14 DAY TRIAL // After the backwards compatibility issue was discussed over and over again, this week's news about the PS3's launching in Europe and Australia and Africa were again, unsatisfying. Sony isn't saying anything concrete about fixing this problem. All they said to CVG is that they'll give a list of compatible games. Being PAL territories and all, the future PS3 owners on these three continents won't be able to run as many PSone and PS2 games as the Japanese and Americans. Why? Ask Sony. You know what, don't ask them. You won't get a satisfying answer anyway, they'll just tell you what games you'll be able to run.
Who wants to go game-shopping with a list of compatible games in their hand? Just think about it this way. You get your PS3, after months of waiting, you hope some good PS3 titles will be available at the store nearby and you go to check. What do you know? There are plenty of great games like Virtua Fighter 5 or Metal Gear Solid 4 but you can't run them because they aren't compatible with your $700 machine from Sony. Of course the games I mentioned don't fall in this category, I just chose them to make a point, because they're great games.
So, while some consoles sell like hot cake even because of just one title, like Microsoft's Xbox 360 with it's highly anticipated Halo 3, folks at Sony don't seem to mind that dozens of units of their machine sit on store shelves because of small problems like, backwards compatibility. Chances are Sony's PS3 will have a pretty dark future having to go through a not-so-good launch again. Of course, some good new PS3 titles would surely save the day but since nothing of that sort is even heard of...well, let's just hope that Sony fixes this backwards compatibility issue before people turn backwards from their console.