PS3's Smart Back-Compat, PS4 Doesn't Play Discs

Good news for Sony fans looking forward to the PS3. Eurogamer reports that the system will feature backwards compatibility with memory cards as well as games. From the article: "An update to Sony's PlayStation 3 website has revealed that you will be able to use older PlayStation memory cards with PlayStation 3 - providing you buy an adapter. An entry in the official PS3 FAQ states: 'To use saved data on a PlayStation 2 memory card, you must copy the data onto a virtual memory card within the hard disk.'" Microsoft could have really used something like that for the Xbox/360 switchover. Relatedly, Sony is looking ahead ... way ahead, even to their next console. Wired has a piece looking at the future of downloads in the games industry. From that article: "Microsoft is releasing an HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360. Both companies are even touting the ability of these new discs to play movies in even higher hi-def. That struggle, however, is ultimately meaningless. 'I'd be amazed if the PlayStation 4 has a physical disc drive,' [Sony's Phil] Harrison says."

Comments

Now if only they would cut the price

[VJ42]

If it wasn't for the £500 ($800) price tag, I might consider getting one; I've had good use out of my brothers PS2, and a feature like this sounds great. I hope that Nintendo and Microsoft are watching as I havn't bought a Next-Gen console yet, and this can only be good for compitition.

Re:Now if only they would cut the price

[Volante3192]

Well, the Nintendo Wii is already backwards compatable with the GameCube in software and hardware, will include 4 ports for GC controllers, have slots for 2 GC memory cards...

plus have the ability to download and play older games, so I don't see why Nintendo should bother looking. In fact, you don't need an adapter to use the GC memory cards (like you do PS2 memory cards apparently), so this appears to be more of Sony looking at Nintendo than vice versa.

PS4?

[Metasquares]

I doubt the PS4 will exist if Sony doesn't concentrate more on making the PS3 more appealing.

Re:Retail support

[andrewman327]

I am a twenty year old console gamer. I actually prefer having a physical medium on which the game code resides. I have had too many problems with hard drive failures, damaged systems, etc. to trust the system to hold all of my games. And what if I like to share? I do not want to have to lug my PS4 to my friend's house and hook it up just because my copy of Tony Hawk: Ripping it up in the Nursing Home is bound to my system's serial number. I smell DRM in this, and I do not like it.

Re:If Sony's got a foot left, they'll be shooting

[Fallingcow]

Man, I was on the fence about Steam for quite a while. I bought HL2, I played it, I played a little CS:Source. Now? I'll occasionally consider installing HL2 to give it another play-through, but then I always decide that it's just not worth the time that my computer will be occupied downloading and decrypting shit.

Worse for Valve? I'd like to play Episode I, but I've put off buying it, because I've got unpleasant memories of large downloads and inconveniently-timed, seemingly-pointless Steam updates. At this rate, if I ever play it, it'll probably be a spur-of-the-moment Bittorrent download of some pirated version that'll sit in BitComet for a day or two while I go on with my other gaming and computing tasks (since it's not doing decrypting bullshit like Steam does, eating processor cycles) until I remember that I had it downloading, check, see that it's done, play it, then delete it.

If I didn't have to dick around with Steam, I'd very likely have given up the $20 they want for the box at stores within a couple weeks of it coming out. Now? I doubt they'll ever get my money. It's not an ideological thing, it's just that Steam is too damn annoying.

Yeah, kind of offtopic. Sorry.

Useful feature

[SuperKendall]

You forgot that a lot of us have games we go back and play from time to time - also a number of PS2 games have looked for saved files from older games and upgraded some features in a newer game if you had specific items in the old one.

Lastly, the PS2 could slightly enhance graphics in PS1 games. If a simialr feature is offered for PS2 support it could be kind of nice to revisit some parts of older games.