PS3's Back-Compat Loss Explained, Analyzed

The news came down last week that future low-end PS3s won't have any backwards compatibility features, and that surprised a lot of onlookers. In response, Sony UK's Ray Maguire has attempted to clarify their logic. Essentially, in Sony's view, the money spent on back-compat features is better spent on developing new games or reducing the price of the console. "When PS3 first launched, Sony felt that backwards compatibility was an important feature as there were relatively few games for the new system, Maguire explained. 'So it was a big decision," he said of facility's removal, 'and we know it is a very emotive subject as lots of people think that backwards compatibility is high on the agenda and yet few really use it.'" For more on this, Joystiq has a few words on the implications of Sony's decision, while Kotaku says the 40GB unit will be arriving in the US on Nov. 2nd. For those of you who already own PS3s: would you have purchased a unit if it didn't have BC? If you don't have one yet, does the removal of BC make you less likely to buy one?

Comments

Beh.

[Pojut]

While at the current moment I have slight regrets of having bought a PS3 so early, I certainly don't regret the better visual quality that playing a PS2 game on a PS3 provides...God of War and Shadow of the Colossus look stunning being up-scaled, and run just as smoothly as they did on the PS2 (unlike many xbox games on the 360...then again, the 360 uses software emulation)

In light of a combination of the games that are available now for the PS3 and how long it will be until other stuff is available, I'm very glad I got one with extensive back compatibility...with it's current state of exclusives, no way would I have bought one without the ability to play PS2 games on it.

Re:Beh.

[bigstrat2003]

Agreed. I always considered the excellent backwards compatibility to be one of the PS3's strongest points (I have the 60 GB model). I bought mine, in fact, specifically because my PS2 died, and I knew that since I wanted a PS3 anyway, it made more sense to get a PS3 than another PS2, and a PS3 later. Without the backwards compatibility, I wouldn't own a PS3 right now, and I probably wouldn't be planning on buying one, at the very least, until FF13 comes out.

Sony, you are making a huge mistake.

Re:Beh.

[badasscat]

I was in the same boat. My PS2 is on its last legs, so I picked up a 60GB model when they dropped the price. The writing was on the wall at that point - backwards compatibility was going away, first to software emulation and then completely. That would've left me stuck with a fairly extensive PS2 library and no system on which to play.

Ditto here, basically, although for me it's not that my PS2 was on its last legs (it's a launch system, actually, and is still going strong), but rather just that I saw no point in having two systems hooked up - and two sets of wires in my otherwise nice living room - when I didn't have to. I also appreciate being able to play PS2 games wirelessly without some unreliable third-party controller.

So I also bought the 60GB system when I heard they were being phased out - I wanted hardware back compatibility.

I'm not as convinced as they are that there's no market for backwards compatibility, with as many PS2s as they have sold.

I do understand their point - honestly, since buying my PS3 I've probably played a total of two PS2 games on the system. But still, I bought it because of the backward compatibility, whether or not I actually use it. This is what I don't get about Sony - it really doesn't matter how people actually use the stuff they buy, what should matter to Sony is why they buy the stuff they buy in the first place. So what if they don't use the backward compatibility? It's still a major selling point.

I also think that if manufacturers want us to keep upgrading systems every five years, then backward compatibility basically has to be a standard feature from now on. It can only benefit the manufacturers, because otherwise people feel like they're starting fresh every time out, and there's no reason to stick with the same manufacturer when buying a new console. If there was no backward compatibility in my PS3, I may as well have just bought an Xbox 360. I mean, if I'm gonna have to have two systems hooked up regardless... (or three or four down the line...)

More on this...

[EveryNickIsTaken]

From Joystiq:

The 40GB PlayStation 3 models, devoid of any PS2-related semiconductors, will likely not have any options for backwards compatibility in the future. Speaking to Joystiq, SCEE Director of Corporate Communications Nick Sharples said that there are no plans to offer emulation software as downloadable content at a later date. "We have no plans to do so at the moment. The sheer numbers of PS2 titles available, together with the increased complexity of using a software only solution for each and every title means that to ensure accurate software emulation for the majority would be technically challenging, time consuming and costly," he said. "As we have mentioned on several occasions, our engineering resources are now focused on developing new and innovative features and services for the PS3 and, as a result the 40GB model does not have backwards compatibility with PS2 titles," he said. What a douche.

If it's cheaper...

[Scootin159]

Seeing as an authentic PS2 can be had for ~$100, if the new model is more than $100 less, I'm more likely to get the new model. Otherwise, I'm less likely.

Re:If it's cheaper...

[Shados]

The catch is that there are more implications than that... if you have infinite room near your TV(s), thats fine... personally, I have 2 TVs, and all the plugs near them have 1-2 power bars filled to the brim to the point Im starting to be scared of potential fire hazards, even if the wires are cleanly put away... adding more consoles mean more and more wires, especially if you have a surround sound system, etc... so it would have to (FOR ME personally) be much more than 100$ less to make me think 2 consoles is better than one :)

Less important as time goes on

[Shrubber]

Backwards compatibility is important, but mainly in the first six months to a year after a console launches. You have to get people to buy in and them not having to keep around another console to play older games is one of the ways to do that. However, the longer the console is around the less important it becomes. People typically play less older games as time goes on. Obviously there are going to be a handful of, "classic" games that people love and will continue to play for years, but the vast PS2 library is largely relegated to history as more new games are released.

Frankly Sony's biggest single problem with the PS3 is its cost. No matter what you get for the money, it's more money than many people are willing to pay and that keeps PS3s out of homes. Anything they can do to reduce costs is going to help them at this point, and removing some of the components that they are removing is doing just that. Yes they already have software emulation of the Emotion Engine, but supposedly there were still some other hardware components that were used solely for PS2 emulation. (I don't have any hard links, so if that is incorrect I apologize. I had read it previously.)

Re:Less important as time goes on

[Fr33z0r]

Backwards compatibility is important, but mainly in the first six months to a year after a console launches. You have to get people to buy in and them not having to keep around another console to play older games is one of the ways to do that. However, the longer the console is around the less important it becomes.

You sure about that? As time goes by the price of previous-generation games plummets. I had a small PS2 library (only AAA titles) when I picked up my PS3 and have since tripled it by buying up stuff I want to play through to get the story before their next-gen successors (like Ratchet and Clank), stuff I missed first time around (like Ico), party games (like Buzz), and stuff that was cheap enough that it was worth picking up if only for 10 minutes of enjoyment (like Forbidden Siren and, sadly, "Get on Da Mic" :)).

I could keep my old PS2 around for them, but why should I when I've got my old favourites being enhanced with upscaled hdmi+optical audio goodness (Okami, Final Fantasy, Shadow of the Colossus, MGS, God of War etc) all without fucking around behind the telly or having to find another electrical outlet and dealing with the resulting mess of cables.

Here we are almost two years after the launch of the 360, and I'm playing Halo 1 with the intention being to play through Halo 2 next, so for me at least, I would say BC is more important than you suggest. When I can walk into a shop and pick up a handful of Xbox/PS2 games for a couple of quid, I'll buy everything I find.

Frankly Sony's biggest single problem with the PS3 is its cost.

If by "its cost" you mean "the Xbox 360", you're exactly correct :D

(somewhat serious) joking aside, I would say Sony's biggest problems with the PS3 are their arrogance, their blatant disregard for their customers'... sorry, "consumers'" desires, flagrant dishonesty, outrageously unethical business practices, a lack of care for the integrity and legacy of the Playstation brand, and their (to borrow a term I really can't stand) "flip-flopping".

This is a company who:

told us backwards compatibility was a core value (it wasn't)
told us motion sensing was a gimmick (then added it)
told us the PS3 could churn out graphics on a par with the Motorstorm CGI at E3 (it can't).
told us the PS3's the only "true hi-def" console because all the games are 1080p (they aren't).
told us rumble couldn't be done (it can)
told us storage was make-or-break (then put in a smaller hard disk)
told us $499 was too cheap (it wasn't)
told us Microsoft was copying everything they do (but are happy to rip off achievements)
told us we'd want to work more hours to buy one (we don't)
told us we shouldn't worry about getting rooted (we should)
told us the PS3 was a computer (then took out two of the USB ports and the card readers)
told us PS3's were sold out across the board (they weren't)
told us we'd buy 5 million units even if it had zero games (we wouldn't)
told us Microsoft wasn't a technology company (wtf!?!)

I'm a big fan of the Playstation brand, don't get me wrong. I just can't stand the way Sony behave as a company.

Anything they can do to reduce costs is going to help them at this point, and removing some of the components that they are removing is doing just that. Yes they already have software emulation of the Emotion Engine, but supposedly there were still some other hardware components that were used solely for PS2 emulation. (I don't have any hard links, so if that is incorrect

It does make sense

[the_skywise]

I was upset at first as well. But after calming down and thinking about it:

Sony continues to sell PS-ONE systems (for pretty cheap too) so it's unlikely they're going to stop selling PS-2 systems any time soon.

Incorporating a PS-2 inside of the PS-3 does increase the cost by about $100 (even with software emulation)

The major barrier to PS-3 acceptance (aside from games) is the cost.

Most PS-3 purchasers are already going to have PS-2s.

Sure, I'd like an all-in-one box (actually I already have one) to save more space in my entertainment center. But I already have a gamecube/wii and an XBox/XBox360 pair on my stand so a PS3 with one of the new tiny PS2's isn't that big a deal for space.

Logically, its a sound business trade-off to get the price down to increase sales. Prestige-wise it certainly hurts, but maybe that's all fluff anyway (The XBox360 certainly doesn't emulate all XBox titles and the Gamecube never emulated the Nintendo-64)

(I know the Wii plays all gamecube games, but I keep the gamecube around because it's easier to use the corded gamecube controllers during a party rather than pulling the Wii out of its base)

Re:It does make sense

[Bobartig]

When backward compatibility was much better on the PS3 (for older playstation games), than on the X360 (for xbox games), and before teh PS3 had yet launched (and noone could evaluate the back compat performance) Sony went on and on about the importance of back compatibility, how it was a major focus, and how it was integral to building a brand that transcends any single piece of hardware. They went on and on about how the PS3 would have 100% back compatibility at launch so that your older PS titles would not lose value.

After several hundred PS2 and PS1 titles had incompatibilities with the PS3, and after the recent PS2 upgrades caused PS2 games not to work on the new PS2s, Sony spokesperson Reiko Sakamoto said: "It's hard to say the PlayStation 3 will be 100 percent backwards compatible, but as we said earlier this year, we aim to make it so as much as possible," Sakamoto said, according to IDG.

So basically Sony is a company that will straight out lie to you to get you to buy their products. They will say "You will get X", then later on say "X is not important. We will not be delivering X".

From a consumer's standpoint, it is not enough to say that this helps Sony recoup their losses. People have to be accountable for the things that they say they will do, professionally, ethically, whatever.

M$ always said "we will have some back compat for the best sellers/important titles", and they do what they can/want to do. They have like 200/700 titles, but they never promised 100%, or touted it as a core benefit of their platform.

Nintendo never claimed they would deliver any N64 back compat in the GC, although they're demonstrating that they can bring some N64 titles to the Wii. They claimed they'd have games from a bunch of platforms, but they never promised all of them.

Sony claimed 100%. They said it was important and a major focus. When they couldn't give 100% (they still delivered an amazing 97%), they said they would work on it to make it right. Then they turn around and dump the whole thing and expect consumers to keep scooping this shit up and scarfing it down.

Just get a PS2

[Zantetsuken]

I don't see why its such a big deal. There are only 2 reasons I could see why backward compatibility would be a must. The first is that its convenient to use the same console for both PS2 and 3 games. The second is that with PS2-bc on a PS3 people owning those models could get the PS3 and then just go buy PS2 games.

However, the only people that would really want bc is people with sizable PS2 libraries - which are likely to either still have their PS2 or be willing to go buy a new one.

People bitched like all hell when the PS3 cost $500/$600 USD - so Sony goes and tries to make it cheaper to produce so that they can pass some of the savings to the customer - and what do people still do? They still bitch just as much if not more than before. I mean, how many people will/did buy a PS3 just for the PS2 games? If people only wanted a console that played PS2 games, they'd buy a damned PS2 - yet instead they buy a PS3...

Hell, I'll even take a wild guess and say that the majority of PS3 owners forget that the PS3 ever even had backward compatibility with the PS2...

Re:Just get a PS2

[sabinm]

I don't see why its such a big deal.

You're obviously not price sensitive to the PS3.

People bitched like all hell when the PS3 cost $500/$600 USD - so Sony goes and tries to make it cheaper to produce so that they can pass some of the savings to the customer - and what do people still do? They still bitch just as much if not more than before.

People were upset because they felt that they were not getting the appropriate value or 'utility' for a set of features at a certain price point. Sony didn't listen. They thought that it was about the price. It's not. I spend six hundred dollars on a lot of things. Just not a video game console. Once you take out the features, you're introducing a new comparison. Now you're comparing a new set of features at a new price point. This is a different set of data to work with, for which Sony introduced a whole new set of unpredictable data. The sane thing to do was to either up the features at the same price point (another controller, another game a killer game) as an option or keep the features the same at a reduced price point. That way people can actually see their value or utility increase with a reference point that stays the same.

The problem that makes the PS3 expensive isn't the BC. It's the blueray player. It's unreasonable that Sony would require it's customers to pay for its own R&D and marketing costs and then take out other features just so it won't lose money on its money pit that is the blueray device on the PS3.

It needs to take a lesson from the 360. The 360 introduced more features at the same price point while at the same time adding features at a reduced price point for its older models.

Now one can argue until the cows come home whether there was actually added value in the HDMI and the 120 gb hard drive for the elite. The answer remains fixed to how the change was perceived. The 360 change was perceived as either "meh" or "positive". Whereas the PS3 change has been perceived as a ripoff. This is par for the course for Sony in this generation's video game console wars.

You are aware PS2 games are still being made?

[SmallFurryCreature]

The X-box is dead, end of story, but the PS2 STILL have games being developed for it, first class titles too. One of the things the "old" ps3 could do, is take these new PS2 games and upscale them a bit, it can't do magic but with its more modern hardware it could give it a slightly better visual quality, not unimportant if you have a HD-TV.

How can a game that has yet to be lreased already be assigned to history?

In an odd way, Sony has created Microsofts problem with the PC. Sure sure, MS could WISH Vista was the new OS and everyone would just buy Vista only games and publish Vista only games, but the reality is that the market has far more XP games, even 2000 games, yes 98 games STILL being sold, among them, games published by MS itself.

So your argument falls flat, the PS2 isn't retired yet, and for Sony to remove compatibility with the PS2 from the PS3 means that this christmas, some of the hot game titles out there, will have people wondering if they should get a PS2 or a PS3. The economy ain't all that, can you guess what a lot will decide?

But surely everyone who wants a PS2 already has one? Then explain why the PS2 sales keep ranking near the top? No, this is very similar to MS and Vista when people really want to run their XP software.

As for the costs, they already got a working design, if they just focussed on that and made that cheaper they could have saved themselves far more in bad publicity. Sometimes you need to accept that a few bucks saved don't matter when its costs you a fortune in lost sales.

Re:but...

[geekboy642]

Here's the problem with that viewpoint.

You're not having to emulate 9,000 games. Sony OWNS the PS2 in every sense of the word. They have all the developer documentation. Hell, they even have all of the source code used in the PS2. Emulation is difficult when you DON'T have access to the source code, and every new game means finding a new piece of the system that must be emulated.

Sony has all the pieces.

But, but, but, what about Microsoft?
Well, Microsoft is inept. Go on, prove that wrong.

Re:and thats exactly why they did it

[Bobartig]

Even if the Wii gets downloadable content, the experience will still be inferior without a better mass storage solution. Either you cough up for several gigs of flash media (hassle), or they have an external USB mass storage drive (expensive), or they do a hardware revision (splinters users into 'haves' and 'have-nots').

I don't think downloadable RockBand/GHIII content on the Wii will ever be comparable to the experience you'd have on the PS3, or X360.

And this is coming from a guy who's ONLY new-gen console is a Wii.

Re:but...

[tuffy]

It does have the hoursepower to do complete PS2 emulation in real time, especially if you use the Cell and RSX chips to help.

I'm sure Sony claimed they could pull it off at some point, since they tend to wildly overstate the capabilities of their devices while early in development. But in reality, the Cell's massively parallel architecture isn't well suited for emulation (a very serial problem) and HLEing the entire Graphics Synthesizer to offload it to the RSX chip isn't likely.

But from a less technical perspective, Sony's engineers have had a long time to try and offload the PS2 functions from those chips and avoid this PR headache. If they had any intention of finishing such emulation, they would've done so by now.

Has anybody else noticed...

[Moryath]

that Sony doesn't seem to give a rat's ass - or much less even have something remotely resembling a clue - as to what the gaming public actually wants instead of the crap they seem to want to feed them?

Seriously now:

PSP gamers want the open platform to be able to extend it. They want a ported version of Opera or some DECENT browser (which would be easy enough to program, and the memory wouldn't be an issue if you used the memory stick as swap space). And they want decent games.

What does Sony do? Constantly push "updates" that break compatibility and try to fuck over the homebrewers who are making the killer apps, and try to push "sales" of PSX titles that require buying a fucking $600 access-box (PS3) to even get to.

Look at the PS3. Compare the shitty "Sony Online Store" to the ease-of-use in Wii or Xbox Live. Compare the crappy "games" (if you can call them that) offered by Sony to the games available on the other two consoles. Look at the half-assed "motion sensing" they threw in at the last minute to try to compete with the Wii.

Anybody else remember "people will be taking second jobs just to buy our console-aru!"?

Sony is the new Daily Radar - they have their heads so far up their asses they can probably smell their own tonsils.

Re:Has anybody else noticed...

[Pojut]

I completely agree.

In fact, the whole PSP fiasco pisses me off quite a lot. I know they are worried about piracy or whatever, but seriously...if they allowed the device to be as open as it was with firmware version 1.0, they would likely have a much stronger hold on the portable market. I'm not saying they necessarily would have outsold the DS, but they would certainly have a much larger piece of the pie.

The PSP could have been a SICK little piece of equipment. I can put e-books on there using a couple programs that format a document (pdf, doc, whatever) to fit on the screen and then another one to turn them into pictures so that I am essentially reading e-books. They should streamline that process to make things easier.

Also, there are a couple of comics designed for the PSP. Sony should support this openly and loudly! Go so far as financing some of the more popular ones...it wouldn't take much investment on their part, and the comic junkies would eat it up...hell, they could open an iTunes-like store in which you can buy digital comics which have been reformatted to work with the small screen size...I would DEFINATELY spend money in a store like that.

Also, not supporting things like DiVX/Xvid/etc was a bit foolish, methinks...their argument would likely be "those are primarily used for piracy", but think about it....they could sell software that would allow you to rip the video and reformat it to play on the PSP while using a codec that isn't quite as shitty as what we are stuck with now.

If they put their corporate bullshit aside and spent a little more money up front, they would probably have many more PSP's in the hands of the people. You know, the ones that actually keep them in buisness. They're called customers.

Re:but...

[king-manic]

You're not having to emulate 9,000 games. Sony OWNS the PS2 in every sense of the word. They have all the developer documentation. Hell, they even have all of the source code used in the PS2. Emulation is difficult when you DON'T have access to the source code, and every new game means finding a new piece of the system that must be emulated.

EMU is never 100%. 10 years and 1000x the computing power and SNES games are still not 100%. You may have the official documentation on everything but PS2 developers outnumber Sony developers and those hordes of third parties have utilized many undocumented tricks on the PS2 to squeeze more out of it with else effort. That's why the hardware EMU was only 90+% while the software + hardware EMU was 80%. EMU isn't a simple issue. Slight variations on how a value returns can hang a game. For instance suppose your used to true 32bit values for a certain function but in the PS3 it first does the equation in 64bit then rounds/truncates into 32bit. Now the function isn't 100% the same. So a ps2 game expecting certain values will glitch up. Even though sony has full documentation it's not trivial to find all the undocumented tricks other developers use. The 360's BC suffers from this more severely because the chipsets are completely different. so they have to tweak their EMU to bridge the gap between implementations. But this requires basically making EMU on a per title basis.