Bad news for European PS3 fans

[Roto13]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/02...than_us_japan/

Man, this is just getting ludicrous.

Not only are European PS3 buyers getting gouged in pricing terms - paying as much as 40% more for the console than our brethren overseas - but it turns out that European consoles are actually going to have less functionality, too.

How can this be? Well, in a bid to cut the cost of making the PS3, the hardware chips that enable PS2 backwards compatibility are being stripped out.

Stripped out.

The chips will be replaced with software emulation, with the result that backwards compatibility for European consoles will be, according to Sony, significantly less.

According to Reuters, "The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models," a Sony spokesman said. "Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3."

Great. Most people probably wouldn't mind about not having backwards compatibility, but the fact that US and Japan get it and we don't is, frankly, galling. Let's face it - Sony's deal is getting worse by the day.

[Mirage]

This is laughable.

[Tavrobel]

Our next witness will be the honorable mister Dreddz, please.

LOL gg Sony in Europe. Too much in too little a time.

[Mirage]

I'm just glad I have a modded PS2, it'll keep me entertained for years to come still.

[escobert]

Where is Dreddz when you need him? Probably at teh SOny Europe office killing everyone

[Endless]

I'm just glad I have a modded Swap-tool modified PS2, it'll keep me entertained for years to come still.

[Maxico]

Considering the fact that Sony always said this would happen after the first batch of PS3s, their excellent track record with backwards compatability and the near perfect PS1 emulator for the PSP, I'm going to reserve judgement untill I see the backwards compatability list on the 23rd of march.

[Madame Adequate]

their track record with backwards compatability,

Yes, their awesome track record where not a single person I've ever spoken to has ever had any problems playing PS1 games on their PS2.

[Maxico]

Well besides MGS freezing at the end of the credits and expansion discs not working, I've not heard of any problems.

Feel free to enlighten me though.

[KentaRawr!]

I would point out how this pretty much matches Dreddz in terms of not only social recognition title-pasting on EoFF, but also his current location, but everyone else did that already.

I find it odd that they are doing this specifically to PS3's in Europe. Perhaps they want to reduce the amount spent when making PS3's, but doing this in their highest bidder's lands would be quite catestrophic for Sony's rep. So, they probably wanted to do this where the Video Gaming craze is weakest out of the 3 main areas.

[Mirage]

Despite the video game craze being weaker, they still plan on making a 40% bigger profit per console here. Some logic seems broken here. They expect us to pay more for less.

[Maxico]

Profit?

Who said anything about a profit?

EDIT: Oh god, I'm having to actually restrain myself from being an armchair economist.

Old habits die hard.

[Dreddz]

JKtrix showed me this a few days ago, Im not sure exactly how bad a situation this is. The NTSC consoles had problems, but they were fixed with firmware updates. Couldnt they do the same now ?

When I hear " stripped out ", I dont know whether they will be able fix the problem, I mean, they went out and said in public that the console will have problems, that must mean this is quite a big problem, as they didnt say anything when the NTSC consoles had compatibility issues.

Awwww well, I was never going to use the PS3 to play PS2 games, not until we are able to mod the PS3 to play imports and backups. Hopefully by then they would have fixed this problem.

[Slothy]

When I hear " stripped out ", I dont know whether they will be able fix the problem, I mean, they went out and said in public that the console will have problems, that must mean this is quite a big problem, as they didnt say anything when the NTSC consoles had compatibility issues.

The NA and Japanese PS3's have PS2 hardware built into them to allow the backwards compatability with PS2 games. When they say it's been stripped out, I can only assume that means it's not there at all, which means that unless they develop a PS2 emulator down the road (or go the Microsoft route and develop an emulator for each game), there will be no fixing this.

On the plus side though; Europe essentially gets the best launch lineup I've ever seen, so it's not all bad.

[Roto13]

Well besides MGS freezing at the end of the credits and expansion discs not working, I've not heard of any problems.

Feel free to enlighten me though.

I my friends PS2 wasn't a fan of pre-rendered backgrounds and used to take forever to load, and sometimes it wouldn't load them at all.

For example.