m a big user of BC on my PS3. I put PS2 games in there all the time. With the Xbox 360 and Wii, it’s not so much. But with a large number of good PS2 games still coming out, it’s hard to completely get away from the system.
With the introduction of the 40GB PS3 in Europe, which does not support even software BC of PS2 titles, users will be forced to pull the PS2 out of the closet (or even possibly buy a new one) if they wish to play any titles from the last-gen console. Sony will be phasing out the current 60GB model in Europe and only leaving the 40GB PS3 (which includes everything from the 60GB model except no backwards compatiblity, no memory card readers, and only 2 USB ports).
I think the market may demand that Sony change their mind. Since the BC is software based anyway, it’s not like it would be hard to add this feature back into the system. If Sony tries to implement this in the US, I hope they have a plan to deal with the enormous back-lash they’ll face. If they’re trying to save their image and the system, this isn’t the way.
A Backwards Compatibility checker for PAL PS3 consoles has existed for a while. Now that the US has a software-emulated PS3 in the 80GB model, it’s only natural that Sony would post a checker for the Western Hemisphere.
You can search for titles for both the 60GB (with hardware emulation) and the 80GB (software emulation) PS3 versions. You can easily find some differences between the console versions. For example, in God of War, there are no problems with the 60GB PS3. But on the 80GB console, here’s what Sony has to say:
During various FMV sequences throughout the title, the audio plays overlapped by static audio distortion.
If you’re looking for a PS3 and haven’t grabbed a 60GB version, go out and get one before you can’t. Of course, if backwards compatibility means nothing to you, grab whichever you want.
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