Newsflash! PS3 is not PS2

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

http://ps3.gamespy.com/articles/745/745556p1.html


Not surprisingly, much like the Xbox 360, the PS3 has some deep compatability issues while playing PS2 games. The link only lists a dozen or so, but claims that over 190 games have issues ranging from sound glitches and offset screens to complete freezes.

I won't tout this as another sign of the Playstation apocalypse, but I will say that this will probably cause some problems for Sony, considering that a large portion of the games played on new consoles this season will likely be cheaper PS2 games, and not next-gen titles.


Any thoughts?

[biggiy05]

I figured it would happen just like it did with the 360. Sony will take a hit to the groin for it but they will bounce back.

They have way too many loyal fan boys who will buy anything that sony releases.

They will fix the glitch and the fan boys will jump for joy while eating hot pockets.

[AtmaWeapon]

They will fix the glitch and the fan boys will jump for joy while eating hot pockets.Well it really depends on how compatibility is done. If Sony is seeking maximum compatibility then there would be a tiny PS2 inside every PS3 and "the glitch" would not exist. This would drive costs up pretty high though and be fairly complex so I'd pretty much http://www.atmaweapon.org/images/emot/psyduck.gif if this is what they were doing.

It's more likely PS2 games are played through some mix of hardware and software emulation, and fixing "the glitch" involves varying levels of complexity depending on which of "the glitch"es are causing the problem in the game you are playing.

Seriously I've seen a lot of posts lately that make it seem like people believe that engineering a computer from scratch, then creating a vast 3d simulation to run on it is a cake walk. Do you think it took years to develop the PS3 because Sony was too busy playing Final Fantasy games and masturbating? When your problem lies in a circuit that has been continually revised over the course of years and is made of a series of transistors that, when translated into a simulator, would represent millions of lines of code you don't just slap your forehead and figure out that you probably put register "a" instead of "i" on instruction 30483872. It takes hundreds of man-hours of debugging and then you find out it's a problem with a ROM chip and you've already paid to produce 1,000,000 units, some of which are in the hands of the customers.

This is the point where you balance the equation and tell the consumers if they want to play PS2 games they should buy a PS2. Shoot it's pretty much what Microsoft said about backwards compatibility.

[MottZilla]

Actually Atma, the PS3 contains the already known to be incompatible PSTwo combined chipset. As you may know the PSTwo had issues with certain PS2 games. So ofcourse, they use that in the PS3 for backwards compatibility. For whatever reason though, unlike the PS2's PS1 compatibility via including some of or the entire old hardware, this didn't go anywhere near as well. On PS2, only a few PSX titles had issues, many were japanese you'd never heard of. The only title I can recall is MK Trilogy.

But PS3 can't play tons of well know things like Tekken 5 correctly. Now I don't think this is the end of Sony at all. There are going to be less than a million players having to deal with it anytime soon. Meanwhile they are working on replacing the need for the included chipset with software emulation which could prove to be much better. Either way the option is always there for them to update it ( like the PS2's PSOne driver ) and they should actually update it this time.

It's not a big deal really. But it's fun to point fingers and laugh.

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

Seriously I've seen a lot of posts lately that make it seem like people believe that engineering a computer from scratch, then creating a vast 3d simulation to run on it is a cake walk.

Believe me, I'm the last person to expect this sort of thing, and I thought I made it clear that I wasn't really bashing Sony for this issue. Mott made some good points that better state the heart of the issue, but my intention with this post was merely to report on the continuing struggles of the PS3. Whether those struggles are because of incompetent design, marketing, promoting, industrial error, or simple facts of the industry, it still deserves to be known. While this issue was unavoidable to some extent, it clearly seems possible that there was more that Sony could have done to prevent it from hampering the launch of their new console.

[Warlock]

Actually Atma, the PS3 contains the already known to be incompatible PSTwo combined chipset. As you may know the PSTwo had issues with certain PS2 games. So ofcourse, they use that in the PS3 for backwards compatibility. For whatever reason though, unlike the PS2's PS1 compatibility via including some of or the entire old hardware, this didn't go anywhere near as well. On PS2, only a few PSX titles had issues, many were japanese you'd never heard of. The only title I can recall is MK Trilogy.

But PS3 can't play tons of well know things like Tekken 5 correctly. Now I don't think this is the end of Sony at all. There are going to be less than a million players having to deal with it anytime soon. Meanwhile they are working on replacing the need for the included chipset with software emulation which could prove to be much better. Either way the option is always there for them to update it ( like the PS2's PSOne driver ) and they should actually update it this time.

It's not a big deal really. But it's fun to point fingers and laugh.

Right, it's not really unexpected and it will be fixed eventually. But you gotta wonder why Sony was not on this - at least with big name stuff like you mentioned. Not being able to play Tekken 5 or Devil May Cry is pretty bad. You'd think they would have at least hit the major ones like that for release (I think even Microsoft got Halo and most of the big Xbox games working for 360 right away). Then again.. it *is* Sony -_- The PS3 really shouldn't be releasing at all yet, given they don't have nearly enough produced. But of course, Sony has to rush to market as usual.

[AtmaWeapon]

Yeah I'd have probably taken the opportunity to devote a little bit of time between the release of the PSTwo and the PS3 to hammer out the problems with the PSTwo hardware.

Then again, depending on which 190 games have compatibility problems it may be a non-issue. The PS2 library is large enough that I'm pretty sure I could pull a sample of 190 horrible games that aren't worth the disc they are burned on.

And thanks for the input Mott. Honestly I don't pay attention to hardware specs and what crazy electronics Sony decides to throw inside of their systems because games are the deciding factor in my purchases. I think it is pretty crazy to completely include the previous generation's hardware in your new hardware; it seems like it would increase costs significantly and possibly increase the complexity of the resulting hardware. However, software emulation of consoles is getting pretty resource-heavy so it may be the only way.

[MottZilla]

Ya Warlock, actually from what I heard from Launch day when you bought your 360 Halo 2 was backwards compatible. It ofcourse was THE most popular Xbox title. And probably less than a week they had a disc you could download to support more games.

The PSTwo chipset is rumored to cost Sony 50$ per unit. And ofcourse like I said, the sad part is even though they have a hardware solution it's bugged and unfixable. Meaning until that emulation software is there, unless they release something to actually patch the games that don't work with the PSTwo chipset to work, you're fucked.

Honestly, Sony should have put ALOT more effort into insuring they had nearly 99% of games supported correctly. They had alot of time to code an emulator. Also I'm annoyed by they still enforcing regional lockouts on PS1 and PS2 titles. They claim PS3 titles won't be region restricted. Don't be surprised to find out it's on a per game basis.

All of this is a bad trend with Sony, but it doesn't spell doom. What spells doom for Sony is low sales. Currently there is good news on that front in japan. There was an attachrate of less than one game per console sold. Yes that's right, a large portion of the consoles sold were with no game. And if they did buy a game, they probably only bought one. And game sales (or Blu-ray movie sales) are where Sony makes money. If those stay slow and PS2 revenues fall, they are in trouble.

[Orion]

Yeah, I don't see why this is an issue so much. I honestly don't care much for backwards compatability, (in fact I wish the Wii would have done without it in favor of maybe a bit more horsepower), but I guess it's important for some people. I wouldn't expect that the Virtual Console won't have these problems either, ala the Majora's Mask problems on the GameCube. I'm sure a lot of those problems are more annoyances than anything else.

[AtmaWeapon]

There was an attachrate of less than one game per console sold. Yes that's right, a large portion of the consoles sold were with no game. And if they did buy a game, they probably only bought one. And game sales (or Blu-ray movie sales) are where Sony makes money. If those stay slow and PS2 revenues fall, they are in trouble.This is an alarming, but not necessarily representative statistic. I think it's obvious that the bulk of the people who bought a PS3 with no game either had intent to resell or were hired to pass it off to someone with intent to resell. The black-market buyers will likely buy a game or two, so I'd say this attach rate statistic does little but prove the extent of the console scalping problem at the moment.

Of course, if 2 weeks from now game sales don't push the games sold / systems sold ratio higher than 2 that is definitely an ill omen.

[Warlock]

This is an alarming, but not necessarily representative statistic. I think it's obvious that the bulk of the people who bought a PS3 with no game either had intent to resell or were hired to pass it off to someone with intent to resell. The black-market buyers will likely buy a game or two, so I'd say this attach rate statistic does little but prove the extent of the console scalping problem at the moment.

Of course, if 2 weeks from now game sales don't push the games sold / systems sold ratio higher than 2 that is definitely an ill omen.

Well that is obvious. But the big issue is that this really hurts Sony. It's obvious one way or another, PS3 will sell out. There is just not enough stock there. But if the majority of sales are for resale, that's overall much fewer games purchased (remember, game purchases are assuming the bazillion "OMG PS3 $2000!!!!" auctions would all sell.. they won't). Besides which, what is even out? I think even among people who actually *want* the console, they'll probably purchase one game tops by the end of the year. That's not good news for Sony.

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

Yeah, I don't see why this is an issue so much. I honestly don't care much for backwards compatability, (in fact I wish the Wii would have done without it in favor of maybe a bit more horsepower), but I guess it's important for some people.

The backwards compatability is very important for the Wii, because it will help them succeed early on, much like the feature helped the PS2. Buying a new console is expensive, and so is buying brand new games. If people can buy a cheap system that already has an existing library of games, it will make the decision easier for people who are not as intellectually vested in the console war (i.e. parents, grandparents, etc.). A cheap sticker and a whole rack of compatible games will seal the deal anyday, as opposed to a $600 PS3 package and $70 games.

[Warlock]

The backwards compatability is very important for the Wii, because it will help them succeed early on, much like the feature helped the PS2. Buying a new console is expensive, and so is buying brand new games. If people can buy a cheap system that already has an existing library of games, it will make the decision easier for people who are not as intellectually vested in the console war (i.e. parents, grandparents, etc.). A cheap sticker and a whole rack of compatible games will seal the deal anyday, as opposed to a $600 PS3 package and $70 games.

Yeah, it's a great feature. And here's something you may not have considered too - there are a ton of people who didn't buy a GameCube. Maybe they bought a PS2 or Xbox instead (or both). Maybe GameCube only had a handful of games they wanted and the purchase didn't seem worth it. But now, people can potentially pick up any Cube games they were interested in this time around.

I was this way with the original PSX. I never bought one. But once I got a PS2, I was able to play a lot of the old PSX games I didn't have a chance to play before (specifically the Final Fantasy titles - I got FF9 for Christmas along w/ my PS2 :D)

[Thunderbird]

I'm in the boat of people who didn't buy a GameCube, but will be taking full advantage of the backwards compatibility of the Wii. I did the same when getting the PS2 (I wasn't into consoles during the PSX/N64 era). Heck, I'll probably stock up on GameCube stuff when I get around to picking up a Wii :P.