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PS3's New Back-Compat Limit Outlined
We spoke last week about the EU version of the PS3 having a more limited backwards compatibility offering than its US and Japanese cousins. Now, via Gamespot, Sony's Phil Harrison has clarified what kind of support the machine will be offering. His comments in an interview on the 'semi-official' ThreeSpeech blog state that emulation of the PS2 won't be a huge barrier to backwards compatibility. "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 ... The situation is changing every day, but on March 23, we expect the list to include over 1,000 PS2 titles." Harrison goes on to say that they'd likely be concentrating on 'big' titles, and that they generally don't consider back-compat very important in the grand scheme of things; in their view people buy the PS3 for new games, not old ones. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, there's an opinion piece over at Next-Gen that completely agrees with Harrison's statement. Colin Campbell penned a missive entitled 'Why Sony is Right', and lays out what backwards compatibility looks great on the side of a box, but just isn't that big a deal.
The backwards compatibility of the PS3 is completely lacking.
Most PS2 games make use of the rumble feature of the dualshock controller as a part of the gaming experience. And until the PS3 has a method of using the old controller with the old games you will be missing out on that experience, when you play your PS2 games on your PS3.
There's roughly 8000 titles in the PS2 catalog. So, a 12.5% BC rate. Great job, Sony.
It was initially an incentive for me as well (still haven't had 600 bucks just lying around unused, but here's hoping). I sold my ps2 a while back for an xbox (mistake), and missed a bunch of cool sony ps2 titles I've been meaning to go back to with the ps3. WTF is going on with new system launches anyway? There was a time not long ago when you didn't release a new system without a solid set of launch titles -- to, you know, give the consumer an actual reason to purchase your silly machine. Super Mario Brothers made me a gamer -- launch title. Pilot Wings was one of the best games ever released on SNES -- launch title! Now new machines rest on brand name and mere promises of future software. That's stupid, you wouldn't have bought into dvd-players without great dvd titles already available would you? This has been pissing me off more and more lately. I still haven't got a next-gen system because there are no killer apps yet for any of them! The nominally innovative, mostly derivative Gears of War would be a B-list title if the 360 had anything truly worth mentioning (wtf are they doing launching this system without a finished Halo). The ps2 lineup is a joke (in that I can't even think of anything exciting for it atm or even on the horizon, can you?). Wii's best title seems to be that Zelda Twilight Princess game (a port of a gamecube title!).
In fact, now that I think about it, my rational wrt next-gen seems to be this: I'd like a Wii because it's affordable and the games I can imagine with that controller really excite me, and I'd like a ps3 (if I ever have the discretionary income on hand) because Sony, like Nintendo, has proven to be a great first-party developer in the past with the ps2. I'll eventually get a 360 because MS has juked sony into really fucking themselves up and john-q's limited attention span has caused a hemhorraging installed base of 360s (with no real merit on current software IMHO) and developers will have to make money somewhere, so they'll support the great satan of MS (c'mon, do you really want MS to have this much control over the game industry with the doomsday twins of 360 and vista dx10?). See how this is all speculation and has nothing to do with the software which is actually extant in each system's respective lineup? That's fucking sad.
If this is what we can expect from system launches, backwards compatibility is more important than it has ever been in the past. The overlap of last-minute, high-quality "last-gen" titles being developed a little past the lifespan of their target machine can ease the incredible dearth of next-gen launch titles. If they keep screwing the launches people are going to start losing interest in this bloated industry (I've been a hardcore gamer for years, and I'm actually starting to grow out of it, gasp!). Didn't the video game crash of the 80's happen when the software started to tank? See a pattern here?
ps. I should have realized things were rotten in this industry when E3 became more about the titties and less about the software. Yes I know there were always titties, but there were great games at some point as well.
By the end of September 2006, there were 8,181 PS2 titles released worldwide (4,554 in Asia, 1,319 in North America, and 2,308 in Europe).
1000/2308=43%
Spin this however you'd like, but that's still not impressive.
You guys do realize that Sony will be constantly upgrading the software emulation, thus allowing for more games and perhaps even added features (better anti-aliasing and such), right? And that the hardware emulation will eventually be stripped out of new PS3s in all of the regions? The only thing that Sony's done here that was unexpected was removing part of the hardware emulation for the European models so early.
Either way, it's a hell of a lot better than the XBox 360's backwards compatibility, and I think many prospective buyers in Europe will realize that regardless of the anti-Sony hype.
Rob