Blu-rays have digital codes in many cases here. You all are conflating these discussions around. There is a form of compatibility. It's not what some want.
VICE: The PS3 and Vita Are Being Buried Alive; "The bottom line must be preserved. Never the games that originally built it."
- Thread starter Samiya
- Start date
They aren't called out for it though and that's my point. Unfortunately, backwards compatibility is often technical and licensing hell, you're unlikely to ever support everything and if you do, it's still usually an inferior experience to the original platform.
I understand the appeal of BC to the hardcore gamers out there but it's a small subset of the overall consumer base. The NES and SNES mini sold like crazy but how many have started it up in the last month, 2 months or 6 months? Probably a very small percentage of users. Selling games on modern consoles is a big enough challenge with an attach rate of 6-10 games per generation, out of all those games, how many do those users keep? How many were digital? How many aren't scratched to hell? How many do people actually care to revisit?
I've owned every playstation and xbox, N64 and Switch, I genuinely think I'd struggle to find more than 10 discs or cartridges total laying around for any of the older systems. There might be 1 or 2 that I'd be remotely interested in booting up, have fun with it for an hour or two and forget about it.
Sony is clearly doing it their way due to technical limitations and Microsoft has a more physical solution. Neither can really be relied on as any sort of archive, because neither support 100% of their games catalogs and the further back you go, the worse it gets. Obviously moving forward, given platforms are just bumping up performance and using a more PC approach to dev, this will no longer be much of an issue at all.
They're not really making them do anything. If a person owns a game on a disc and they choose to pay for a service that allows them to play the same game on a different device (one their choice, and they're technically paying for a different service. After all, not only does the service allow them to play one game they may own an old physical copy of on different devices it could not be played on before, it also allows them to play hundreds of other games that they may never have played.
Plus, if you bought a PS2 game 20 years ago, you purchased it with the knowledge that it would work with the PS2 and only the PS2. Nothing has changed in those two decades. It still works on PS2, and as a bonus, it works on early model PS3s, which was never a promise when you bought the game.
Now, maybe you've got rid of your PS2 since then, or it broke, and you can't play your game anymore. Yeah, that sucks. But it would be no different than if it had happened at any point in the past 20 years. Nothing has changed.
Would it be nice for the PS5 to play old games like that? Sure. Does it's inability to do so, or remakes like Demon's Souls mean Sony is trying to erase history like the burning of the Library of Alexandria? No. But neither is PlayStation Now meant to be a backwards compatibility service, rather than a gaming service that happens to offer up older titles.
I have hundreds of PS3 games, and over 80 of them are digital purchases, but I bought them with the knowledge that they would only be playable on the PS3 and if I want to play them, I need to keep it hooked up. I'm not upset about this, because I knew the deal going on, and I understand that old products can't be supported indefinitely forever.
I knew this was true in 2006, and in 2016. I know it'ss still true today, and will still be true in 2026 - though it is possible Sony may offer some form of PS3 emulation by then, but even so I'm sure plenty of PS3 games will never be supported (just like how 360 support is limited), so a PS3 will still be required to play them.
The truth is all games should forever be purchased with the idea in mind that they may not be playable on anything other than the original hardware. Even with backwards compatibility becoming more common, there's always the risk something could be left behind (look at the 1% of unsupported PS4 titles that don't work on PS5). But no one should be upset about this, because they bought the games knowing it would only be guaranteed to work on that one system, and nothing has changed.
I know I went on a bit of a tangent there. Sorry about that.
It will never not be weird to me to see gamers side with corporations on lost access to back catalogs.
You know what I was just playing the other day?
12-year old Mirror's Edge in glorious ultra-wide @ 100+fps. Game remains breathtaking to this day and has aged exceptionally well.
Why wouldn't you want to be able to do something like play this if you were just in the mood to do so? If you wanted to boot up Warhawk or Motorstorm or Burnout: Revenge or Tekken Tag Tournament, why wouldn't you want to be able to do that? Why cape for position other than supporting its addition as valuable and important to the community?
It's just so strange to me. I understand people don't miss what they've never had, but you shouldn't have to close your eyes and imagine too hard to appreciate the value-add this brings and how nice serious access to the history of PlayStation would offer.
You know what I was just playing the other day?
12-year old Mirror's Edge in glorious ultra-wide @ 100+fps. Game remains breathtaking to this day and has aged exceptionally well.
Why wouldn't you want to be able to do something like play this if you were just in the mood to do so? If you wanted to boot up Warhawk or Motorstorm or Burnout: Revenge or Tekken Tag Tournament, why wouldn't you want to be able to do that? Why cape for position other than supporting its addition as valuable and important to the community?
It's just so strange to me. I understand people don't miss what they've never had, but you shouldn't have to close your eyes and imagine too hard to appreciate the value-add this brings and how nice serious access to the history of PlayStation would offer.
First time I'm getting an Xbox, first time I'm not getting a playstation console within the first year and it's 80% because I'm fed up with Sony's take on BC. I'll get one eventually but it'll be an exclusive machine, they have an insane legacy of games but would seemingly be quite happy for it to all disappear. It's odd.
I still have my PS3 fat, but it's not going to last much longer.
I still have my PS3 fat, but it's not going to last much longer.
The issue definitely isn't the cheap games aspect. Sony has tried with the PS3 and PS4 to sell (PS1, PS2), and PS2 games respectively.
For whatever reason, they seem to be finding that licensing + QA + building an emulator isn't profitable enough to do for every game.
For whatever reason, they seem to be finding that licensing + QA + building an emulator isn't profitable enough to do for every game.
Did you play it on PC? If so you can play all the other games you mentioned there as well.It will never not be weird to me to see gamers side with corporations on lost access to back catalogs.
You know what I was just playing the other day?
12-year old Mirror's Edge in glorious ultra-wide @ 100+fps. Game remains breathtaking to this day and has aged exceptionally well.
Why wouldn't you want to be able to do something like play this if you were just in the mood to do so? If you wanted to boot up Warhawk or Motorstorm or Burnout: Revenge or Tekken Tag Tournament, why wouldn't you want to be able to do that? Why cape for position other than supporting its addition as valuable and important to the community?
It's just so strange to me. I understand people don't miss what they've never had, but you shouldn't have to close your eyes and imagine too hard to appreciate the value-add this brings and how nice serious access to the history of PlayStation would offer.
But this is not backwards compatibility, this is a service on the cloud that is not accesible at anytime and most of all, it does not work with what you already have in your game library. This is a workaround but not a solution unlike what Xbox or PC offers, which is the best option. There should not be any praise at all for this solution that they offer me behind a paywall for what I already paid for. This is the point, this is why Xbox is praised, this is why there's so much people asking for it.
This same statement applies to Sony.
Ps2 was bc. Ps3 was bc. Ps5 is bc, vita is bc.
I mean literally only the PS4 isn't BC and they still offer some emulated PS2 games and PS3 games through PSNow.
Most Sony systems are BC. Just like most Nintendo systems are.
I mean, I get that we want PS3 backwards compatibility, but I don't want it to come at the expense of next generation hardware being as powerful or efficient as it could be.
My limited understanding is that in order to emulate a PS3 in a way that consumer would find "acceptable" you'd basically need a PS3 inside of the PS5. Some guys coming up with an emulator and games running at 60% of their PS3 performance is unacceptable.
PS1 and PS2 have no excuse. You can run a PS2 emulator on a potato these days.
My limited understanding is that in order to emulate a PS3 in a way that consumer would find "acceptable" you'd basically need a PS3 inside of the PS5. Some guys coming up with an emulator and games running at 60% of their PS3 performance is unacceptable.
PS1 and PS2 have no excuse. You can run a PS2 emulator on a potato these days.
Ah, didn't know you were talking about emulators. But still, the last I checked PS3 emulators on the PC can't play everything yet though.
I didn't say to praise it. It is what it is.
I'm not going to faux outrage over BC on a platform that is completely different from an architecture standpoint. I don't think anyone should pay more for a system to have extended BC to appease a very limited subset of users.
Likewise I'm not going to faux outrage at MS for not streaming 360 or Xbox games to my mobile phone. If you want to play old games and it's important to you, both platforms offer it.
PS2 should be supported but again, even Microsoft barely supports the OG Xbox. There is no technical reason why extended support does not exist on either platform.
If you don't think $8/month for a much larger collection of games is worth it, don't pay for it, your PS4 games will be BC.
We know the ps3 architecture is limiting. We know moving forward this won't the case or we would have way more than 10 games that would be unplayable. Nintendo is worse about this than Sony, or at the very least on par.
really and truly and most on this forum don't want to admit this. But playing older game pre PS4 is just not a priority for most players
really and truly and most on this forum don't want to admit this. But playing older game pre PS4 is just not a priority for most players
they are charging $100 for a lu-Ray drive and making most people buy that version at launch. They could've actually made it useful.
I don't what the solution, but there is 19 years being left behind once the PS5 is available. PlayStation Now exists, but it only has some PS3 game & PS2 (really PS4) games on there. I'm sure people on this forum would hate it, but I'm not opposed to a repackaged PS3 with the Emotion Engine, sell it for $100, it plays PS1, PS2 & PS3 discs as well as have access to the PS3 PSN store. Maybe also have slots for Vita & PSP games. It'll never happen, but it's better holding onto old hardware that will eventually die out.
EDIT: LMAO I just noticed the thread.
EDIT: LMAO I just noticed the thread.
And charge more on top of that for what would likely require an additional emulation chip. RPCS3 still runs very unreliably on most games and if Sony couldn't emulate it well on x86, what is the point? They have a solution that works and is reliable, the problem is the infrastructure costs money to deliver that content, a price that is too much for most, so is the actual issue that important?
The mad scramble in this thread to move the goalposts once people started realizing PS Now is a thing has been hilarious to watch.
Not once is the service mentioned in the article.
Not once is the service mentioned in the article.
And what's the excuse for not at least doing PS1/2 titles? And no, Now is not a valid BC replacement. It doesn't have the games I want and we'll It's fine for what it is but we can't act like third parties wouldn't love to be able to sell their PS3 catalogs in perpetuity especially if they're SP games that don't need server costs.
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I literally said this in the same post you responded to in the first place...
"PS2 should be supported but again, even Microsoft barely supports the OG Xbox. There is no technical reason why extended support does not exist on either platform."
All current and future consoles are a colossal failure in this regard. The question is... Does the market even care?
Their past consoles have had BC, the PS5 is BC with PS4, and with both the PS4 and PS5 you also have access to close to 500 PS3 games via PS Now. Is it ideal, maybe not, but the service is still a pretty cheap way to access several hundred legacy titles ($10 a month to access all of it).
Ultimately I'd rather their developers work on new content, features, software etc, over older legacy stuff, so it doesn't personally bother me one iota either way.
Hell, if I really wanted a legacy experience I'd just buy a PS3 or whatever for cheap on eBay, though I think my old launch unit is still plugged in at my parents house somewhere after I donated it to be used as a Blu-ray player lol.
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While I appreciate that they actually did hardware backwards compatibility with the PS5, Microsoft completely outclassed their efforts. Just coming with 99% PS4 BC wasn't enough this time when you are getting Auto-HDR, double framerate in unpatched games, resolution bumps, et for multiple generations of consoles. PS NOW doesn't allow people to leverage their existing investments on the new hardware. MS seems to be focusing on BC to beef up play time on their platform and ecosystem, not really to make money from it. Nintendo historically made sure to include BC on derivative systems because they have an interest in selling their evergreen titles. And when they can't do BC, they pretty much always port any title worth porting. In fact, they pretty much ported their whole Wii U lineup because they couldn't do BC on Switch for Wii U.
The fact that Sony can't find a business reason to find a solution to support their legacy systems in a way that is competitive is disappointing.
The fact that Sony can't find a business reason to find a solution to support their legacy systems in a way that is competitive is disappointing.
Not quite there, but keep trying, you might be able to justify this, somehow.
A thousand years from now people will still be saying the mythical cell processor cannot be emulated by human hands
Everyone realizes that people are emulating it on pc with no real knowledge of the hardware and ps3 emulation is further along than Xbox emulation right
Well for the ps2 stuff you would have to rebuy
I really hope that microsoft extends the Xbox bc...don't know if it's because it's so old but there are so many bangers we don't have
And I still find it strange that first party games like halo ce, halo 2 and brute force aren't there. I realize there are better ways to play it but there was for halo 3 too and that's still there
Reminds me of the days back at the old site when people were convinced any PS3 emulation was flat out impossible and the days of emulators on the PC were over.
It is highly likely the BC team will continue to add more OG Xbox/Xbox 360 to BC.
Lol, I'm not trying to justify anything. People in the first few pages went on and on about how all the PS3 games were lost, then people started pointing out that over 400 of them were available through PS Now, and suddenly something else is the real issue. It's blatant.
Why, in an article about PlayStation's lack of support for it's legacy games, would there be no mention of the service they provide that includes access to hundreds of their legacy games?
Can't speak for everyone but I tried a trial of PS Now and any time I tried a PS3 game it kept stuttering. Was really annoying and I just couldn't play it.
So if that's our only option for legacy content I wouldn't be talking about it either.
The article is about longevity. Few things are more ephemeral than streaming services.
The article is about more than backwards compatibility, it's about legacy content. What Nintendo achieved with Wii's virtual console, and to a lesser extent the Wii U, was fantastic and may never happen again.
These are both excellent reasons to actually talk about the service in the article, not reasons to omit it completely.
If it's a flawed service, if people feel like relying on streaming as a solution leaves the future of the games too uncertain, that's fine. I agree with that. But like... that should have made an article about PS BC, right?
It is going to be real awkward for some of you when Sony does a dedicated BC Legacy Program a few years from now.
Real awkward.
Real awkward.
On the contrary, a streaming service could technically last forever, and also transcends platforms, whereas BC limited to specific systems will not. Eg your PS5 will not last forever and you'll have to re-download all your legacy games on your PS6 in future (unless they're on an external drive, which will itself have a specific limited shelf life).
I believe this was thanks to Cerny as well for going with x86 with the PS4. I really want to say it was mentioned somewhere early on with the PS4, but one of the reasons would have been when it was time to develop the machine after the PS4, that it would be easier to make it compatible.
From the top of my head, recalling some games I own...
Puppeteer, 3D Dot Game Heroes, GOW/ORIGINS Collection/Ascension, Sly Collection/Thieves in Time, inFamous 1/2, Resistance 1-3, Ratchet and Clank Future Trilogy/Nexus, MotorStorm Pacific Rift (Offline MP), PS AllStars Battle Royale since I play it sometimes just for fun, I might play MGS4 again, idk
Plus others I can't think off beyond checking my library. Some of this can be played on PSNOW I guess but sometimes my connection doesn't meet the requirements even though I have the highest option for my provider ://.
most would be fine or welcome having it, but understand that it just might not be cost effective for it to be always possible, at least that's me. if it was simple to do then why didn't Microsoft make all original Xbox games be? just like while I'm sure many would love an n64/snes/nest cartridge add on for switch thats not realistic.
I can do better and just point to all 10 of Insomniac's PS3 games which are not playable on PS4.
A big flaw with this plan I just realized is that over half of the PSNow library is PS3 games that run on PS3 hardware shoved into server blades. Eventually that hardware will need to be removed to make space for PS5 hardware or will break down entirely. Not to mention that we have no idea if the PS5 can virtualize several PS4 systems similarly to how the XSX can virtualize 4 Xbox One S systems for xCloud servers so there is a good chance PS3 will be replaced with PS5 unless they can emulate the PS3 by then.
I really hate that Sony doesn't care about their older games honestly
I really hate that Sony doesn't care about their older games honestly