They could do it, they just don't care about pre PS4. If it came down to it, they could take code from RCPS3 the same that PS2 on PS3 had some PCSX2 code in it.
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Modern Vintage Gamer: "Why is the Sony PS3 so hard to emulate?"
- Thread starter nolifebr
- Start date
because re-releasing ps1 games is a nightmare. sony themselves could only release a small number of games, the rest would be up to third parties. and a lot of those 20+ year old games have switched "owners" a few times.
It's on PSNow technically 🤷♂️
edit: as a subscriber to PSNow I realize this isn't ideal but hey half the game is cutscenes anyway
It's interesting hearing about how it's still an amazingly powerful processor.
On the Bombcast Dave Lang was talking about the launch of the PS3 from a developer's perspective and he called it "the widowmaker" lol
On the Bombcast Dave Lang was talking about the launch of the PS3 from a developer's perspective and he called it "the widowmaker" lol
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Somewhat of a strange conclusion considering there's a PC emulator making good, consistent progress.
As the video stated that to get a high level (90% fully playable without glitches) of support for a majority of games (which RCPS3 doesn't do currently) would be a very difficult and expensive task and there may still be cases where it isn't possible due to the lack of hardware SPUs. It just isn't worth it.
Honestly, them even selling those classics and making them available on modern hardware would be an improvement to the current situation
The issue isn't emulating the hardware, it's being able to deal with all of the weird tricks that games would have pulled on PS3 in order to work well.
The "coding to the metal" means that there we some many more titles doing undocumented things with the hardware.
This is exactly why MS needed teams of engineers working on the emulation of various different hardware components and why games did/didn't work with them. games to be worked on individually, this is going to be even more problematic for PS3 as you will have had even more games doing weird stuff.
And it clearly is possible, but I just don't think that Sony want to invest in that - them starting to close down the old web stores also signals that they are not interested in spending money on doing this
The "coding to the metal" means that there we some many more titles doing undocumented things with the hardware.
This is exactly why MS needed teams of engineers working on the emulation of various different hardware components and why games did/didn't work with them. games to be worked on individually, this is going to be even more problematic for PS3 as you will have had even more games doing weird stuff.
And it clearly is possible, but I just don't think that Sony want to invest in that - them starting to close down the old web stores also signals that they are not interested in spending money on doing this
That is exactly what I said after watching the video earlier today. He lists/quotes a ton of stuff that makes emulation tricky or would make it easier, but just kind of glosses over the fact that a bunch of hobbyists have had amazing results on PCs that the PS5 would probably blow out of the water, spec wise.
It is worth it though. Getting a whitelist of PS3 games emulated and running on PS5 would allow Sony to sell those games to people that didn't buy them the first time, not to mention if they get the PS Now library running completely on PS5 hardware, they could remove PS3 and PS4 hardware from their server racks. The monetary incentive is there, the power is there with PS5, and RPCS3 shows that its absolutely viable.
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One thing I don't really understand is: Is doing a blanket emulated solution covering all games even legally possible due to games licensing and whatnot? I imagine if it was Microsoft would've done it for original Xbox games to work right from the disc and even for 360 (probably would've been easier for the X1 to run, due to very similar architecture). And also, how did they do it with PS4/X1 going into next gen, as BC was probably not planned or agreed upon by publishers early in the gen.
arent you downloading a special version of it from them instead of just playing it off the disc? consoles do not run games off the disc anymore, you have to install them and for whatever emulation reason, ms makes you download a customized version of the iso.
Full emulation is certainly legal from Microsoft or Sony's perspective yeah, but the specific implementation might cause problems depending on legalities that are beyond me. Full PS1/PS2 emu was perfectly legal for Sony in the past, for example. But if the games are copying from the disc to HDD to run locally using disc as copy protection, I'm not sure what the legal status of that would be if it wasn't covered in licensing agreements made when the game initially came out. Current Xbox BC involves DLing the game off Microsoft's servers, so that's obviously not the same as natively running off a disc, legally, but whether you could do disc-> local storage stuff, I'm less clear.
From the disc I mean installing the content meant for the previous console. From what I understand PS5 and XSX/S will play the games exactly as is with patches on a case by case (with system transfers even being available for PS5, transfering games and saves straight to the new system). The solution is basically for all games, unlike the X360/Xbox solution
This is true, but it's far from a perfect solution. Many PS2 games simply don't work, and even those that do tend to have gltiches or other issues.
Maybe with PS4/X1 being automatically licensed to run from the HD makes it legally possible but still... PS3/360 games could run from the HD also due to the digital storefronts. I'm really curious to what's stopping especially Microsoft from implementing some all-encompassing form Backwards compatibility
It is crazy to realize that you can purchase more games from the original playstation emulated on ePXSe on steam than you can on PS4 or PS5.
I guess if youre a publisher and want to re-license old PS1 games, playstation platforms is not the place to be.
I'd agree with him... if PS Now didn't exist. PS Now is going to keep growing and Sony isn't going to keep manufacturing Cells and RSXs forever. If they want to keep using PS Now as a vehicle for people to play PS3 games, it's going to have to be emulated eventually.
IMHO.
I would like to know how MS pulled this thing off, beyond just the tech side. Just setting up a team or various teams and make a diagnosis of the games able to add to the backcompat pipeline would be an herculean task
It took 9 years of community development to get spotty support for games, some of them requiring patches to work properly and other just not possible at all. You are missing the points in the video.
That's the thing the video is saying, the power isn't there on the PS5 due to it not being able support the logic and features of the SPUs such as the DMA engine. The video suggests it would require a complex custom software solution being implemented as part of the instruction set of the processor or even dedicated SPU hardware.
They put in a lot of human hours into it definitely, they also baked it into the hardware so that the games run natively and are not emulated:
Microsoft Further Details Xbox Series X Backwards Compatibility
And Sony has access to internal documentation along with being able to look at RPCS3. Its not like MS has every single X360 game running on Xbox One, but they have a decent chunk of them and have received a lot of praise for their work, some of them even with "patches" to get them running better than on original hardware. Nobody is asking for 100% PS3 BC, hell even 25% of the good PS3 games that haven't been ported would be awesome.
A majority of the people didn't bother to watch the video and inform themselves.
According to the RPCS3 hp ~60% of games run playable and this is with all kinds of hardware, there are games running at the 10s at times with hardware that "blows the PS5 out of the water" e.g. i7s @ 5 GHZ.
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The missing point is that bunch of hobbyists without system information, specifications or documentation got that far. Surely if Sony wanted it, they could have made the effort and had something akin to what MS has, specifically whitelisted titles, tuned separately on top of the general emulator.
As mentioned above, their current stance makes them look anti-consumer, makes the competition look good, and pushes folks who do value backward compatibility to PC and Xbox. Even if Sony wouldn't make a lot of money off this in the begging, there are some intangible dividends to be gathered from social media conversations, better optics, and potentially setting up the back catalog for their streaming platform.
Sony have internal documentation but still individual games have done virtually undocumented things with the SPUs, if it was nightmare to develop in the first place it would be a nightmare to reverse engineer it as well.
I think there would be a negative reaction if only 25% worked via BC, especially compared to what Microsoft is offering. They are better off doing remasters or remakes to bolster their native PS5 library.
The conclusion was that Sony doesn't think its worth the effort. Not that it was physically impossible. What we are arguing is that it could be worth the effort just in additional good will, visibility and basically free marketing this brings to the platform. That's in addition to any monetary reward from being able to sell hundreds of BC games.
MS doesn't offer nearly close to the entire library on Xbox and Xbox 360. They whitelist titles that they can make work well and that they can license.
I share people's disappointment about it not supporting previous gen games. I bought in hard to PS1 classics and enjoyed quite a few on my Vita and PS3. I just think ignoring the realities specifically around the PS3 emulation is strange. I think supporting PS2 and PS1 should be a given and fact Sony isn't doing so is myopic. And how they resold PS2 classics was bad too.
I'm not too concerned because I think it's only a matter of time before we get all the essential PS3 games on current hardware. The only one I'm concerned about is MGS4 because that game feels like it'd take the most effort to port and Konami doesn't care.
Yeah, wiki says 577 out of 2083. Thats like 28%, and MS has gotten nothing but praise for their solution.
Sony could make a PS3 emulator with workarounds, I'm sure. They just won't do it until it's going to financially benefit them.
I watched the video and he does mention that the current well-known emulator can't emulate the SPUs and has specific workarounds.
I watched the video and he does mention that the current well-known emulator can't emulate the SPUs and has specific workarounds.
Funny enough the PS4 can already do this.
That's not funny, it's sad. Even sadder that a jailbroken Ps4 can play games off from Steam.
Sony could just bring back Linux and just have us use RPCS3.
Frankly, I just want PS2 emulation, that's all. PS3 is not that old that you can't find one or most of its games. It seems weird to me that Sony wouldn't want to keep the legacy of their most successful console (that's also THE most successful console) alive.
Doesn't that make the effort to go into that even less valuable from Sony's perspective?
And yet MS gets ton of publicity and good will because of that.
MGS4 must be the spaghettiest of all the king of spaghetti codes out there.
PS2 emulation should be possible at least. The problem with PS3 emulation is the effort that it would take, and it would also add cost to the hardware. If Sony ever figures it out I can see them using it on PS now 1st, and then maybe eventually on future consoles. I don't see it happening with PS5, maybe PS6.
I would argue mostly in the enthusiast bubble, and it's different for microsoft as they then can offer those titles as part of gamepass, so there is more derived value for them in terms of the effort and resources required compared to sony and PS3 BC.
Obviously Sony is taking a very different direction to BC through PS Now and doing reamasters/remakes.
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