PS Exec: PS2-PS4 BC Price Point Damage Control Fail.

By GAMESPOT

PlayStation president of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida has spoken out to defend the price points for the company's PlayStation 2 games on PlayStation 4. The first batch of games available now cost $10-$15, which some deemed to be pretty pricey.

He said on a recent PlayStation Nation podcast that the emulation technology (which can get the PS2 games running at 1080p/60 FPS) as well as the implementation for PS4 features like Trophies and Share functionality, doesn't necessarily come cheap. There also also licensing and quality assurance costs.

"We are also able to add Trophies; some people really care about Trophies," he said. "So we can provide that. And it takes some time for our staff and QA and licensing and everything to bring back these games. So it takes us time and cost. So we felt that we should charge."

Yoshida went on to say that of course the PS2-to-PS4 emulation technology cannot bring classic games up to the graphical standards of contemporary counterparts. But the improvements are good enough so that you can play a 20-40 hour role-playing game and not grow tired of the experience, he said.

It's possible price points will come down in time, but this is not confirmed. You can already save on one of the games, PaRappa the Rapper 2 if you're a PlayStation Plus member ($7.50 instead of $10).

In addition to PaRappa the Rapper 2 (which arrived just this week), Sony has confirmed that The King of Fighters 2000 will be added later. Rockstar's Max Payne might also be on the way, though this is not confirmed.

Earlier this month, Yoshida said Sony will work "tirelessly" to release even more PS2 games for PS4 "on a regular basis." The company is also asking for your suggestions for which games should be added.

They nailed it on PS3, they really should have just kept up and expanded on that, if anything it would have instilled in me greater confidence of the digital marketplace and encouraged sales with confidence in my ability to retain rights and ability to play titles across hardware; this totally kills that.

Anyhow, figured this was a good analogy to how being a Sony supporter must feel right now...

But hey, let's all Xbox bash like it's 2013.

They're a broke ass company making terrible decisions left and right, the only thing they've done right this generation is make the PlayStation 4 more powerful and launch without controversy, that's it, that is their accomplishment. Everything else has been a barrage of laziness, mediocrity, anti-consumerism and terrible and possibly division crippling decisions like PlayStation VR.

Shit like this just adds icing to the cake, they're a shit hole company now, they are not the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 era Sony that people fell in love with any longer, people need to get that through their thick skulls, things change, companies change...

Thinking of Sony as they once were for right now is as absurd as thinking of Valve as the great company they once were, shit goes downhill, it just happens...

^...oh lord

#This is for the payers, oh wait we're in SW so #This is for the cows.

I'm sure the Sony Defence Force (SDF) will come and defend this anti consumer move.

yeah, sony lost me with the PSX and this whole BC bullshit

Lol, well said. I don't even own an Xbox, and I don't get why they still hate Xbox so much. But hey, Sony can do no wrong. Thank you Sony.

I love how he used costs as an excuse...a freaking modder made it happen before they did

It'll be very interesting to see where Nintendo takes digital rights and rights retention with NX, I hope with how they've mishandled them with Wii, Wii U and 3DS that people aren't turned off about idea of purchasing games yet again. But, if they can nail solid consumer friendly DRM that encourages sales and helps bridge interest between portable and console medium, they can be a trend setter.

yeah we definitely need Nintendo now <----some things you just never thouight you'd ever say :(

I really cant say how I feel about this....

I dont care but at the same time... yeah its BS... but of course they cat just go through all this effort and resources and just lose money on it.... and aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I cant really say....

Its a fucked up situation.

We as gamers will demand, bitch and moan and justify it. And they'll justify why they have to do it the way they are doing it.

Now.... Ps3 games, they better do PS3 games and not fucking charge me for it because I still have the physical disc. But they already fucked that up by having the not so great service PS NOW. I havent tried the service yet, but I did look into it and found a hand full of great games at now so bad prices. Has any actually streamed a game from PS Now? how is it?

they should be shelling these games out for free or very cheap as compensation and holdovers for the lack of games on the PS4

Nobody bought the ps4 to play ps2 there no reason for there 10 swag to be a big deal. I do know why ppl bring up backwards compatibility and things like this. Only time its worth talking about is when its the real backwords compatibility. When you can put in any cd reguardless

I hear them! They are coming!

They should be a thank you to the community for their support of the console, realistically they should have just updated the console backward compatible proper via software emulation from discs.

My expectations from this company has pretty much shriveled up and died, they don't seem to have much gas left in the tank and continually take, and take, and take from their consumer base while offering very little in return for them, not to mention they don't listen to them.

Microsoft releases Xbox 360 backward compatibility for free with monthly game and service updates, Sony's answer to that is to offer PlayStation 2 games via select charged emulation costing $10-$15 a piece... What kind of ridiculous shit is that, it's insanity, and people wonder why I'm so gungho about Sony these days, they've gone to shit, complete shit.

@nyadc: lol meltdown.

Lol smear campaign.

Calling it as it is, don't get your panties in a twist because this mid 90's to early 2000's success story is turning into a mess and people are actually talking about it.

You're a damn fool if you think the Sony you're supporting and fanboying behind now is even remotely as good as it used to be, hell I'd take even 1/4 of what they used to be and it's better than this...

I want Shadow of Rome.

Just do it, Sony.

Pretty much. It's not like you are forced to re-buy games you already purchased in the past. Just keep your freakin' PS2 and games if you wanna re-play them without paying.

For some odd reason, I never played or bought every single PS2 game in existence, and so Rogue Galaxy and Dark Cloud look appealing to me at $15 a pop.

To Yosshiti (or whatever the fu** his name is): How about a nice cup of shut the fu** up.

making people re-buy their games (FFVII, Twisted metal: Black, Mark of Kri, etc) is real fucked up on Sony"s part. These games should be free for the people that already purchased them on PS3. im also pissed that our digital game's collection from the PS3 doesnt carry over to the PS4.

Waiting to hear what Nintendo has to offer with the NX...

If the hardware is on par or better then PS4/XB1, Full BC with Wii U and VC games and they manage to have all 3rd party dev's support for the NX then im jumping ship.

im done with sony.

Yeah... I understand that there are back-end costs, but charging $15 for games that are two-gens old... I'm sorry, but it's just bullshit.

I bought Rogue Galaxy, and i'm playing it on my PC instead of the PS4, because the emulation is just pure shit. I'm running Rogue Galaxy/FFXII at 4x native, with AA/AF cranked.

Will not buy...any of it.

Not to nitpick, but I don't know why we're still calling this BC. It's not BC; there's nothing backwards compatible about it at all. These are PS2 remasters that happen to be run through an emulator. From our point of view, there's no reason to view it as anything more than just random additions of old games to the PS4 digital library.

As far as whether they're priced or overpriced, it would have been nice if they were only $10, keeping it consistent with PS3 pricing. That said, I'm not sure I would call it a rip off per se because there are obvious improvements over the original PS2 versions. I would personally wait until they're on sale to justify getting any of them.

Can you share an article pertaining to that topic? I'm interested reading it.

I don't really understand the backlash.

If this doesn't interest you it doesn't interest you and no one is forcing you to spend money on these games. There are people out there that still enjoy these games and would like to replay them or people that are now playing on PS4 that were not even alive during the PS2 generation and can experience these older games for the first time.

If you already own these games then plug up an old console and play them for no additional cost or go around hunting a used ps2 and games you want to play.

I just never understood gamers self centered attitude of "I have no interest in X so it shouldn't exist".

So PC wins once again?

If you can't afford a 15 dollars for a game then you shouldn't be playing anything.

@k--m--k: I personally don't care about the whole BC thing but 15$ for a 15 year old game you own is pretty crazy.

@k--m--k: you shouldn't be paying for games you've already paid for because they couldn't implement bc properly.

Just what I said. You have to remember, this is System Wars, where almost everyone here is either a) a blind fanboy, b) a child who can't afford many games, so it's only natural for them to whine about everything, or c) a combination of both a and b.

There are legit things to complain about, but optional merchandise isn't one of them. This isn't true bc like expected, but is that really a selling point for any system?

Things for sale, how horrible.

@Phazevariance: then plug in your PS2 and play it.

You paid for the game 15 years ago. On PS2.

These games should cost about the same as mobile games, about $3-$5.

Who the hell is going to pay anything more for 15 year old games

Sony's take on BC is BS no matter how you spin it.

I mean lol@ "Its not BC" or "its for people who never played it"

People paid normal retail price for VHS re-releases on DVD and the same for DVD re-releases on Blu Ray and I am only speculating, but I'm sure the amount of money to transfer that data to a new format dwarfs in comparison to the additions they have added on these PS2 re-releases.

Look on Ebay at the price for some of these games. It is not uncommon for Dark Cloud to sell around $10 used and Rogue Galaxy and Parappa the Rapper 2 get up around the $20 mark so people are paying that much for these games used already

@CajunShooter: That's the problem. This very much interested me, should the emulation have been better, and the pricing not as exorbitant. I'll stick to my PC for emulation, but this could have been a pretty neat feature, given the quality of the PS2 library.

I think it also suffers from the double-whammy of also having MS releasing last-gen backwards compatibility free of charge, with minimal hassles in terms of playing your games (when they are added to the BC list).

@Bigboi500: The backlash comes from people who want an option to play their old games on PS2, that they already own for free. They don't think you should have to pay if you already own them, and I agree. Some people's PS2 doesn't work. And the prices are already too high. Do I think this is an evil deed by satan? No. Do I think it's anti consumer? Yes. People need to realize just because BC means nothing to you, doesn't mean it means nothing to everyone else.

This isn't really a new format though, this is simply them applying an existing format to the current one and then recharging for it. We all know well and good that Sony could straight up make a software emulator on the PlayStation 4 for disc based PlayStation 2 games, they're just refusing to do that and instead going this very anti-consumer route.

To use your own analogy against you, Blu-Ray players play and can upscale DVD's, that is essentially what the PlayStation 4 SHOULD be doing with PlayStation 2 games.

It depends on the actual license e.g. if the license contains specific performance i.e. performing the content on particular hardware, then the license is enforceable. It's up to IP holder to enforce their rights.

For Xbox 360 BC for Xbox One, Microsoft already stated licensing "land mines" with the BC issue.

DVD players are produced by multiple companies hence it's difficult to limit the DVD title to a particular DVD player make/brand/model. The multi-make/multi-brand/multi-models PC market has similar advantage as DVD/Blu-ray player market.

"some people's PS2 doesn't work" sounds like a problem for a select few, and a terrible excuse for entitlement. They don't have to buy any of it.

What exactly did they "nail" on PS3? The PS2 classics there were $9.99 or $14.99 and those games were literally just running at 480p or 480i settings. It's basically the same thing here, except the PS4 versions are free to run at higher native settings and have trophies added. I was never even temped to buy one last gen (ok, maybe some of the Atlus games that were always on sale for $5). Now at least if they get the HD emulation done right, and add in trophies, they are at least a little bit tempting.

$9.99 is definitely the better price point, but whether they are $9.99 or $14.99 I'm probably waiting for sales to buy old games like this anyway. I hope they mostly do "rarer" games and stuff that is more niche.

The only criticism I agree with from the haters, is it's absurd to have something like the iOS ports of the GTA games at $15. But that situation is more on Rockstar, than on Sony.

Makes perfect sense. all that work being done for us fans. Amazing they would even do it, but if you think about when you live through the Live, Learn and Love philosophy and couple it with the by gamers for gamers mantra that sky rocketed PS4 to #1 this gen, it becomes clear SONY is putting the power back in the gamers hands.

I'll be buying multiple PS2 games now to support SONY and the current gen 8 console leader PS4.

@Bigboi500: Terrible logic. Microsoft gave BC for free. Sony charged for it. If you already own a PS2 game and have to pay for it that's ridiculous! Especially since your digital account on PS3 doesn't carry over. You think that's entitled? You just sound like a fool blindly defending Sony, and I'm sure a lot of people's ps2 stopped working. God it's people like you that let companies screw us over.

They dropped the ball here, plain and simple. They're not gonna be getting the benefit of the doubt from me on this one.

@charizard1605:

Nope.

""We are also able to add Trophies; some people really care about Trophies," he said. "So we can provide that. And it takes some time for our staff and QA and licensing and everything to bring back these games. So it takes us time and cost. So we felt that we should charge."

Seems to me like gamers want it all for free like they are entitles. No one is forcing you to buy it. I have FF X on Ps2 disc, you saying I should get it free on PS4 because I have disc or is that the only case digitally?

I haven't checked, but can I get my downloaded digital games I bought on Wii yo WiiU? I bought Ninja Gaiden 2 and Mario Sunshine while on Wii. Are those purchases tired to my account? What if I dont have them linked? Will they show up in my purchase history? I honestly dont know, but I never expected them to be able to be played on Wiiu, I thought I'd have to buy them again.

Funny how much of an issue this is considering they had software BC running on the pos Cell and RSX. If you can emulate the PS2 on that unholy architecture, then doing it on powerful x86 hardware must be a breeze. Got milk?

@Heil68: I'm not asking for freebies. I have made my position perfectly clear before in multiple threads, threads that you have posted in, and it is perfectly reasonable:

• Either give me the chance to play my games unenhanced (i.e. without the special features like Trophies) on the PS4, and don't charge me;
• Or allow me to upgrade the games I own already via PS Classics on PS3 on the PS4 for an upgrade fee. So if I own GTA: San Andreas or Persona 3: FES via PS2 Classics already? Don't ask me to spend $15 on them on PS4 again, charge me, say, $5 per game to upgrade them to the PS4 versions, and that's fair, I'll pay that.

I do not bring up disc based compatibility. I do not expect to play my PS2 discs on the PS4. I have never had issue with Sony on the lack of disc compatibility, because two console generations and fifteen years later, that is unreasonable to expect. What I expect is digital continuity, for the money I have spent buying digital goods and content from Sony to be honored. Five years from now, when the PSN Store goes down on the PS3, and my PS3 also breaks, what happens to the money I spent buying PS2 Classics on PS3? It's lost, they're gone. Ownership in digital content can be ephemeral, which is why providing a sort of digital continuity across products is so necessary- this is the kind of thing Sony has excelled at so far, btw, they pioneered Cross Buy on their systems, so I'm not even asking them to live up to any standard but their own.

Funny that you should bring up Nintendo, because guess what? The exact same situation occurred with digital Wii titles on the Wii U- and amazingly, in spite of a total lack of account system or infrastructure, Nintendo actually handled this situation far better. You could either play all your digital Wii titles on the Wii U for free, as long as they were played without any Wii U specific or enhanced features, or you could play them with Wii U enhanced features, such as save states, button remapping, Miiverse compatibility, Off TV Play on the Wii U Gamepad, and more. To avail of these, you just had to pay an upgrade fee ($1-$1.50 per game) and you'd be able to play all your previously bought games on the Wii U without having to rebuy them again.

See that? The Wii U versions of these games also had significantly new features, important features, but instead of charging players to pay for those exact same games again, Nintendo just charged a small upgrade fee to upgrade them to Wii U versions, if players wanted, or to let players play their games for free if the Wii U features didn't mean that much to them.

You want to know something? I don't even care if Sony doesn't let me play my games unenhanced on the PS4- I'll gladly pay the upgrade fee, because I think it's worth a couple of dollars to play my PS2 games in 1080p or with Trophies. I do not think it is worth it for me to buy those games again when I already bought them from the PSN Store on the PS3. That is a violation of an implicit understanding that the purchaser and the purchasee form when a transaction around a digital good is conducted, and it's a slippery slope to be on. So no, heil, I'm sorry, but there is no defense for Sony here- I'm not asking for anything unreasonable. I'm not asking for disc based compatibility, and I'm not even asking them to offer their new features for free. I'm asking for a minor upgrade fee, and I am asking for digital continuity. Anyone who doesn't have blind devotion for a faceless corporation can see this. The amazing thing is, there is also no argument against how Nintendo handled this, in spite of all of Nintendo's incompetence- they handled this situation in the best way that it could have, and in a far better manner than Sony has, in any case.

They ran like they did on the PS2 and offered it in a manner that deinterlaces the image as you can't do that on a PS2 on an HDTV presentation. Don't care for trophies either. $9.99 is a nice compulsive price point, $14.99 not so much.

But this also has the disadvantage of telling people who bought digital titles on the PS3 that Sony won't honor those purchases simply to gouge customers again, not due to any technical difficulties in accomplishing this. And that I feel will just cause gamers to be less willing to care especially if they've been burned in this transition.

Here show me in what part those Sony bastards touched you...