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PlayStation (Games) Sony Games

Sony Makes It Official: PlayStation 5 Won't Natively Support PS1, PS2, PS3 (arstechnica.com) 91

Posted by BeauHD from the bad-news-for-old-discs dept.
In a Wednesday interview, Sony Interactive Entertainment chief Jim Ryan confirmed that the upcoming PlayStation 5 console won't natively support PS1, PS2, or PS3 games. Ars Technica reports: Ryan explained that "PS5-specific engineering" meant the design team was mostly focused on "the simultaneous use of high-speed SSDs and the new DualSense controller." This prevented Sony from delivering compatibility with older consoles, Ryan told Famitsu, even though he made clear that Sony wanted to support PlayStation 4's "100 million players" by developing compatibility with "99%" of PS4 games, since "we thought that they would like to play PS4 titles on the PS5, as well."

This announcement doesn't clarify whether PS1 games purchased for use on PS4 will transfer to PS5. It also doesn't mention the existing ability for players to stream older-generation games to PS4 from the PlayStation Now cloud-subscription service or whether we should expect that functionality to seamlessly transfer to PS5 in November. [...] Wednesday's dump of PlayStation 5 news did not go into further detail about additional boosts to PS4 games as played on the upcoming console. Instead, we learned that some major PlayStation 5 games, particularly Horizon: Forbidden West and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, will launch simultaneously on PS5 and PS4. This appears to run somewhat counter to Sony's recent comments about maintaining "generations" instead of supporting an Xbox-style "forward-compatible" plan for its biggest games.
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Sony Makes It Official: PlayStation 5 Won't Natively Support PS1, PS2, PS3 More

Sony Makes It Official: PlayStation 5 Won't Natively Support PS1, PS2, PS3

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  • Sony execs said "Who the fuck wants to play those old fucking shit-ass games?" Of course they said it in Japanese which made it sound way, way more dignified.

    • If you're a games studio exec with half a brain, you know it's stupid to ignore 100 million ps4 consoles out there. It'll take years for ps5 market to reach that size. So I'm not surprised new games will be released for both generations.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Backwards compatibility is a lot of work for a relatively small audience. Doing PS4 compatibility means there is a large library of games at launch and people look at is an upgrade. Also means they don't need two systems in their room, two HDMI sockets or a switch etc.

      The PS4 is x86 based and has fairly abstract APIs, and they already released the Pro so games have been fixed for any issues with slightly different GPUs. The PS3 is a completely different CPU architecture and the APIs are much more hardware s

      • I suppose the question is if the work is already done on the PS4, and the migration from PS4 to PS5 is straightforward as both share similar architectures, how much does it cost to keep the emulator on life support? Somebody ran the numbers and saw little to no benefit, maybe?

        In any case, I hope Sony does not end packaging the emulator as Nintendo is doing with their own Super Mario 3D All Stars.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The PS4 doesn't have any backwards compatibility at all. The older games available for it are either streamed from cloud servers or game specific emulators.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          As far as I know, Sony has never had a generally supported emulator for PS2 or PS3 games. PS3 hardware wasn't quite good enough to do it without PS2 hardware which they removed early on. By the time PS4 rolled around, they decided they didn't need to support PS1/PS2 libraries as a base value add, and instead directed players to re-purchase the games and then they would be bundled with a emulator tuned particularly to that game or a more proper port of the game. PS3 games seem to be much easier for the studi

          • A softmodded ps3 can play nearly every ps2 game using the unofficial-official emulation engine already present. Some require some hoops to be jumped through to get them to boot, but I don't think I've had a problem with a single one once I have them running.

            I've never really understood the Sony logic behind not rolling this out in a bigger way... the work was already done. It took 15 years- and layer after layer of unofficial and pirate development to unlock a feature that Sony put there on purpose basicall

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Junta ( 36770 )

              Some require some hoops to be jumped through to get them to boot,

              I don't know the details, but my basic understanding was that the official emulation is a lot like community emulators, where games frequently need game-specific hacks to disable something that doesn't work right or similar tweak. In other words, to support a game is to officially test it and find shortcomings and fix emulator or hack around it.

              That is one thing if you are a free emulator with the right level of expectations and community involvement, it's another as a business entity saying "you can just s

      • I would think that PS1 and PS2 should be a non-issue at this point. Sony should have just ported any one of the numerous open source emulators over to the PS5. I don't buy the argument they're currently using.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You know this is bollocks, right?

        The PS3 wasn't some super-architecture - despite Sony's ridiculous claims that it was a super computer. It was POWER PC based, just like the XBOX 360.

        It had some dumb (really dumb) cell processors that were laughably inadequate for the job (Sony originally claimed the PS3 didn't need a GPU, and had to backtrack quickly when they realised that was load of shite) - and instructions streams for the cell can be recompiled on the fly. See RPCS3.

        Microsoft have provided back compat

        • Re:When reached for comment... (Score:4, Informative)

          by Pimpy ( 143938 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @09:38AM (#60518596)

          The solution they used in the PS2 was to have the bulk of the PS2 logic in the Emotion Engine, and to have the boot/IO processor be effectively a PS1 SoC. You effectively had two systems combined, only in PS2 mode the PS1 chip really only handled the I/O tasks in and out of the EE. A comparable split-bus approach was also used by the Dreamcast and earlier on the Saturn (which, in turn, took inspiration for it's rudimentary SMP approach from the earlier SGI POWER series - SMP before the days of snoop controllers and cache coherency). The hardware for the PS1 was quite simple, as it was never originally intended to be a standalone console. Furthermore, the PS1 and 2 were both MIPS based, so you could write a lot of the bootstrap logic once and execute it on either core - the R5900 had an MMU however, in comparison to the R3k on the PS1. The PS3 took a departure from MIPS and jumped on the PowerPC bandwagon, while the PS4 shifted to x86. At this stage, it's certainly not realistic to support backwards compatibility in hardware, and the extent to which some titles were written down to the metal would also make simulation tricky. When I worked on the PS2, I always admired Sony's ingenuity in providing backwards compatibility, but they've simply done too many architecture hops at this point to reasonably support such a legacy. The only option now would be via simulator, which would be a significant undertaking in and of itself, and one I'm not sure there's really sufficient market demand for.

        • No, the PS3 was utilizing Cell architecture, which is a very different architecture structured around having numerous sub processors acting in parallel to improve single threaded performance when a single thread is performing multiple tasks simultaneously.

          It's drastically different than power PC.

          Yes, it can be recompiled on the fly, but it was one of the hardest consoles to produce an emulator for.

        • Uhm the way you talk about the CELL processors gives me the idea you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
          the CELL wasn't just a simple POWER PC, far from it.
          Also Microsoft didn't provide real BC for 360, they only had a few games which were BC, and in reality it where newly 'compiled' executables which just used the original data, you always had to download something extra before you could play the 360 game.

          BUT! you're right in they are just talking bullocks in regard to emulating the older PS1, PS

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        PS1 games are no problem. I can run them just fine using RetroArch on a Raspberry Pi 4. Never had a problem with the old 3B either. Most of PS1 graphically animated cut scenes were pre-rendered on the iso. So play all the Final Fantasy VII you want on that platform.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ytene ( 4376651 )
        "The PS4 is x86 based and has fairly abstract APIs, and they already released the Pro so games have been fixed for any issues with slightly different GPUs. The PS3 is a completely different CPU architecture and the APIs are much more hardware specific because stuff like shaders were not as generalized as they are now."

        Whilst this is true, maybe there's another way to think about this... The PS/4 had enough additional "grunt" in terms of raw hardware performance that it could run a relatively thin emulato

    • They don't want to become a nostalgia company by selling new copies of old titles.

      • Re:More like (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <mitreya AT gmail DOT com> on Friday September 18, 2020 @08:00AM (#60518306)

        They don't want to become a nostalgia company by selling new copies of old titles.

        Oh, I am sure they do.
        They just want to sell these old titles as a PS4/PS5 remake (like reselling a Blueray movie after DVD after video tape). Backward compatibility lets people play the same title without paying for them again. .

  • Not surprised (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @05:42AM (#60518126)

    You will probably have to buy lo res new releases of old games for $100 each.

    Of course you could probably buy most of those old consoles with all the games you want (and would actually own, instead of some digital download) for less than $100 each.

    I'm still on ps3, and never have any plans to buy another one. It was the cheapest Blu-Ray player available at the time, and works ok with my DNLA server. Other than that purchase, I've never given SONY a cent. All the games I have were bought used, for pennies on the dollar.

    • You will probably have to buy lo res new releases of old games for $100 each.

      Of course you could probably buy most of those old consoles with all the games you want (and would actually own, instead of some digital download) for less than $100 each.

      I'm still on ps3, and never have any plans to buy another one. It was the cheapest Blu-Ray player available at the time, and works ok with my DNLA server. Other than that purchase, I've never given SONY a cent. All the games I have were bought used, for pennies on the dollar.

      That that's why this is a non-issue. Virtually anyone with a large PS1-3 library already has the hardware to play them. And if their unit dies, second-hand units are cheap. Certainly cheaper than picking up a current-gen PS5 in the hopes of playing PS1-3 games. This is outrage without justification, I think.

    • Other than that purchase, I've never given SONY a cent.

      Why is this so important to you? Do you personally despise Sony for some reason?

      • Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Saffaya ( 702234 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @10:56AM (#60518908)

        You must be new here.

        Despising Sony is a natural and commonly understood thing to do for any sensible human being, because said company has repeatedly, behaved itself in a despicable manner.

        A few examples are :

        Secretly infecting your PC with a rootkit when you thought you were just playing a CD-Audio
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Allowed PS3 consoles to be used as linux workstations in order to benefit from advantageous import taxes, then remove it from anyone who would want to use it online.
        https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

        Subpar network security and criminal negligence about credit card information : storing customer passwords in PLAIN TEXT i.e. unencrypted.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Sueing out of existence the only shop that would allows you to buy Sony PSP consoles from other regions
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        And a long history of outright lies about their products. Example :
        "The PS2 will do Toy Story level graphics in real time!"
        https://money.cnn.com/1999/03/... [cnn.com]

    • Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday September 18, 2020 @08:18AM (#60518330) Homepage Journal

      I'm still on ps3, and never have any plans to buy another one. It was the cheapest Blu-Ray player available at the time, and works ok with my DNLA server. Other than that purchase, I've never given SONY a cent. All the games I have were bought used, for pennies on the dollar.

      Consequently, Sony has no reason to give two fucks about you.

    • Did sony kill your dog or what? There's really no need to get so worked up about totally optional consumer devices
    • depending on the original publisher. PS2 games cost more ($10-$30, again depending on the publisher), but that's largely due to the increased difficulty of emulation. When you put a PS2 game out on the store you've got to test the ever living hell out of it and tweak the emulation a bunch. PS3 games are complex enough to require a complete re-write or remaster, the PS3 can just barely be emulated on top end PC hardware (i.e. you need a CPU that costs more than a PS5 by itself) and usually sell full pop at $

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      You will probably have to buy lo res new releases of old games for $100 each.

      Of course you could probably buy most of those old consoles with all the games you want (and would actually own, instead of some digital download) for less than $100 each.

      I'm still on ps3, and never have any plans to buy another one. It was the cheapest Blu-Ray player available at the time, and works ok with my DNLA server. Other than that purchase, I've never given SONY a cent. All the games I have were bought used, for pennies on

  • Take your pills. Swallow your pills. Register your enjoyment on the official channels. Repeat. Good consumer.

  • We need to move to a new model (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @05:47AM (#60518136)
    Consoles will eventually reach a point where diminishing returns on graphics happens. AMD said it was at 16K which will probably be the PS6 Pro, or maybe PS7. Once that happens there will be no need for new generations and just focus on making great games. Windows 10 is the “last Windows”, soon there will be a “last Playstation” and “last Xbox”. Nintendo will probably max out the switch’s portable screen’s pixel density first.

    • It is already at that point kinda. The new gen doesnt enable new types of games. Ps4 pro2 and xbox x2. Both of them will be same interfaces and all as prev gen

    • I think we are already there as evidenced by the XBox Series S. A lot of people don't even care about 4K and just want to be able to play the new games, even if it's only at 1080p or 1440p. This is a huge shift in the industry. It's now not about trying to one up the other guy on visual effects but on trying to get the console into as many homes as possible and make the money off games licensing.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Note 16k would be enough resolution to more than cover 180 degrees of vision with such resolution that the best part of you vision can't tell the difference. In other words 16k is enough for the resolution facet of very wide angle VR without having to take advantage of foveated rendering.

      If you have a 100 inch screen and are sitting at least 6 feet away, your eye cannot resolve more than 4k resolution. For 8k you'd have to be closer than 2 feet to even theoretically tell the difference even for a 100 inch s

    • That's what Gates said about 640k. In the end, graphics is really reality-emulation, so there's going to be plenty of room to grow for quite some time. Especially since the closer they come to perfect photo-realism, the more pronounced marginal deficiencies become. In other words, as the quantitative returns on each improvement diminish, the qualitative impact of each deficiency increases. There may even be a point where instead of perceiving improvements, they cease noticing increasingly glaring flaws.

    • Consoles will eventually reach a point where diminishing returns on graphics happens. AMD said it was at 16K which will probably be the PS6 Pro, or maybe PS7.

      There's a lot more to this than just resolution.

      For example, the newest consoles are the first ones that can realistically support raytracing. But even that will probably have a fair number of limitations for a few generations.

      Beyond that, you can imagine dedicated physics hardware, or neural network processors abounding that could mean improved AI in

    • We really don't. There's always room to use available hardware. Got some spare CPU capacity, start applying some more complicated algorithms to other parts of the game. We can always render more detailed particle effects, more sane character movement decisions, or even apply better calculations to the computer NPCs.

  • I've never had a PS1,2,or 3 so I guess I don't care.

    • You posted a comment, so we know beyond any doubt that you do care, and want to see more stories like this.

      At least, that's how the people who run Slashdot will operate.

      Nice work there, sparky.

  • I have a yearly tradition of playing through Castlevania SOTN for the PS1 every "Halloween Season" (Sept-Oct).

    Usually that is done on my still-working PS1 or with my PS1 disc loaded into my PS3.

    My last foray into the Playstation family was with the PS3, so this news regarding the PS5 doesn't really bother me too much, but I just wanted to point out that anyone who truly wants to play generations-old games probably ought to maintain and/or invest in the appropriate console hardware to play those nostal

  • Not even emulation? (Score:3)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @07:45AM (#60518280)
    It's not like the PS5 won't be fast enough to emulate a pair of PS1's with a virtual DualLink. It probably has enough juice to emulate a PS3. Backwards compatibility is a relatively cheap value-add for console, seems like a wasted opportunity.

    • Re:Not even emulation? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <mitreya AT gmail DOT com> on Friday September 18, 2020 @08:11AM (#60518322)

      Backwards compatibility is a relatively cheap value-add for console, seems like a wasted opportunity.

      Backward compatibility means support for letting play the games you already paid for.
      Having you re-buy the same titles (which might be an emulation anyway) is much more lucrative.

      • I don’t know if there are license issues with 3rd parties. A company like EA has shown they want every penny they can extract from a consumer. Old games may only be licensed for old consoles and the developer wants money if they work on new consoles.

      • Which is dumb, because due to licensing restrictions and game companies going out of business all the time, many games will never go up for sale again. Hell, even newer games get "de-listed" all the time. You can't buy them again even if you want to.

        Rather than profit, this sounds more like spite to me. Even if we can't make more money on it, how dare you use something for FREE!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Emulation is the bane of revenue, didn't you know?

      Why do you think Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Mario64, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, etc. have PC remakes and/or are being sold as $60 bundles on consoles? Because it's technically difficult to make them work on newer machines? Because you couldn't build an emulation layer (e.g. WiiWare?) technically.

      No, it's because you want to make people buy them again. It's the White Album problem. It retains their intellectual property because they can then claim

      • Think of it this way - how many people still have readable copies of Crash Bandicoot? How many people might pay $2-3 to download a legit copy? I figure the cost of developing or porting an emulator would be in the tens of thousands, so once they have that covered each download is pure profit. With remakes, each game requires a team of programmers to rewrite it. An emulation layer only has to be written once, then they can sell unaltered copies for next to nothing.

    • Considering they used PCSX ReArmed for the Playstation mini, I don't see any reason why they couldn't make an PCSX Reloaded app for the PS5, (or even the PS4 for that matter) to Emulate PS1 Games. As for the PS2, PCSX2 would probably run fine on a PS5 as well, PS4 might be close, but doable. PS3 emulation using RPCS3 is pretty much on the edge of what the console could do, although many games would be playable.

      The Limiting factor is whether or not Sony wants to support an official emulator app on the consol

      • I don't see any reason why they couldn't make an PCSX Reloaded app for the PS5, (or even the PS4 for that matter) to Emulate PS1 Games.

        That's a really good idea. Then they could sell it (virtually) to you for like $199, since they won't make any money off you playing games you already own.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
        If people care enough about the older games, they will find a way to keep both consoles hooked up. It's really quite easy to do. At my house I have my xbox one and SNES classic hooked up to the projector and the Wii hooked up to an old tv that was collecting dust. I could have the Wii hooked up to the projector as well but did not feel like running composite cables through the ceiling.

        Backward compatibility is nice but doesn't that almost always result in some bloated OS?

        • I used to have seven or so consoles hooked up at once through a combination of RF and AV switches. Now I emulate all of those platforms on the rare occasion that I actually want to play ancient games.

          If you want to play games for PS2 or later you're best off with a real console. Anything older is usually emulated pretty well. Obv. Saturn is a counterexample.

      • Reissuing games through their store without an emulation layer means porting the game to the new platform. I don't see that happening. If they're going to do all that work, they might as well just do a full-remake. With an emulation layer, they can reissue old games through their store for a couple of bucks each and it's all profit.

        And it's even better given something you pointed out that I forgot - discs get scratched. They also get sold to Gamestop or whatever. Instead of getting frustrated because

  • Coming Soon... (Score:3)

    by fellip_nectar ( 777092 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @08:00AM (#60518304)
    PS2 mini and PS3 mini...
  • Over the years I 've resisted the urge to trade them in, as a result I can enjoy the games in their original format. A simple patch box makes changing consoles easy; althoug if I really wanted I'd build a simple box/switch to allow multiple hookups and just select which I want..

  • Hardware (Score:3)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @08:34AM (#60518362)

    The PS1 used a MIPS CPU and a custom GPU, along with a custom video compression codec built-in to the CPU
    The PS2 used a custom MIPS-based CPU with a custom GPU
    The PS3 used the Cell processor bolted on to a customized nVidia GPU
    The PS4 used a (mostly) off-the-shelf PC design

    So, yeah, the three weird architectures won't be implemented in PS5 hardware, which is also PC based. Sony will pull a Nintendo Virtual Console and emulate them, probably.

    • The PS5 has the grunt to easily emulate the first two architectures, no special hardware needed. Don't give them lame excuses.

      • Sure there is more then enough power to do it. I am pretty sure Sony has just decided the ROI is not there. They know majority of people will just buy a re-release if they really want the game or fork down for Playstation Now.
    • Sony already has software emulators for the PS1 and PS2 that work on x86. They could update them to work on the PS5, but their strategy seems to be to support the current generation -1. Plus, encouraging people to hold onto discs is opposite the direction they've been heading in. I'm sure their emulators will resurface in specific PS1 and PS2 games that youâ(TM)ll be able to buy and download from the PS store, just like Nintendo's virtual console.
    • supporting multiple previous generations "natively" (i.e., via actual hardware) would be unprecedented and hyper-consumer friendly -- and that aint sony's bag, as we know.

      but imagine sony selling a separate "legacystation" with actual ps1 - ps3 hardware ... or some FPGAs (but that's not quite as cool). 4k/8k support, of course.

  • PS4 compatibility is obviously a high priority, and the similarity of the architecture makes it an obvious point of interest.
    The PS3 was, and remains, radically different from the generations before and after it, and at-speed emulation would be difficult to justify in processing power or development time at this moment.

    But there is absolutely no excuse for not having a rock-solid, OS-level PS1 and PS2 emulator in the system at launch. License something if you no longer have the in-house development to emula

  • This planned obsolescence is one of the downsides of consoles that makes me stick to PC gaming.

  • The SSD and the rest of the internals doesn't have anything to do with not having BS for PS1 and PS2 (and maybe PS3). They already have code laying around for emulation of the PS1 and PS2 which they used on the PS3, and as PS1 and PS2 (and even PS3) also have opensource emulators, they could take those and make them work on the PS5, with original disc support. It would only take one programmer to get it up and running and it would give a lot of older gamers, who still have the older consoles laying around,
  • Who cares? Don't you still own your older PS4 & PS3? I still have both of mine still plugged in.
  • Every year or two, I still play older games. They still create new fan missions for Thief 2. Why not pass on disposable console games this time?

  • Most of these games have HD remasters with many quality of life improvements, all DLC included, and can often be found for $3-$5 on sales. These games have been missing for the entire PS4 generation so I don't think anyone was expecting them.

  • Those games running in BC-mode would have to be tested for compatability, do you think Sony is going to spend the money to have teams sit and make sure some random PS1, PS2 or PS3 game actually runs correctly in their software emulator or doesn't do something worse like crash the console or open a back door into the OS? Or maybe they should just stick the emulators on there and cross their fingers? Microsoft did it because they needed an extra tick box for their console that was more expensive and less pow

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