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Sony's Phil Harrison delivers the news that the backwards compatibility situation of the Euro PS3 isn't as bleak as most believe

After last week’s surprising news that Sony is removing the Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer chip from the European PS3, thus affecting its backwards compatibility with PS2 games, the gaming community had less than positive things to say about the move.

Phil Harrison today speaks out to fans to help clarify what last week’s announcement was all about. Semi-official Sony blog Three Speech questioned Harrison on the logic behind the downgrade, to which he says, “Our thinking involves being able to bring the latest hardware specification of the PS3 to Europe, although that does mean an initial slight reduction in the number of PS2 components. But it’s important to put that into context: there will still be thousands of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 titles playable on the PS3 at launch. It’s very easy to over-react. We’re working to introduce a resource on the Web to detail which titles will have backwards compatibility. And as we make firmware upgrades, we will be able to add to that list.”

The mention of “thousands” of titles piqued our interest, as the thousands could come from PSone titles alone. For a ballpark figure for PS2 games, Harrison says, “The situation is changing every day, but on March 23, we expect the list to include over 1,000 PS2 titles,” adding that it’s Sony “policy” to be concentrating compatibility on the biggest PS2 blockbusters.

Had Sony released plans to support over 1,000 PS2 games on the March 23 launch, perhaps it would have prevented much of the uproar. Future owners of the European PS3 may not enjoy the same level of backwards compatibility as a North America or Japan console, but Harrison believes that most gamers will care only about new generation games.

“I think the reasons why people buy PS3s are the new games that it offers, and the HD content experiences provided by games and movies, the opportunity to access the PlayStation Network, and titles like MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man – leading-edge examples of what next-generation games are all about,” says Harrison.

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Whatever
By medavid16 on 3/1/07, Rating: 0
RE: Whatever
By exdeath on 3/1/2007 3:48:00 PM , Rating: 1
"You're still giving extra load to a chip that wasn't designed to originally run that specific software, thus heating/decreasing service-life, etc."

W...TF?

And running PS3 games doesn't use that same chip and make it run just as hot, if not hotter, since it will leverage more functionality of the CPU in ways that an emulator might not?

An emulator is stil a program made in the native code of the host CPU and is simply running like any other program would on that CPU...


RE: Whatever
By peerless on 3/1/07, Rating: 0
RE: Whatever
By exdeath on 3/1/2007 3:53:24 PM , Rating: 3
I play PS1 games in my PS2 all the time. I find old classics like Parasite Eve and Xenogears far more entertaining than the any more recent titles.

Even with hardware, PS2 emulation wasn't perfect. Xenogears just idling will inject random reverb and game sound effects into the background music. And even with texture filtering off in the PS2 BIOS, there are seams in the sprites which are made up of tiled quads.


RE: Whatever
By kelmon on 3/2/2007 3:03:30 AM , Rating: 2
Damned straight! Personally, I'm an R-Type Delta man. There aren't many PS1 games that I still play but that's one of them (and still yet to be surpassed as a 2D shooter, IMHO) and I'd be gutted if I couldn't continue to play it.

Maybe Sony does have their bases covered on this one but I guess we'll have to wait and see the list before passing judgement. The suggestion of increasing the number of supported games is nice through firmware upgrades but since no timescale will be applied to that I certainly wouldn't take it as a guarantee that it'll either happen or at a rate that is acceptable. It's always easiest to say that you'll do something tomorrow rather than doing it today...


RE: Whatever
By scrapsma54 on 3/2/2007 5:04:18 PM , Rating: 2
If we all look at the 360, however more powerful it was compared to reg xbox, games like farcry and Half-life 2 were diminished in performance significantly. As much as the cost is concerned, I see many people are just using the cost as a scapegoat to hate the ps3. I think sony is making a bad move in removing the full backwards compatibility, however, I am sure many people would like to see their games in high definition as much as any console owner, yet experience little or no lag.


RE: Whatever
By Funksultan on 3/1/2007 4:16:15 PM , Rating: 3
lolercakes!

I can't believe they are actually releasing Vista. I mean, it's just gonna put more load on my computer's chips, and that's gonna cause more failures, generate heat, erode the ozone layer, and make my parents beat me more often.

Oh, wait. No it won't.

Software emulation >> hardware if at all possible. Updates will allow for increased capabilities, and allow it to handle situations that are currently unforseen. Once you put in a chip, that's what you've got, period.

PS3 is just gonna start looking better and better. Once they have an open, fully-functional multi-media player for it, the 360 will be scrambling.


RE: Whatever
By ViperROhb34 on 3/1/2007 6:52:58 PM , Rating: 1
At this point there's nothing PS3 can or could to make the 360 scramble as you say.

Before it can even be equal it has to have a network as dependable as Xbox Live which has millions of users.. versus Sony's free system ( which thousands play on not millions ).. the lack of Online games hurts the growth as well since Sony's system doesnt charge home users, but game developer/publishers for the 'right' to have the game online. Maybe this is a reason why a game I recently read about has the 360 version with online option, but the PS3 version with no online and instead a tacky option to use motion sensing if you want. Big DEAL !

The 360 already interfaces with the PC..it finds it.. You can stream High def movies right from your pc.. play most from medica player.. and there's also a program out that will Stream DivX movies from the PC to the Xbox 360 now ( has been out for about 5 months now )

Most people already own a computer.. One thing SOny could do after it catches up in the networking area is to make a program that will inteface with the pc as easily as 360's to use pictures and play your own music from a pc or disc while gaming..

I've heard that you can't play music while gaming d/t cell.. but im not sure if thats true..


RE: Whatever
By afkrotch on 3/1/2007 8:27:52 PM , Rating: 1
Are you serious? Ever read about any Sony MMORPGs? That's one thing that Sony can do, is make an online network for millions of users.

Why interface with your PC, when you can simply load an OS onto the PS3. It can do a hell of a lot more as a PC, than an Xbox360 can do by simply streaming crap from another box, but wait there's more. You can stream crap from your PC to the PS3. It's called Orb.

http://poohole.com/

Don't tell me something like "now I have to download something to stream", cause you have to do the exact same thing with the 360.


RE: Whatever
By ViperROhb34 on 3/1/2007 9:58:55 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
TextEver read about any Sony MMORPGs? That's one thing that Sony can do, is make an online network for millions of users.


Ok I want you to show me a link where just ONE SONY MMORPG has millions of registered users. You're comparing a few game servers to a more complex network designed for downloading movies, downloading game demos, handling voice on multiple online game platforms. Tell me ONE game that has heavy load on PS3's Network that is anywhere close to Halo 2, Ghost Recon..pick a title. THERE ARE NONE YET !

Furthermore on MMORPG's the server load is usually never over 50-100k at one time because people dont all log in at once. I used to play Star Wars Galaxies which Sony put out and was on Sony servers.. It was down often for maintenance often.. It was buggy and Sony never listened to what people wanted.

Until it exist and until there's anywhere near even half the daily user load of Xbox Live you can't compare it. Say what you want and I dont care about ratings.. people still read down rated things.. I dont care if Im -1 or +5


RE: Whatever
By mars777 on 3/2/07, Rating: 0
RE: Whatever
By mars777 on 3/2/2007 5:06:19 AM , Rating: 2
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/sort/rating/gam...

Sorted by rating...
Guess what?... on top together with Guild wars! :)


RE: Whatever
By Funksultan on 3/2/2007 3:51:41 PM , Rating: 1
Yer way off base here viper. Compare the travesty of setting up a media center / Vista media PC, connecting your 360 to it, AND using transcode360 (which is what you're referring to, right?) to an integrated media machine. It's no contest.

If you think that media center is really taking off, it's not. The number of new releases of media streamers is growing daily. Apple, linksys, netgear... everyone is throwing their chips into the middle in an attempt to drag the pot on a living room machine that will search your network / download and display media.

"Most people already own a computer" doesn't hold a lot of ground. Lots of people own cars, but not that many are actually Nascar drivers. We need a worry-free, polished front end. That's why TIVO is popular, and computers with MPEG2 encoder cards AREN'T. :)

Don't get me wrong, I like media center, and I like the 360, but it's not going to become a premier media player for the living room in it's current incarnation. Not saying the PS3 is there either, but MS had it's shot, and it's still pretty far off base. All we can do is wait to see what Sony does, and how they both survive the push for that marker that Apple will make.


RE: Whatever
By Funksultan on 3/1/07, Rating: 0
RE: Whatever
By somegeek on 3/1/07, Rating: 0
RE: Whatever
By porkpie on 3/5/2007 12:23:47 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. The ps3 has plenty of power to do this in software.


RE: Whatever
By ViperROhb34 on 3/1/2007 7:01:15 PM , Rating: 2
The Big thing is alot of Europeans already own the PS2..

So '1200 old games' to play on a $840 Dollar European PS3 is not an incentive to buy a PS3 in Europe.

They can play all those exact games on their PS2 - With Rumble mind you ! .. And with no software problems !!


RE: Whatever
By StevoLincolnite on 3/1/2007 9:16:46 PM , Rating: 3
"alot" not everyone, Besides If I -was- going to get a PS3 I would be selling my PS2 in order to try and get enough money for a PS3, Comon $999 bucks!? Thats bs! I might be lucky enough to get 100 bucks for my PS2, My greatest worry when I sold my PS1 to get the PS2 was weather Final Fantasy 8 would run on the machine, It did, Rather well actually besides a graphical glitch here and there, Now I have about 60 PS2 games that I WANT to run on a PS3 But until the PS3 Drops in Price, The Wii looks better and better, Was thinking of getting the Xbox 1 and modding it for a HTPC though... But I can do that with my dreamcast and over clock it a little.


RE: Whatever
By ttnuagadam on 3/1/2007 7:06:04 PM , Rating: 1
worst post ever.


RE: Whatever
By otispunkmeyer on 3/2/2007 3:53:41 AM , Rating: 2
while emulation isnt quite the same as having the native hardware, its not going to wear the chip out :S

the EE+GS chip costs them only a few bucks ($27 was it?) so its not a massive reduction, but they gotta start somewhere.

why not use cell to emulate? at the moment cell actually needs things to do becuase i think most are gonna struggle to really use it properly.

i honestly think they are scraping the barrel...looking for things for the cell processor to do