North American PS3 will lose Hardware Backwards Compatibility
August 10th, 2007 by Jeff Baker in PlayStation 3
In an attempt to make put an emphasis on their newest console rather than continuing the popularity of their previous ones Sony has announced that the newest PS3’s rolling off production lines will not have hardware capability like those of previous North American console releases. Instead they will use a software solution like the one in European console. This means that instead of using hardware for backwards compatibility the new PS3s will use an emulation software for backwards compatibility, similar to that of the 360.
(Thanks to Crash for the clarification.)
Tags: PlayStation 3
August 10th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
A misleading and incorrect article. The PS3’s will lose the Emotion chip, which means the 98% backwards compatibility will simply lower to about 77% and rely on firmware updates to solve any BC problems. Saying that it will “lose” backwards compatibility is totally incorrect, and just shows that the poster does not understand what this means at all.
The BC introduced in the Euro models is the exact same emulation the 360 has always used. Therefore, saying that Sony is digging their own grave in doing this is a very dumb thing to say indeed.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
@1 Ah, thanks for that clarification I guess my Microsoft loyalty was getting the best of me.
August 11th, 2007 at 2:46 am
Well it is definitely losing a degree of BC … that is a fact and I have read that the number of games affected will be pretty high though. But when you consider how many titles there are (PS1 and PS2) then it seems like less of an impact. I don’t know about that 77% figure though. I would have to have some evidence in order to trust that high of a figure. In America people want the best and this is clearly a step backwards by American standards and with already low sales in America it can indeed be argued that Sony is continuing to dig their own grave. The issue is definitely one that is open to debate.
August 11th, 2007 at 3:12 am
By removing the emotion engine reduces the costs of making a PS3 significantly, at least more than it costs to add another 20 GB of storage.
August 11th, 2007 at 3:54 am
@Baker: An honest mistake.
August 11th, 2007 at 3:59 am
@Hyde: He is correct. Any model without the Emotion chip is less costly to produce, so I’d expect all future models to eventually become emulated once the support is better than it is now.
August 11th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Why didn’t they just do this in the first place?
August 11th, 2007 at 4:04 am
Probably because they wanted really good backwards compatibility. However after realizing that it’d be more cost effective to scrap the chip, and seeing as the Euro model’s price is already ridiculously high, those models started without one. I guess that move has finally been implemented in the North American models. The 80GB is actually a little overpriced if you ask me, I think it could drop to the 60GB’s price sooner rather than later now that this chip is gone.
August 11th, 2007 at 4:05 am
(However that last bit is simply speculation on my part.)
August 11th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Considering the 120 GB of XBox 360 Elite the 80 GB sure it’s way too much overpriced. And how did they pay to make the emotion engine for every console?
I’ve never tried the backward compatibility at XBox 360 but as far as I know emulating isn’t always perfect. That means not all games will be fully playable, right?
August 11th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Sorry. I meant how much did they pay xD?