BC and PS3's PS2/PS1 emuation/chips discussion

[eat_me_cool]

<speculation>It seems likely to me that Sony never wanted to put PS2 hardware into the PS3 in the first place and only did so because effective pure software emulation could not be developed fast enough.

Using hardware was always a temporary solution and something they decided to do almost at the last minute. X360 bots panned Sony for it of course. PS1 emulation still works.

[SkantDragon]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

As I understand it, PS2 compatibility is affected because they only have emulation for the Emotion Engine and not all the chips, and honestly they stripped it out because it's a desireable feature people will pay for and they want you to buy the more expensive one. Since PS1 is pure software, apparently it's unaffected.

It seems unlikely to me that backward compatibility with the PS2 is something that Sony would purposefully use as a differentiator between their PS3 models.

From the gaming market perspective, it's akin to trying to sell a Blu-ray player for $100 cheaper that just can't play regular DVDs. Would there be many interested buyers for such a product?

Moreover, the princible reason for the over 100 million current PS2 owners to automatically favor the PS3 as their next platform rather than the XBOX or Wii is that their current library of games they've invested lots of money into will still play on it. Without backward compatibility with that library, there's no special reason to favor the PS3. Such a move by Sony would effectively release their hold on their current PS2 customer base and leave these customers up for grabs for their competitors.

If it's a deliberate move they wanted to make, it sure seems suicidal.

I think it's more likely that it's a short term compromise in order to get a $400 PS3 available for xmas while PS2 compatibility through firmware update is in the works. If that's the case, it seems like a good judgement call to me.

I predict that all future PS3 models, both high end and low end, will have pure software emulation of the PS2. I think this one was just forced out the door before that was ready.

[WickyWoo]

From the gaming market perspective, it's akin to trying to sell a Blu-ray player for $100 cheaper that just can't play regular DVDs. Would there be many interested buyers for such a product?

Game systems have been sold for years without backwards compatibility and did just fine. Sony's own surveys and audits show that the number of people who actually use it for that is pretty small, and to those who it's a desireable feature, they can buy the more expensive one or buy a PS2.

The money saved from the chips pays for the WiFi, which is a far bigger selling point, especially for a home entertainment system

[Proteus]

The BC is software driven. It's in the firmware. Although BC will be less than 100% due to software limitations with emulation, I would be _VERY_ surprised if it suddenly 'went away'.

This idea sounds more like FUD to me. There's no reason for it not to be there.

[WickyWoo]

The BC is software driven. It's in the firmware. Although BC will be less than 100% due to software limitations with emulation, I would be _VERY_ surprised if it suddenly 'went away'.

This idea sounds more like FUD to me. There's no reason for it not to be there.

Except that they want you to buy the most expensive version

No matter what, this system is losing big money for Sony. It's a market share grower first and foremost. It's the same reason why they took the wifi, 40GB and the card reader out of the original 20GB version. The build cost was only $30 more for the $599, but the SRP $100 more

[blitz6speed]

The 20/60 gig had both EE and GPU from the PS2 inside, making them 100% BC. Then the 60 gig in europe was released with just the PS2 GPU, and the rest done via software. The 80 gig PS3 is the same. The new 40 gig has neither chipset, which is why it just has PS1 emulation.

The 80 gig will have the selling points of larger hard drive space, ps2 compatability, more usb ports, memory card readers and most likely a pack in game as well. Also, i think a lot of people dont realise that when you do use the Upscaling on the 20/60 gig, it uses software emulation anyway, bypassing the internal chipset. The removal of this is more mental then anything for most people, 90% of people buying a ps3 most likely dont use it for ps2 in the first place. And more then likely, they will do a software PS2 emulation at some point in the future. Their PS1 emulator has a 98% success rate, it is absolutely perfect. Their PS2 emulator is half way there already (emulating the CPU), they could refine it and go pure software.

Anyway, great move by Sony, especially with the Spidey 3 pack in, it will move a lot of units this holiday season and really make a big impact overall.

[Jazar]

Originally Posted by Proteus

The BC is software driven.

That is not entirely correct. To use the US market as an example,

The 60Gb SKU has two PS2 chips, the GS graphics and EE main engine for a high degree of PS2 compatability.

The 80Gb SKU only has the GS graphics chips for a slightly lower degree of PS2 compatability.

These 40Gb SKUs supposedly have no GS chip or EE chip having no PS2 backwards compatability.

Darn Bliz you beat me.

[WickyWoo]

To give people a better point of comparison

The Emotion Engine costs $27/unit
The GPU apparently was between $15-20

So the actual cost of PS2 BC was somewhere in the $40-50 range

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Except that they want you to buy the most expensive version

No matter what, this system is losing big money for Sony.

And maybe to encourage buying the PS3 games to help get some of that money back. Basically, if a person mostly wants a PS3 to play the PS2 games they have, they have to buy the model that Sony loses less money on, but if they just care about the new games, Sony can lose more money on them as far as selling them the system (at least as a group). Of course, this doesn't stop people from just renting, but does seem like it would encourage a higher attach rate for PS3 games.

--Darin

[WickyWoo]

And maybe to encourage buying the PS3 games to help get some of that money back. Basically, if a person mostly wants a PS3 to play the PS2 games they have, they have to buy the model that Sony loses less money on, but if they just care about the new games, Sony can lose more money on them as far as selling them the system (at least as a group). Of course, this doesn't stop people from just renting, but does seem like it would encourage a higher attach rate for PS3 games.

No, it's just the cost of the chips, and the additional selling point. Nothing more

[mycroft]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

The money saved from the chips pays for the WiFi, which is a far bigger selling point, especially for a home entertainment system

Really? wifi has been a complete disaster for my home entertainment system. The performance was just not good enough to stream any reasonable hi-def stream (I tried a and g). In the end I got cable drawn through the walls and now I have a nice gigabit network with plenty of hi-def bandwidth, and no need to buy any wireless dongles for my series 3 and game consoles.

Insiders: There are reportedly a few secondary decoder pip titles coming up in the next few months. Will there be any players capable of playing them on the market by that time? And how do you handle the incapable players, can they still access that extra content in some way? I know you mentioned that you believe the PS3 will get updated, which will be cool, but do you have any ideas if it'll be before or after the holidays? I suspect they have a lot bigger things to think about this christmas than a non-essential update to their already excellent BD playback.

[WickyWoo]

Really? wifi has been a complete disaster for my home entertainment system. The performance was just not good enough to stream any reasonable hi-def stream (I tried a and g). In the end I got cable drawn through the walls and now I have a nice gigabit network with plenty of hi-def bandwidth, and no need to buy any wireless dongles for my series 3 and game consoles

Hey I'm totally with you there But when you ask people they all want the WiFi. I'd love to run Cat5 to every room in the house, but certain people correctly don't trust my home improvement skills, and too expensive to hire someone

[jorg]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

The 20/60 gig had both EE and GPU from the PS2 inside, making them 100% BC. Then the 60 gig in europe was released with just the PS2 GPU, and the rest done via software. The 80 gig PS3 is the same. The new 40 gig has neither chipset, which is why it just has PS1 emulation.

The 80 gig will have the selling points of larger hard drive space, ps2 compatability, more usb ports, memory card readers and most likely a pack in game as well. Also, i think a lot of people dont realise that when you do use the Upscaling on the 20/60 gig, it uses software emulation anyway, bypassing the internal chipset. The removal of this is more mental then anything for most people, 90% of people buying a ps3 most likely dont use it for ps2 in the first place. And more then likely, they will do a software PS2 emulation at some point in the future. Their PS1 emulator has a 98% success rate, it is absolutely perfect. Their PS2 emulator is half way there already (emulating the CPU), they could refine it and go pure software.

Anyway, great move by Sony, especially with the Spidey 3 pack in, it will move a lot of units this holiday season and really make a big impact overall.

wow thanks for replay clears things up

[androvsky]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

Also, i think a lot of people dont realise that when you do use the Upscaling on the 20/60 gig, it uses software emulation anyway, bypassing the internal chipset.

That's not true. If it suddenly switched to software for upscaling, one, it'd need a reboot of the ps2 subsystem, but more obviously, games suddenly wouldn't work. Scaling is handled in a similar fashion to DVD upscaling, they just work with the 2D rendered image. For reference: http://www.psxextreme.com/psp-news/968.html

Q.
Right now, output from the GS (PS2 graphics chip) is upconverted. Can the GS output higher resolution by itself?

K1
Currently, the upconverion is done at the final stage of the output. For PS2 software, it would be difficult to increase the resolution natively. PS1 is a different matter, since it is software emulation.

Thus it's actually scaling instead of simply rendering at a higher resolution. There's an open-source ps2 emulator that does render at a high resolution, and the results are astonishing compared to the ps3 scaling. Sony's always planned on releasing a software ps2 emulator for the ps3, since the GS is apparently different enough to the ps2 one in terms of production to be more expensive than you'd expect.

I suspect we'll get a software emulator eventually. The ps2 just happens to be really complex from an emulation point of view.

[SkantDragon]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Game systems have been sold for years without backwards compatibility and did just fine.

Really? Name all of the _successful_ game consoles sold in the last decade that didn't have backward compatibility.

The PS3's current competitors all have BC.

And new PS2 games are _still_ being released. And PS2s are still selling like hotcakes. This would seem to amplify the need for BC in the PS3. That's a mighty big customer base to just let go of.

Anyway, I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree on the matter of how important BC is in this equation.

I would love to get some insight from a Sony insider on whether the 40Gb will never have BC or if the lack of BC really is totally intentional.

At least, I don't _think_ you're a Sony insider, are you WickyWoo?

[fronn]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

To give people a better point of comparison

The Emotion Engine costs $27/unit
The GPU apparently was between $15-20

So the actual cost of PS2 BC was somewhere in the $40-50 range

The numbers I've heard are around ~$36 for the EE/GS chip (it's fabbed on a single 90nm die now days for the PSTwo, at least). I'm not completely familiar with the setup in the PS3 -- obviously in the 80gb the GS only remains, but in the 20/60gb is it multiple chips or single chip?

Regardless, you've got memory prices as well (the RDRAM which is like 3-4 dollars or something around there), so we're looking at somewhere around $40, at least for full BC -- less, obviously, with just the GS.

[eat_me_cool]

Originally Posted by SkantDragon

Moreover, the princible reason for the over 100 million current PS2 owners to automatically favor the PS3 as their next platform rather than the XBOX or Wii is that their current library of games they've invested lots of money into will still play on it. Without backward compatibility with that library, there's no special reason to favor the PS3.

The evidence is in the eating, how many of those 100milllion have been willing to pay for BC? very few. The BC option is there, take it if you need it, but a cheaper PS3 is going to sell far more.

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Hey I'm totally with you there But when you ask people they all want the WiFi. I'd love to run Cat5 to every room in the house, but certain people correctly don't trust my home improvement skills, and too expensive to hire someone

The lack of WiFi was the biggest stumbling block for the 20gb not selling IMO .. Most people are like you regards to running cable .. and how many people happened to have an ethernet jack behind their T.V.?

[SkantDragon]

Originally Posted by eat_me_cool

The evidence is in the eating, how many of those 100milllion have been willing to pay for BC? very few. The BC option is there, take it if you need it, but a cheaper PS3 is going to sell far more.

Everyone I know who has a PS2 is waiting for some trigger point to convince them to get a PS3. When told the new PS3 will be $400, they get excited. But when told it won't have backwards compatibility, it puts many of them right back into waiting again. And as they wait, they start to eye the 360 with increasing interest.

Perhaps that's just my friends only, but I doubt it. I expect this reflects a lot of the PS2 gamer market.

Now, I'm sorta realizing I may be talking to the wrong crowd here. I think most of the folks posting on this site are movie fans, not gamers. Lack of BC in a PS3 couldn't matter less to owners who have bought the PS3 primarily as a movie machine. And it may be difficult to understand why it would matter so much to more dedicated gamers.

I still have my question: Will the 40Gb PS3 ever have BC via a firmware update?

Rather than an answer, I seem to be getting 'Nobody should want to play PS2 games on the PS3 anyway'. And I'm sorry, but I don't agree. Nor does it answer my question. Frankly, it sounds like spin.

And pointing out that gamers still have the 80Gb model isn't useful either, because that makes the 40Gb model into non-news for quite a lot of people.

Maybe I shouldn't have posted to this thread. This is my last message on the topic until someone actually answers my question.

[RobertB]

Originally Posted by SkantDragon

Everyone I know who has a PS2 is waiting for some trigger point to convince them to get a PS3. When told the new PS3 will be $400, they get excited. But when told it won't have backwards compatibility, it puts many of them right back into waiting again. And as they wait, they start to eye the 360 with increasing interest.

Perhaps that's just my friends only, but I doubt it. I expect this reflects a lot of the PS2 gamer market.

Now, I'm sorta realizing I may be talking to the wrong crowd here. I think most of the folks posting on this site are movie fans, not gamers. Lack of BC in a PS3 couldn't matter less to owners who have bought the PS3 primarily as a movie machine. And it may be difficult to understand why it would matter so much to more dedicated gamers.

I still have my question: Will the 40Gb PS3 ever have BC via a firmware update?

Rather than an answer, I seem to be getting 'Nobody should want to play PS2 games on the PS3 anyway'. And I'm sorry, but I don't agree. Nor does it answer my question. Frankly, it sounds like spin.

And pointing out that gamers still have the 80Gb model isn't useful either, because that makes the 40Gb model into non-news for quite a lot of people.

Maybe I shouldn't have posted to this thread. This is my last message on the topic until someone actually answers my question.

For people who already have a PS2 why should it bother them that they wont have PS2 compatability in the lowpriced PS3?