Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

PS3 Backwards Compatibility Confirmed

Posted by simoniker on from the anything-else-would-have-been-crazed dept.

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for their story confirming that the PlayStation 3 will offer backwards compatibility with earlier PlayStation consoles via emulation, offering a quote from Sony boss Ken Kutaragi, sourced from the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun: "PSone runs on the PlayStation 2 through emulation rather than actual hardware. PlayStation 3 will offer the same compatibility for PS2 software and the format will continue forever." He also partially attributed the PS2's success to its multi-purpose nature, saying "[PS2] offers a sense of insurance because it is compatible with PSone and DVD movies", echoing earlier suggestions about DVD players in consoles, and obvious advantages to backwards software compatibility.

5 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm not sure about the "PS1 emulation" part... by GeckoX · · Score: 2, Informative

    I am positive that you are correct. There is a PS1-on-a-chip in the PS2. I believe this article has missed the boat on this fact.

    I'm sure somebody will take the time to provide a link to the relevant facts, if they haven't already.

    --
    No Comment.
  2. Re:gamecube2 by edwdig · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wouldn't be surprised if the next Nintendo system was backwards compatible. I think they've learned that backwards compatibility helped Sony this round. Besides, there are a lot of people that want to play a few GameCube games, but not enough games to warrent buying the system. Maybe those people could be swayed to buy the next system since it could also play the games they missed this time around.

    Nintendo did try to make the SNES compatible with NES games. The SNES CPU is a 16 bit version of the NES CPU, which has an 8 bit mode. The rumor is they had trouble getting it to work well enough, and decided it wasn't worth the time and money to work out the kinks.

    All Gameboy systems are backwards compatible.

    They didn't attempt backwards compatibility with the N64 as the SNES showed they could get by without it. Besides, the SNES was a 2d system whereas the N64 was a 3d system, so the hardware wasn't even remotely similar.

  3. Re:I'm not sure about the "PS1 emulation" part... by GrosTuba · · Score: 5, Informative

    OK, here's the link : PS2 specs

    Basically, it says :
    IOP (I/O Processor)
    CPU Core: PlayStation (current) CPU (R3000)

    --
    Who needs a .sig anyway ?
  4. Re:Reason for keeping my ps1 around by AndyBusch · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know, it's a kludge to a kludge, but there are often GameShark codes that circumvent the mod-chip check. And newer mod chips act in "stealth" mode to avoid that test.

  5. Re:X-Box had a chance to do this, but can they now by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 2, Informative

    But I also own an X-Box, and the chances of it doing the backwards-dealie are looking slimmer. Microsoft just ditched NVidia and have shifted to ATI to do their graphics chips for the XB2 -- will the old games still be playable on new hardware? Have coders worked with a generic API like Direct X, or did they go to the metal on the NVidia part and thus old XB games have no chance of dealing with the ATI part?

    Assuming that Microsoft allow for backwards compatibility, the only reason that anything would not work would be because someone 'coded to the metal' as you stated. MS has been promoting Direct3D/DirectX as the method for coding for the XBox for quite some time, and eventually added OpenGL due to developer pressure, iirc, and both OpenGL (at least base OpenGL without nVidia extensions) and Direct3D should have no problems with changing the CPU, video card, and sound processor.

    --
    -PainKilleR-[CE]