Sony May Add Backward Compatibility to the PS4

[VonBrewskie]

Backwards compatibility is one of those things that console games had kind of accepted isn't going to happen anymore. The PS3 was initially backwards compatible by a single generation, and the Xbox One and PS4 have ditched it completely. Only the Wii U is natively backwards compatible.

The PS3 was also played PS1 games. In fact, they still do, to my knowledge.

Still, if true this is amazing news. But I think I'll hold off celebrating until it's announced for real.

Yup. They do. I still play my PS1 games on my PS3 on a regular basis. Legend of Lagaia won't play itself, you know? Exciting news. Dang it. I was trying so hard to avoid buying a console this generation...it feels odd to me that the ability to play my PS2 games again could possibly be the reason I end up buying a new PS4.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

Backwards compatibility is one of those things that console games had kind of accepted isn't going to happen anymore. The PS3 was initially backwards compatible by a single generation, and the Xbox One and PS4 have ditched it completely. Only the Wii U is natively backwards compatible.

The PS3 was also played PS1 games. In fact, they still do, to my knowledge.

Still, if true this is amazing news. But I think I'll hold off celebrating until it's announced for real.

Only the original run 80 gb PS3 will run PS1 games and Ps2 games. When they decided to steal my money by removing the LINUX drive capability as well, I knew SONY had become evil. I have my doubts that this won't be a bullshit popular titles only cash grab.

@ Steven Bogos: NO, we as a generation of gamers have NOT accepted that backwards compatibility is a no-no. We have railed, complained and withed our purchases, and personally have been loud and Vocal at Sony about it. We all know it can be done, and this proves it.

But Sony, if you REALLY wanted everyone to spoog in their pants and buy your machine, I have ONE suggestion for you: FF Vii

 

[Someone Depressing]

Very, very good looking.

Then again, they games will probably run like shit, so says the unhalted, moping cynyc within me.

I'm still not getting a PS4, though, no matter how many changes that shouldn't have to be done they make.

 

[Roxas1359]

Only the original run 80 gb PS3 will run PS1 games and Ps2 games. When they decided to steal my money by removing the LINUX drive capability as well, I knew SONY had become evil. I have my doubts that this won't be a bullshit popular titles only cash grab.

Um...no you are wrong. I have a PS3 slim model, after upgrading from my old 80 GB PS3, and it still plays PS1 games just fine, just doesn't play PS2 games (neither did my old 80GB one either). The original launch model PS3's had actual PS2's built into them, which helped drive up costs. Then some of the models after removed that and went with software emulation, but it was buggy as hell (basically like how the 360's backwards compatibility was), and then they removed the PS2 functions. All PS3s can play PS1 games, even the new Super Slim model can play PS1 games. It's PS2 games they can't play. PS1 and PS2 backwards compatibility is entirely possible and easy to do, that is a fact. PS3 backwards compatibility, short of putting an actual PS3 in the PS4, is not because Cell architecture is preventing it. There is currently no existing emulator that exists for PS3 games because of the fact that the Cell architecture is so ass-backwards and too costly to emulate.

Also, why would FF VII cause people to buy PS4s? Sony doesn't own FF, Square Enix does, and they're not making an HD remake of that one probably for a long time, I'd assume when they'd be on their last legs.

 

[ckam]

Aw, Sony is actually trying to make their developers and consumers happy. This feels rather nice.

 

[Optiluiz]

And now I'm interested in getting a ps4.

 

[Andy Shandy]

If this is true, AND has access to all the titles, then I'm a huge step closer to getting a PS4.

That's a big if at the moment however, considering the lack of some PS1/PS2 titles on PS3, particularly in the EU.

Consider me cautiously optimistic

 

[Cerebrawl]

Heck that almost makes me want to buy a PS4, at least it makes me consider it. There's a bunch of old PS2 games I never ended up playing but wanted to.

Of course if they have compatibility for PS3 games, or at least port the best ones over, as well as having stable PS2 compatibility... then yeah I might get a PS4.

I never thought I'd say that. PC gamer and all(I've stuck to it as the best platform, but also because I could only afford one platform, having PC and console was never really an option). I've hated seeing games I'd like to play as exclusives on consoles I won't have.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Nah my PS2 still works fine, no oneed for me to spend £400 to upscale them.

That's what I'm thinking. Why buy a new machine with a monthly fee to play games from 10 years ago. They really should've figured out how to do it with the ps3. At this point, they've already lost the consumers who really care about BC. It didn't deter me from buying a ps3 but I know a few people who got turned off to ps because of that.
At this point (besides lack of compelling games) the main deterrent to the ps4 for me is the monthly fee. I'd be a fan of the ps4 if they just locked their special ps4 online gimmicks behind the paywall rather than all multiplayer content, which can now amount to most of the game.

 

[katsabas]

There is something that should be clarified a bit. That 'select titles' thing. Does it refer to the resolution or whether it will be on the console or not ?

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I don't seem to be hearing anything about being BC with PS3 titles, or is that a given?

 

[kaizen2468]

That would really be the smartest thing Sony could do right now. Talk about a one two punch to xbox. That would be the most amazing library of video games on one console ever.

 

[DrOswald]

Nah my PS2 still works fine, no oneed for me to spend £400 to upscale them.

That's what I'm thinking. Why buy a new machine with a monthly fee to play games from 10 years ago. They really should've figured out how to do it with the ps3. At this point, they've already lost the consumers who really care about BC. It didn't deter me from buying a ps3 but I know a few people who got turned off to ps because of that.
At this point (besides lack of compelling games) the main deterrent to the ps4 for me is the monthly fee. I'd be a fan of the ps4 if they just locked their special ps4 online gimmicks behind the paywall rather than all multiplayer content, which can now amount to most of the game.

The problem is that the PS3 is not nearly powerful enough to provide satisfactory emulation of PS2 games. Maybe PS1 games, but certainly not PS2. The PS4, being about as powerful as a modern midgrade pc, should be powerful enough for software emulation of the PS2 with only minor problems.

Now, before you say that PS2 emulation has existed on PC's for a long time, note that I said "satisfactory" emulation. PS2 emulation is getting much better, but it is still buggy as all hell.

Accurate emulation takes massive amounts of computing power. To give you an idea, a perfectly accurate pong emulator exists but even a high end gaming pc could not hope to run it at better than a fraction of it's original speed. There might be a super computer out there somewhere that could pull off running the pong emulator at full speed, but I am not sure. Making one piece of hardware act like a completely different piece of hardware, even a massively inferior piece of hardware, is incredibly difficult. In a practical sense, it is impossible to achieve perfect accuracy. The best we can hope for is to get very close, and we need a machine many times more powerful than the original to do that. This is why NES and Super Nintendo emulators are not perfect - they are usually built around the 50 or so most popular titles and often have major errors in the less often used titles. Many titles will be completely unplayable on a given emulator.

 

[Roxas1359]

I don't seem to be hearing anything about being BC with PS3 titles, or is that a given?

PS3 can't be emulated at this time due to it being too expensive because of Sony's stupidity in using the Cell architecture on the PS3. Because of it, it is why Sony is making PS Now, because the only way they could really emulate PS3 on the PS4 would be to put a PS3 inside the PS4. Didn't work too well last time they tried something similar to that either. The reason PS2 and PS1 are in this is because pretty much full emulation of those systems have been made (PSX and PSX2) but nothing exists for the PS3 as of now (give it 3 or 4 years I say).

 

[DrOswald]

I don't seem to be hearing anything about being BC with PS3 titles, or is that a given?

The PS4 is not powerful enough to run a PS3 emulator, for complicated reasons. This is why they are going to be offering PS3 cloud steaming instead.

 

[t850terminator]

AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

 

[jericu]

My question is, is this "backwards compatibility" of the sort that only lets you play download titles? Or proper backwards compatibility, where I can pop my copy of, say... Kingdom Hearts into my PS4 and play it off disc?

Either is awesome, mind, but the latter is what would really push me over the edge, personally.

 

[GonzoGamer]

The problem is that the PS3 is not nearly powerful enough to provide satisfactory emulation of PS2 games. Maybe PS1 games, but certainly not PS2. The PS4, being about as powerful as a modern midgrade pc, should be powerful enough for software emulation of the PS2 with only minor problems.

I understand that but I think the real problem is that they built the ps3 all backwards-ass; the same reason we kept getting crappy ports. The 360 could still play a lot of xb games.
Like I said, it didn't deter me from buying a ps3 (the monthly fee did it for the ps4&xbone) but I know people who did say 'fuck-it' at that point.

 

[DrOswald]

The problem is that the PS3 is not nearly powerful enough to provide satisfactory emulation of PS2 games. Maybe PS1 games, but certainly not PS2. The PS4, being about as powerful as a modern midgrade pc, should be powerful enough for software emulation of the PS2 with only minor problems.

I understand that but I think the real problem is that they built the ps3 all backwards-ass; the same reason we kept getting crappy ports. The 360 could still play a lot of xb games.
Like I said, it didn't deter me from buying a ps3 (the monthly fee did it for the ps4&xbone) but I know people who did say 'fuck-it' at that point.

The Xbox 360 could play a number of XBox games, but it did not really emulate the XBox. It kind of did, but that emulator was so bad that it actually could not play any games. What was actually going on was that the 360 team would take that completely inadequate emulator and use it as a starting point to create a game specific emulator that would run that specific game correctly. (this is not exactly right, but it is close enough for our purposes.) This had to be performed for each game. Sometimes one games emulator would allow other games to also work at a near perfect level, in which case those games would be added to the list (this is why there are so many backwards compatible Cabela's titles, they were all basically the same thing from a program point of view.)

It is easy to make an efficient and "accurate" emulator for 1 game - you can just spot fix all the things that don't quite work right. But it isn't really emulation as we typically mean it - only one piece of software will work on this emulator. If the goal is to bring the massive PS2 library to the new console, you need a true emulator. And strange architecture or not, both the PS3 and 360 were not up to the task of emulating their progenitor. Had the goal been to spot fix the most popular titles it could have been relatively easily achieved, as it was in the case of the X360.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I'm interested. If this works, if it turns out to be true, I will go out and buy a PS4 the very next day. Okay, maybe not that quick because I bet they need to work out some bugs, but if it comes to pass, I am there.