Software emulation makes almost all of the PS2 titles work

Sep 10, 2007 07:42 GMT  ·  By

You must have heard about the PS3's compatibility issues when it comes to PS2 games, as this problem was present in the case of the latest console units and all of Sony's next-gen devices from Europe. The new PS3 model uses software emulation, because it doesn't include the PS2 hardware in it, so the problems with the backwards compatibility were predictable. Hardcore gamers have tried running the famous Gran Turismo 4 on one of the new PS3s and encountered many bugs.

Those issues included the desynchronization of most of the players during a network gaming session and a poor playback of the intro FMV (85% of the normal performance). There were also problems with the vehicles that didn't behave like they were designed to during gameplay in some demo FMA sequences. Last, but not least the hit-title Gran Turismo 4 featured some bizarre graphical effects appearing randomly on the screen's top left corner, while the game was being played on an 80GB PS3.

So, in order to avoid such awkward situations, Sony offers us a list of compatible titles we can check out by accessing this address: http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/CompatibleStatus . We would have much rather enjoyed a patch or a real way of solving the issues instead of contemplating this problem and searching for titles that run decently.

A gamer that spends his summer job's income on a brand new PS3, in Europe will surely be frustrated by the fact that he can't play a decent PS2 classic, especially if he doesn't own Sony's previous gen gaming device. Well, at least the problem's solved, for now and maybe we'll see it disappearing in a month or two, in case Sony's no too busy advertising its Slim PSP and new titles. If my memory is correct, things were way better in the case of the PS2-PSX backwards compatibility, so we can consider this a step back for Sony.