PS3 question regarding backwards compatability

[Madame Adequate]

Right, so we know that the PS3 will be backwards compatable for a reasonable bulk of earlier games, and (Unless things have changed and I've not been told) there will be no region encoding when it comes to videogames, although it will be in place for movies.

My question is, how do these two work with each other? Clearly it's possible to buy an EU PS3 and play games out in the US or Japan on it. But, can I play my old PS2 NTSC games on my new PS3? Intuition suggests I should be able to, but I would like confirmation of it, because it will dictate whether I can get a UK iteration or if I want to look to importing.

If anybody can provide information on this, it'd be much appreciated.

[XxSephirothxX]

I thought that the Blu-ray discs were simply big enough to hold the information for every region, making it possible to play any game on any PS3. I would assume, then, that you'd still need a American PS3 to play American PS2 games. However, I'm saying this without confirming any information, and just going on what I vaguely remember from months and months ago, so I'm probably wrong.

[Stunt]

I'm thinking everything still has it's own region coding. So US will work with US, ect.

[Psychotic]

If you didn't know, I'm a rotter who likes nothing better than to hijack threads, so does anyone know if the PS3 will be backwards compatable with PS1 games? If I can't get me some good ol' fashioned Formula 1 '97 or Actua Ice Hockey action there's going to be trouble.

[Stunt]

Well Hijacker, it will be. Sony announced that it can play all Playstation 1, 2, and 3 games.

[Dreddz]

A PS3 is only region free for Blu-Ray discs, it wont be able to play any past format games that are not within its region.

The EU PS3 wont be able to play NTSC PS1 or 2 games, and vise versa.

[Madame Adequate]

Right, thanks for the info. That's a pain, but what can ya do? And yes Psy, it'll be able to play PS1 games as well, I'm pretty sure.

[JKTrix]

Dreddz is correct.

However, I read reports from about a couple of months ago was that the PS3 was having a lot of problems with the emulation of the older systems. It can do it, but they haven't gotten the software to work properly yet. So, to 'temporarily' solve this problem, all the launch PS3s will basically have PS2 hardware inside of them until they figure out how to make the software emulation work.
The same thing happened at the PS2's launch. The PS1 emulation software wasn't ready, so all the launch PS2s had PS1 hardware in them so they could be backwards compatible. How many people still have working PS2s from yr 2000?

Edit: Found the link of what I read, so you don't think I'm talking out of my butt...
http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/05/r...-a-ps2-inside/
It came out of someone else's butt first :P

[Roto13]

I like this.

[Lionx]

Omg are you serious? Thats huge..more than the Xbox x.x

[Erdrick Holmes]

My bet is that you'll probably have to buy something to make your PS1/2 games playable on it. Seeing as how money-hungry sony is on this.

[MecaKane]

My bet is that you'll probably have to buy something to make your PS1/2 games playable on it. Seeing as how money-hungry sony is on this.

I agree Joel. A business's goal in capitalism is to make people happy, not make a profit!

[Maxico]

Omg are you serious? Thats huge..more than the Xbox x.x

It photoshopped.

Dreddz is correct.

However, I read reports from about a couple of months ago was that the PS3 was having a lot of problems with the emulation of the older systems. It can do it, but they haven't gotten the software to work properly yet. So, to 'temporarily' solve this problem, all the launch PS3s will basically have PS2 hardware inside of them until they figure out how to make the software emulation work.
The same thing happened at the PS2's launch. The PS1 emulation software wasn't ready, so all the launch PS2s had PS1 hardware in them so they could be backwards compatible. How many people still have working PS2s from yr 2000?

Edit: Found the link of what I read, so you don't think I'm talking out of my butt...
http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/05/r...-a-ps2-inside/
It came out of someone else's butt first :P

Not quite, as far as I know, all PS2's contain PS1 hardware. The PS1's were being produced in massive numbers, so it was actually simpler to use parts built for the PS1. So instead of the often tricky business of emulation (as shown with the Xbox 360) PS1 games were simply run off the existing hardware within the PS2 itself with, generally, few problems.

This may change with the PS3 however, because there has to be some point at which it's simply not realistic to include every generation of playstation so far in a single console.

[NM]

My bet is that you'll probably have to buy something to make your PS1/2 games playable on it. Seeing as how money-hungry sony is on this.

You don't need any add-on device. Just stick a disc in the drive and it boots up.

[JKTrix]

My bet is that you'll probably have to buy something to make your PS1/2 games playable on it. Seeing as how money-hungry sony is on this.

Depends on how you look at it. You will in fact be able to stick a PS1/2 disc in the PS3 and play it just fine.... but there's no memory card slot. That may or may not make the game 'unplayable' depending on your POV. However, you will have to buy some kind of Adapter that Sony (and probably other companies) will be putting out to transfer your Memory card saves on to the PS3 harddrive.

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Separately, the later PS2s do not have any PS1 hardware in them. It's all software emulated. I don't recall exactly which version of the PS2 finally switched to full emulation, but it did happen. There are 14 versions of the PS2 (does not include colours, just hardware changes), with the first 'slim' PS2 being the 12th revision.