Sony kills PS2 hardware emulation for european PS3s, calls it 'progress'

[schild]

The PS1 emulator for the PSP is so amazing that I would wager that the software emulation will eventually result in better quality gaming than actual PS2 hardware. Sony hath proven me that even moreso than Microsoft or Nintendo, they are absolute masters of software emulation and backwards compatibility.

[Trippy]

So, they're already promising BC for over a thousand titles at the Euro launch. Link

I guess I'll be more positive about this. Considering that they actually haven't screwed up too badly with promised features and fixes yet.

Total numbers are less important than whether or not the most popular European titles are supported.

[stray]

Yeah, but a thousand titles already beats the fuck out of the 360's BC (a thousand titles would be close to 50% in NA. Not sure about PAL PS2 titles). I'm curious if that will actually be the case.

Not saying it's cool as including the EE though. I'm not a fool.

[EDIT] Wait a second, I was wrong. That's almost 50% of PAL games (2,451). Didn't realize they had more than the US (1,375).


On a sidenote: Over 600 PSP titles in Japan? Geez...

[Alkiera]

Not saying it's cool as including the EE though. I'm not a fool.

Given the hard part of emulation is not the CPU/instruction set, but getting all the associated hardware calls/emulation right, for sound/graphics etc... It would seem to me that the PS3 could just assign a sub-processor the task of being a PS2/1 chip.  "Hi, you're now a sound chip, here's how to act like one.".  Rather than hitting the performance wall of emulating all those things on a single CPU, you've got several to pick up the load.

Including the previous hardware inside the box has been Nintendo's secret to success for some time now.  My GBA has the parts to both the GBA and a GBColor inside, which is how it understands both.  Part of why the DS doesn't do GB games that predate the GBA, as there wasn't room in the case for 3 pieces of hardware, as the DS and GBA hardware are both non-trivial in size, compared to the GBC hardware.  Miniaturization is amazing, given my old-school Gameboy is bigger than the GBA, which has a bigger screen, and 2 more powerful gaming machines inside the case.

--
Alkiera

[Sairon]

I don't see why companies doesn't go with software emulation right of the bat with their consoles. I mean if they expect their consoles to be somewhat successful it has to be the most cost effective and also grant the possibility of software update and game enhancement.

[Margalis]

Because software emulation is harder. Nothing is easier than including the original chipset.

[Sairon]

Yea sure, but is it more profitable? Which I guess is the key factor.

[schild]

Long term? Yea, no question.

[Margalis]

Software emulation in theory only costs the price of the emulator development, whereas hardware emulation has a cost with each system you sell.

The reality is a bit trickier because a lot of complex emulators need special code to work with certain games. A true 100% perfect emulator should just work with everything but if you look at the 360 for example they had to do special work for each game they wanted to support.

Even then you are doing work per unique title and the up-front emulator work, not paying for every unit you sell. So in the end it may be cheaper - it also depends a lot on the cost of the hardware.

[Quinton]

Software emulation in theory only costs the price of the emulator development, whereas hardware emulation has a cost with each system you sell.

The reality is a bit trickier because a lot of complex emulators need special code to work with certain games. A true 100% perfect emulator should just work with everything but if you look at the 360 for example they had to do special work for each game they wanted to support.

Even then you are doing work per unique title and the up-front emulator work, not paying for every unit you sell. So in the end it may be cheaper - it also depends a lot on the cost of the hardware.

Assuming Sony believes (hopes?) they'll eventually ship 100 million+ PS3s, like they did with the PS2, moving to software emulation is pretty compelling unless the upfront (and ongoing) engineering cost is utterly insane.  The EE+GS chip is a pretty big chunk of silicon, and IIRC also needs external memory of its own (it certainly can't share the main ram with the PPC/Cell core).  I'd expect removing this represents a pretty measurable cost savings per-unit.

-Q

[Azazel]

I just bought a second PS2. One of the newer, slimline ones. Now I just need to get it chipped, so it can play my Japanese and US games. (Although I've never had an issue with my existing machine, I find it's nice to have a backup unit of hardware as insurance for my games collection, especially in light of needing it able to play my imports.)

Go Me!


But, yeah. Next will likely be a 360, probably for Christmas, I guess. Or just after, depending on how the retail war on the hardware seems to be going.

Go Sony!

[Murgos]

I would be very surprised if Sony hadn't developed a virtual machine for the PS-2 hardware during development for testing and debug purposes.  Theoretically they should just have to port that over to running on the cell and have a fully functional 100% accurate emulator.

The question is more along the lines of if the PS-3 can actually run the virtual machine reasonably well enough to provide an acceptable gaming experience, as it was almost certainly originally designed to run on some multi-million dollar hardware platform.

[Calantus]

http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=47798

That's rediculous. Have the balls to either ship with the chip, or not ship until the software is ready to go. You can't just pull shit out of the console and promise to patch it in at a later date.

[Velorath]

http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=47798

That's rediculous. Have the balls to either ship with the chip, or not ship until the software is ready to go. You can't just pull shit out of the console and promise to patch it in at a later date.

To be fair, that article makes no mention of whether or not their PS3 is running off the same version firmware that will be available come the European launch.

[Azazel]

That's so sad, it's retarded. I love(d) my PS2, but every new news story about rthe PS3 makes me even less interested in the bloody thing...

[stray]

That is unfortunate. At this rate, BC might not be any better than the 360's. If someone like me was living outside NA or Japan, I'd be annoyed, since the PS3 was also meant to replace my broken PS2.

But in the end, I will say that your main interest in the PS3 should be PS3 and Blu-Ray titles. That's what you'd really be paying for, and no matter how good this or that PS2 game is, you're going to be on the search for more PS3 titles once you get spoiled with a good one.

Also, in that respect, it's not on a bad track record. VF5, F1, Motorstorm, and Resistance are all pretty fun. Blu-Ray is what it is.  Secondly, the machines have seemed to be solid and stable across the board. There are very few horror stories with the hardware so far. So not everything is bad news like you think.

Just my two cents. Even without the PS2 compatibility, I still wouldn't feel ripped off. Just in the short amount of time it's been out, it could redeem itself on those issues alone.

[schild]

I'm not in the least bit worried. Any problems will get fixed in an incredibly timely matter.

[Azazel]

I'll wait here then. I have plenty of PS2 and other games still to play, and a 360 and titles to buy come Christmas. PS3 can wait a couple of years.

[Yegolev]

That's the issue, though.  Sony wants people to buy the PS3, but all of the must-have games are PS2 games.  I can say that I would not have bought God of War II yet if the PS3 BC was still as shitty as it was before mid-January.  Until they can get a solid PS3 library out there, they have to make do with what they have.  This means must-have-for-all games like God of War II and Final Fantasy XII as well as various other must-have-for-some games like Devil Summoner.  It is absolutely in Sony's best interest to have good BC, however let's not forget that the console industry hates PAL territories.

[Calantus]

let's not forget that the console industry hates PAL territories.

This is mostly what's pissing me off. It's not like they are releasing the PS3 without BC. It did have good BC, in the NTSC territories. They took it out for the PAL release and they have not given us a suitable replacement yet. It's not acceptable that they are going to patch it in later, because the only reason they need to patch it in is because they decided the PAL territories could do without a chip.

[Kitsune]

http://faq.eu.playstation.com/bc lists the backwards compatibility of the new PS3s, along with great tips like, 'Gee, how's about you skip the cutscenes, 'cause they don't display right.'  Unimpressed.