EU PS3 Back Compatibility List Released

An anonymous reader writes "Via the semi-official ThreeSpeech blog, Sony has released the backwards compatibility list for EU's PS3's earlier than announced. The list itself offers a lot more games than Phil Harrisons previous statement of 1000 but noticeable problematic games include GTA:San Andreas, Gran Turismo 4 and the Final Fantasy Series."

In other words

[Edward Kmett]

In other words, half the games I own.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing you have a PS2.

Re:

[LoverOfJoy]

until the laser gives out.

I don't own a PS2 but I hear that they definitely don't last forever.

That's not to slam Sony in any way. I personally own a dreamcast and am about to start looking for a replacement unit.

Re:

[flitty]

I spent 2 hours trying to get GOW2 playing on my 2 ps2's. Both lasers gave out after 6 months, and I will not buy another one. I hate sony, and i wish they would go the way of sega, giving their good first party software to MS, or some other company.

Re:

[apoc06]

i would call that a slam. nearly every disc based console deserves that slam though.

my ps2 is still kicking, but my original xbox gives me DREs on every single disc i put into it. out of all of the ps2 owners i know off the top of my head [~20, +/-], no one has had laser problems, but this is just my limited experience.

all of the consoles have had laser issues. the original xbox has gone through three different dvd brands due to laser issues; so its not only sony. the gamecube seems to be the most sturdy in

Re:In other words

[jandrese]

Your PS2 longevity can depend a lot on which version you got. From what I've seen, most slimlines are crappy, and the very early (v.1 and v.2) fat style PS2s are dodgy, but the v.3 through v.6 are ok, and the v.7 through v.9 are actually pretty good. The very early slimlines are apparently the worst, with the lasers burning out at an alarming rate due to a manufacturing defect.

Re:

[spudgun]

My V10 (methinks) is on it's 2nd dead laser , and is about 3 years old !

Argh

Re:

[SP33doh]

the early models had issues after a couple years, but from what I've seen, people with newer models haven't had any issues so far.

I had an original PS2 that disk read error'd after a few years, then I got a new one. never had a single problem with it.

Re:

[Headcase88]

Funny how Sony's PR was bashing MS's BC so recently.

Interesting that the only company with perfect last-gen BC is the company that largely keeps their mouth shut about it.

It looks like...

[Xest]

...Lots of games run, but not an awful lot run without issue. There's a massive amount in that list rated as having problems.

I've said to myself in the past I'll buy a PS3 eventually when the price goes down primarily so I can see what the fuss about the Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry series is all about but with the official news of Devil May Cry 4 coming to the 360 at the same time as the PS3 and so forth my interest is dropping furthermore. That said Sony may well have managed to improve their backwards compatibility list by the time of a price drop at least! It's just a shame that in the meantime Sony's backwards compatibility list for the European release of the console appears on better than the 360's backwards compatibility list, the difference being MS never advertised full compatibility whereas Sony did so unless this list improves fast, full backwards compatibility as promised feels like a big fat lie from Sony - at least with the European console.

People forget

[fistfullast33l]

That Sony had these issues with the hardware BC engine in the initial SKUs as well - and they patched it. FFXII specifically was cited as one game that suffered from the issue and now it runs very well. I expect them to issue at least one patch for these issues. It's obviously something the customers want and Sony is getting a bit better about adressing them.

Re:

[kinglink]

Sony has recently said not to expect too much from the backwards compatibility upgrades for the European market claiming that the system isn't exactly powerful enough to software emulate these old games.

Both the 360 and the Ps3 claim better numbers but the simple fact is in single threaded performance it's a bit lacking. Even the Ps3's specs should be able to PLAY every ps2 game but it can't, Xbox has an issue where a single thread is slower than the original xbox.

So expect them to patch, but even they hav

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:It looks like...

[apoc06]

"the difference being MS never advertised full compatibility whereas Sony did so unless this list improves fast, full backwards compatibility as promised feels like a big fat lie from Sony - at least with the European console."

-- not quite... --

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/05 /20/rumours_of_xbox_360_nonbackwards_compatibility _explained.html [guardian.co.uk]
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2005/05/19/no-y ou-do-not-need-to-recompile-your-xbox-games.aspx [majornelson.com]

"Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360. You will NOT need to purchase a new 'version' -- your original games will work on Xbox 360."

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/06/01/xbox-bc-not-a-pr iority-says-moore/ [joystiq.com]
here they claim that they underpromised and overdelivered and are going to slow down their BC push.

-credit: jackson98

since my xbox broke, i would really like to finally finish my copies of mercenaries, jet set radio future, xmen legends, TES: morrowwind, and mechassualt. not to mention the fact that unless i buy a new xbox, i'll never be able to play "top" games i always "wanted to get around to playing" like panzer dragoon orta, otogi and chronicles of riddick. [they DEFINITELY promised that the "top" games would work]. i own a xbox360 and my original xbox no longer works, so outside of buying an used xbox, what options do i have left?

the xbox360's 10-20% BC is really not cutting it for a gamer like me. i dont mind playing the older titles. 72% BC out of the gate, with room for much improvement is not a "shame", as you put it; it actually looks like sony may be better at keeping the BC promise than MS.

Re:

[fistfullast33l]

I have no idea why someone marked you as a troll. You completely refute the parent's statement that MS never promised 100% BC...with links! Slashdot is going to the fanboys. The only question is who will reign supreme, 360 or Wii? I need to go do some meta-moderation.

Re:

[apoc06]

i wont sweat it. people can drink the kool-aid all they want, facts are facts. i've owned every playstation and xbox console. if i am not allowed to criticize the xbox BC, who is?

we cant bury our heads in the sand. a promise was made, and now they are backing away from it and telling us that we dont know what we are talking about. i just want what was promised to me as an investor into the xbox brand. i dont want to hear criticism of a company that [even at their worst] has provided BC for 2300 more titles

Re:

[Guntram Shatterhand,]

I'm still confused why this is such a big deal to do. What is holding MS back from making it work? It seems like one heck of a flaw.

Re:

[apoc06]

"I'm still confused why this is such a big deal to do. What is holding MS back from making it work?"

Microsoft's profit margins!

Re:

[apoc06]

read my second post; the one right above yours. that set of quotes are definitely not out of context and are located directly on microsoft sites.

Re:

[dbhankins]

Even though the Xbox itself is not manufactured any more, and as a result is becoming harder and harder to come by, the parts can still be had. I started getting DREs a lot, so I replaced my Xbox DVD-ROM drive with one from an aftermarket distributor who specializes in such things (not Lik-Sang, though I will miss them).

As a result, I don't get DREs any more, games load faster, and burned media works in the drive. I sometimes play my home video work on the Xbox, and while driving in Forza Motorsport I lik

Re:

[dank zappingly]

You should go buy an old xbox if you've never played Panzer Dragoon Orta. It might be the best Rail Shooter ever.

Re:

[brkello]

I just don't get it. Just get a PS2 and play the games. The PS2 is cheap, is designed specifically to play PS2 games (duh). If I get a PS3, I really don't care that much about playing my old PS2 games. Yeah, it would be nice if I could just stick my PS2 games in my PS3 rather than flipping cords around...but it isn't that bit of a deal.

Older consoles become discontinued

[tepples]

I just don't get it. Just get a PS2 and play the games. The PS2 is cheap, is designed specifically to play PS2 games (duh).

Where can I buy a PS1 to play my PS1 games? Sure, 99 percent of them run on PS2, but Sony won't make PS2 forever either.

Sony rules...

[rbarreira]

Weird, the english version has a legend saying:

3 squares = No known issues to date
2 squares = Should play on PLAYSTATION®3 with some minor issues
1 square = Should play on PLAYSTATION®3 with noticeable issues

However, the Portuguese version says, roughly:

3 squares = same as above
2 squares = ... with noticeable issues
1 squares = ... with intermittent problems

The other languages I know enough about to check (French, Italian, Spanish and Danish) say about the same thing as the Portuguese version. What's happening here?

And they just corrected it

[rbarreira]

Great, they corrected it, as far as I can see. They're probably reading slashdot.

Re:

[Ecuador]

The French "correction" was done very hastily:

CLÉ
  Aucun problème connu à ce jour
  Problèmes intermittents lorsque ce jeu est lu sur PLAYSTATION®0
  Problèmes notables lorsque ce jeu est lu sur PLAYSTATION®1

Go PLAYSTATION ZERO!

Re:

[LKM]

The german translation is fucked up, too. It sounds like 1 square is better than 2 squares. The english one makes sense.

Blueprints

[Applekid]

I'm surprised the software BC isnt' 100% considering Sony's got the full and completely documented specs on their prior systems in their information vault.

That said, it's entirely possible that the compatibility list is lacking due to the developers doing "optimizations" and using coding practices that were ill-advised by the original dev-docs.

Re:

[rbarreira]

That's the problem of using software emulation, and Sony will just have to live with it...

Re:

[Ecuador]

Unfortunately, it is the EU consumers who will have to live with it... And the sad thing is that by now they are used to being something like "third world consumers" getting all the delays, high prices etc, that they won't even realize what is going on!

not a problem

[minus_273]

i mean serioulsy who really plays Final Fantasy, GTA, Metal Gear or Devil may cry right? i mean there are other games on the ps3 right? what? no?

Final fantasy

[simm1701]

Final fantasy is the sole reason I own a PS2...

Ok my son (3) enjoys the gran tourismo 4 that came with it but i somehow doubt I'll be buying one of the software compatability jobs - I'll either get a us/jap import or if they do the same for that too I'll wait til some of the first million shipped turn up on ebay shipping to the uk at a decent price

Re:

[iainl]

Since the PS1 and PS2 games have region encoding on them, an import PS3 is actually going to do a rather _worse_ job of playing your PAL PS2 games...

Right now, it looks like the only answer is to keep your PS2 for a while longer. I'd rather not start GT4 all over from scratch anyway, and the PS3 doesn't support my force-feedback wheel, either.

Re:

[simm1701]

The PS3 was billed as being region free....

Did they include region encoding on the US and Jap compatability chips?

Re:

[typobox43]

At least for the US release of the PS3, old games were still region-locked. PS3 games aren't. Don't know if that'll hold true with the software emulation in the EU release.

Re:

[DarkJC]

PS3 is region free with PS3 games. The PS2 hardware within the PS3 however, is not, and works exactly like the PS2 of old.

Re:

[tepples]

Did they include region encoding on the US and Jap compatability chips?

Yes. Publishers couldn't make an all-region game even if they wanted to, as the three PS2 regions used different formats for the game's boot sector.

Hmmm

[TB]

Comes down to one thing, if you wanna play PS2 games you play them on a PS2.

Re:

[aadvancedGIR]

There also are decent emulators running on PC.

Sony doesn't make the PS1 anymore

[tepples]

if you wanna play PS2 games you play them on a PS2.

And if I wanna play PS1 games I play them on... what? Sony doesn't make the PS1 anymore.

Re:

[Dan Ost]

What? does the PS2 not play PS1 games anymore? When did that happen?

Re:

[Dan Ost]

Ah. For some reason I thought the PS2 had 100% backwards compatibility.
I guess I've been lucky with all my PS1 games.

Re:

[prockcore]

Ah. For some reason I thought the PS2 had 100% backwards compatibility.

Nope, and the slimline PS2 has even worse compatibility compared to the fat PS2.

Re:

[apoc06]

play em on the ps2 or ps3. those are both still being made. unless you are in europe right now, you can grab one off the shelf of nearly any electronics store and enjoy 98% BC.

Holy broken Back button!

[_xeno_]

Wow. The webpage they released the list on - wow. Just - wow. So bad.

Each of the letters executes a POST request, so you can't simply go Back after going Next, since it's a POST request. Next up, the "previous" and "next" links turn out to go to the current page, but read "?page=previous" and "?page=back". So they store the actual page in the session.

Ultimately: you can't use the back and forward button in your browser to go to the previous page.

But this has another side effect, which I can't help but expect that Sony intended: it's impossible to link to a given page or game. So while I can say that Final Fantasy X is marked as having "noticeable issues," I can't actually link to it. You'd have to navigate to it manually, through each page.

Re:

[CliffSpradlin]

Maybe your browser sucks?

In Opera I can translate back and forth between all the pages instantly with no problems.

The linking issue is of course annoying, though not that uncommon in corporate websites.

Re:

[Ecuador]

Well, I guess over 95% of users have sucky browsers, because it is the same for Firefox and IE... However Konqueror and Opera do indeed work with the Sony site.

Re:

[marcus-e]

Wow. The webpage they released the list on - wow. Just - wow. So bad.

Indeed. In they day and age such lousy navigation is unforgivable. So I threw together a scraper and generated a single page for easy browsing, with CSV-files for both lists. Enjoy.

http://marcus.pixelmagic.nu.nyud.net:8080/ps3/comp at.php [nyud.net]

Ratchet & Clank, Katamari Damacy

[geders]

Wow, no Ratchet and Clank games listed. Only the Katamari Damacy sequel (We Love Katamari) works. It seems the US/Japan launch version will be the highly desired version on Ebay in a few years. At least for anyone wanting to have only one system hooked up to their TV...

Re:

[geders]

Well, seems Katamari Damacy wasn't released in Europe, so nevermind on that one. Makes me worry about getting a US PS3 in a few years though (that is, if any of my games will work)...

They seem to have tested a lot of games

[acomj]

The list seems pretty large, even ps one games. One wonders how bad the "some issues" one are and if they'll improve the virtual ps1 /2 emulation.

Re:

[TB]

Yes, as theyve said all along the emulation is going to be upgraded with each fireware update (as they already have done) but the gfx upgrade stuff and PSN PS1 support may take some time. I doubt they wanted to goto software so soon.

Re:

[MeanderingMind]

I would hope that improvements would be introduced in the future. After the complaints about the fraction of games with problems with the hardware BC in the US and Japan launch systems, I'd expect that the large number of games scoring a 1 or 2 on that page's system would create a lot of grumblings if nothing was done to improve it.

In the meantime, I've bought a new PS2. It's cheaper.

Not good enough

[LKM]

I owned a Cube during the last generation. I never felt like I missed out on much by not owning a PS2, but there are a few games I would like to play, namely:

• Okami (1 [] on Sony's Site)
• God of War 1 & 2 (not listed)
• Ico (3 [])
• Shadow of the Colossus (not listed)
• Katamari Damacy (own the PSP version, which sucks, the PS2 versions are supposed to be better - We Love Katamari got 3 [])
• Psychonauts (not listed)

I'm sorry, but this is quite simply not good enough.

The currently available PS3 games are som

Re:

[Ecuador]

Ehmm... You know, it is not just one page per letter - not hard to notice since the list is alphabetic... There is a "next" button you have to press.
So, God of War 1 & 2, Shadow of the Colosus and Psychonauts are all listed with 3 squares.
Of course it is not entirely your fault. The site is lousy (they are trying hard to make it impossible to direct link), as is the backward compatibility of the PS3 compared to non-castrated US version.

Re:

[LKM]

Man, you're right. I went back to check this out, and even knowing that there was a next-button, it took me a few seconds to find it... I'm glad these games are playable. Makes me somewhat more likely to get a PS3.

Re:

[hexix]

# God of War 1 & 2 (not listed)

# Shadow of the Colossus (not listed)

I checked the UK version of the list and all 3 of these are listed and have the best possible rating of 3 blocks. Which country did you choose?

Re:

[LKM]

Switzerland, but I guess the problem is that I missed the "next"-button. Psychonauts also made the cut, by the way, which makes me happy.

God of War and God of War 2 ARE listed...

[Hamster Lover]

God of War 1 and 2, Shadow of the Colossus and Psychonauts are listed as playable without problems, but you have to click on the "Next >" button at the bottom of the window to display the rest of the games in a given letter.

I don't really understand why Sony decided to remove the Emotion Engine this early in the consoles life cycle when backward compatibility would seem the most crucial to the console's success. Also, the expected savings, as I understand, amount to no more than $20 per unit. I would als

Re:

[LKM]

You're right. Missed the next-button. That's looking better.

I'm guessing the Euro version will make its way to the US and Japan sooner or later...

Re: Sony's digging themselves out of a hole...

[trdrstv]

I don't really understand why Sony decided to remove the Emotion Engine this early in the consoles life cycle when backward compatibility would seem the most crucial to the console's success.

The largest complaints about the PS3 have been Cost, Lack of Compelling software and Availability. The first 2 solved the problem of the 3rd. Now there are PS3's available at retail wherever you go. Sony has still sold fewer than 2 million units world wide. MS sold over 10 million X-Box 360, and the Wii sold over 5

Re:

[dank zappingly]

I don't know what you mean when you say worldwide, but I like to think of it as including more than North America and Japan. I also don't know where you get your sales figures from. vgcharts.org says they have sold 2.15 million, which isn't including some of the sales from this month. It would probably be more apt to compare worldwide sales after Sony launches worldwide.

Re:

[Amouth]

God of War is a great game (Both 1 & 2) both took me a full day to complete.. and are the only games i have played that made me want to get a consol.. but due to having already completing them i have no need for one.. so i will save my money.. i will kust keep borowing a friends consol when they release the new game..

i just really hope that God of War 3 isn't a PS3 only game.. as well - no one i know has or wants one.. and i really don't want to spend that much money on crap..... that will not be

SoTC is listed as 3*

[WarwickRyan]

I guess you're looking at the 1.50 list not 1.60?

Are these source compatible?

[91degrees]

For a lot of these games, especially the newer ones, it would make sense to offer downloadable executable patches that run directly on the PS3 but get data from the PS2 disc. Shouldn't cost too much to get them to work on the PS3, and games are mostly data.

Re:

[apt-get moo]

I don't think it would be that easy. The PS2 runs on a MIPS processor, while the PS3 relies on a PPC, just to give one example of their different architecture. I'd doubt that many games were designed with special focus on forward compatibility, but rather on performance on the platform they were intended for, so a lot of functions must be emulated on PS3. End the EE seems to turn out as a problem.

Very poor, but not as bad as it could have been

[robosmurf]

Looking through the list, the situation is nearly as bad as people had feared, but it doesn't seem to be a total disaster.

I count around 750 PS2 games (discounting duplicates) with no known issues, which is a reasonable first step.

However, there are a lot of notable omissions.

I've noticed:

The Final Fantasy series comes out really badly. FFX, FFX2 are only 1 dot, and the recent FFXII is only at 2. Most shockingly, the PS1 FFVII is missing completely, and this is a game people may well want to play.

Other game

Re:

[apoc06]

they left in the ps1 chip, so all ps1 titles are supposedly compatible.

i guess my question now is, when and how often will they update the backwards compatibility list?

Re:

[robosmurf]

That's what I thought. However, that's not what the bc site says.

According to the list of games, the compatibility with PS1 games is poor too. Select the PS1 tab above the games list for the compatibility details for PS1 games.

Re:

[Raynor]

I think they are being conservative.

When i got my PS3 a while back the first thing I did was go down to the gamestore and buy the newest FF game under $20. That was FFX. I'm up to 70+ hours and I have had ONE noticable problem:

-Once (of maybe 50+ startups) the screen was off axis (displaced up and to the left). The PS3 menu was just fine so I quit game, restarted it, and I haven't had any problems since.

I think they are being cautious but so far I haven't had any real issues (A restart is not an issue... i'

Re:

[KDR_11k]

The PS3 hardware revision this website is talking about hasn't been released yet. Your PS3 is an older revision that doesn't have these problems. The issues were introduced by cost-saving measures.

i have a question

[apoc06]

with the 1.6 firmware download, is the software emulation included in the US distribution as well?

personally, if they ever get to the point where they can upscale the ps2 games via software emulation, i would love the ability to toggle between hardware and software BC.

Re:

[Pluvius]

Yeah, that's been the plan all along, though I doubt they'll let you switch between the two when software emulation becomes better. Eventually the new US and Japanese PS3s won't have hardware emulation either.

Rob

Coming soon to a PSP near you

[BancBoy]

Final Fantasy Tactics!
And the PS1 version works great on the PSP Playstation Emulator right now.

This is bad...

[7Prime]

While the Final Fantasy series is not as big in Europe (relatively speaking... it's still huge), Gran Tourismo and especially GTA are HUGE! Not to mention, most of the FIFA soccer games have major issues as well. This list is not good news, and is most definitely going to effect sales down the line when the complaints start mounting.

Whaaaat..

[antiseptic_poetry]

where's Rez???

Thats the game i bought a PS2 to play!! I freaking love it - and so does my girlfriend, once we plug in the "trance vibrator" USB add-on.

dammit, why, WHY!