Is Sony holding out on PS2 classics play on PS4?

Just saw this on the PS NeoGAF forums, Metal Slug Anthology coming to PS4 via PS2 Classics next week, which by itself would be cool news if true because the Metal Slug games are utterly awesome.

But, has the PS4 been able to emulate PS2 games this whole time? Okay, I can look past having a blanket emulation platform where people just pop in their old discs to play PS2 games, that's fine, Sony wants to make money on those old PS2 games, fine. But, they've had PS2 classics on PS3 and I feel that if the PS4 has a working PS2 emulator then they should share those titles across platforms. I mean, I could easily look past selling my PS3 and my PS3 games if I could have my PS2 classics on PS4 and gratis to boot. Or, at very least, do what Nintendo did, offer upgrades to the new platform at a nominal price for each title.

On the upside, looking past playing great older games on modern systems, accomplishing such a thing as allowing people to share the PS2 classics library they bought on their PS3s to play on their PS4s, that to me would increase my confidence in Sony's digital marketplace as far as retention goes and I'd be more likely to buy more and more of these cheap PS2 classics to add to my collection, but knowing they're just as temporary as this generation gives me reason to reconsider taking a rather compulsive attitude toward expanding my library in this fashion, I'd probably just hold out for those few must have PS2 classics.

I bought a small handful of the PS2 stuff, and I endorse your attitude. I can imagine that PS2 emulation on a program written for the Cell would require adjustments in the coding which prevents your digital library from being universal across PS devices, but it still sucks. Hopefully the move to x86 eliminates the issue moving forward.

The flow of releases has been peeving - I'd really like to see a few more than 4-5 a month. Plus they're still holding my baby SSX Tricky hostage :(

And Black, when you get around to it

@Basinboy: well, they really wouldn't need to make anything designed for the Cell work on the PS4, after all the PS3's PS2 emulator is just made to work on the PS3, it still uses PS2 ISO files in tandem with a functioning emulator, so all they really need on PS4 is a working PS2 emulator which I'd imagine is more doable on a PS4 than a PS3, if they have a working emulator for PS2 games on a PS4 then all you need again is those PS2 ISO files, and probably publisher blessing to make them available on the new platform

Funny enough, I been playing lots of Retro gaming as of lately, I went to my garage, get my old PS2 slim and been playing lots of old school PS2 games and so with that, Sony can keep there overcharge BC games. I didn't get the stinkin PS4 to play old games, (Remasters don't count) I got it to play new games only.

Also Metal Slug is da bomb.

@lamprey263:

They gotta stop with this ps2 hd bs. That's what's holding ps2 classics back from being released on ps4.

I don't normally get dragged into playing my old systems, when I bought the PS3 with BC I have found it hard to get back and power up my PS2. it was more convenient for me to just insert my PS2 disc into the PS3 and play my old games. However, due to my BC PS3 dying on me and I bought the new version without BC it was a disappointment.

Fortunately I still have my PS2(fat), and my son and I still play games on it.

@Star650: "However, due to my BC PS3 dying on me and I bought the new version without BC it was a disappointment."

Mines died too =(

@flyincloud1116:"Fortunately I still have my PS2(fat), and my son and I still play games on it."

But lucky for me I still have my old systems =)

@PSP107: My 80g PS3 with BC is still kicking too.

there's no good reason not to allow for it when the PS4 is more than capable of playing those games, maybe I don't always want to have to keep an extra PS3 stored away to play those old games myself, I already have a phat and god only knows when it YLODs on me

Have they done that yet with a PS2 game? I know they did with FFVII and it looked awful. I'd agree though, I'd prefer no enhancements, just a basic 480i/480p image with options of a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio

Isn't it because they rebuild them for "HD graphics and performance." And add trophy support? In any case, I haven't bought any for ps4 but for me it's not an issue since I've never played those games before.

@lamprey263:

That's all they do to them on ps4. I got gta San Andreas and they hd-ed up the graphics with trophies and shit. It was like playing the pc/smartphone version on the big screen.

I don't know if they have to rebuild them, emulators usually allow for tweaks to performance, I've seen emulators like PCSX2 running the Persona 4 ISO and it actually can enhance the resolution a good bit, it's not like they need to reach in an re-write any code to these games.

Trophies I'd imagine are the most complex layer to releasing these games, personally I'd be fine forgoing trophies for access to my older PS2 classics.

I'm pretty sure it's not just a technical thing, but a business thing. I'm sure sony has to work with publishers on getting more ps2 games on ps4.

@charizard1605 and I have been saying this since they were first released. I own GTA SA, VC, and 3 as PS2 classics. I bought them through the online store on PS3, kept the same account, username when I began on PS4. I can check my dounload history and there they are. But I go to the store on PS4 and Sony wants $15 for them again. Blow me Sony

I'm pretty sure on PS4 the PS2 Classics have been upscaled and they added trophy support, whereas on PS3 they were just straight up emulations.

Still don't see why we can't have the same games on PS4 as well. If I have to pay a small fee to get it on PS4 (to account for the effort it takes to rework emulation efforts from one system to another) I'll do it, but it does suck that most of the games I have on PS3 cannot make the jump. And I doubt Atlus will ever go through the effort to rework them for PS4.

I don't need or even want trophy support for PS2 games; I just want to be able to retire my PS3 which doesn't appear to have a lot of life left.

PS3 did PS2 emulation extremely poorly, i have Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition Remix and GTA VC for it from PSN, MC3DER runs choppy and bad... GTA VC has loads of content removed.

Never again, either use my PC to emulate my discs or play it on PS2, SONY's hardware is simply not fast enough, i doubt even NEO will be, it's CPU is just too slow.

If they have a working emulator it's no longer a technical thing.

Licensing issues make a little more sense but even there it doesn't seem to explain things. Microsoft hasn't even been at it a year and they have (as of right now) some 214 Xbox 360 games already. I think Sony could do better if they wanted with their strong rapport with publishers.

But, I think it is a business thing. I think they think that starting from scratch on their PS2 classics library and charging $15 for games and justifying it by tweaking performance and adding achievements, I think they think that'll make them more money.

@lamprey263: I do wonder how much tweaking the game files would need to support PS4 features though, such as trophies. I imagine that's their excuse, but it's a dangerous precedent to follow - Nintendo gets reamed for it all the time and Sony isn't much better.

@lamprey263:

Face it, They're overcharging.

I'm not a big fan of buying things more than once.

The PS4 can easily emulate a PS2 power wise, but as we all know emulation is never 100%. Also I would think the PS4 can't read the copy protection on a PS2 disc, I know thee way PS1 copy protection worked was it could read data from parts of the disc that was not specified in the CD standard so PC drives could not physically read or write the whole disc.

But really if you want to play old games just get the old system, it's not like it's expensive.

PS3's emulation isn't made to enhance games but mirror their PS2 performance, hence why games like Odin Sphere (North American version) still run like shit on the PS3 as they did on the PS2.

Likely Midnight Club 3 is gonna run noticeably not as good as say PCSX2 as that can always be tweaked to run better. And games I've seen running off PCSX2 typically look way better than they'll ever look on a PS2/PS3.

The only content I'm aware was missing from GTA games are some of the licensed music as that's probably the most touchy rights issue. But, that's hardly an indictment of the PS3's PS2 emulator capabilities.

I'm sure if they wanted though, I think Sony would be able to come up with an emulator that could match PCSX2's capabilities.

There is a very noticeable difference between the original PS2 version of MC3 and PSN version, drops under 20FPS on PSN version.

And yes the music is 65% of GTA VC... so removing it decreases it's potential.

that's more a secondary concern, my main concern is the lack in PS1/PS2 classic content available on PS4

I feel Sony had quite a sizeable collection on the PS3 of PS1/PS2 classics, some really nice titles in its selection, and instead of building off of it and making it even better, they got too greedy, but in order to justify the greed they created a huge obstacle in making that same content available

if they want to up the price, I'm more okay with that, inflation and all, BUT if they want to make a buck in the generational transition, do what Nintendo does with the $1.50 upgrade charges

A PS2 game dropping below 20fps? Are we now pretending PS2 games didn't often do this? Hell, it was still a problem most the 7th gen too. I remain unconvinced.

As for GTA VC, it's 7 songs out of over 100 tracks. And again, not an indictment of the ability of the emulator.

Anyhow, I don't see your point, such as how's this benefit Sony's bottom line not to have easily obtainable content available to consumers?

No they did not do this, considering i grew up on PS2 and still use a PS2 to this day.

MC3 is smooth as butter on real hardware.

Hasn't this been covered already? I thought they mentioned that trophies slowed down their porting by 1-2 months? Because of the delay, they release them very slowly and it's been underwhelming in content and price.

@rekonmeister:

Which PS3 model do you have?

Also I've got a question.

The original PS3 (60/20 GB) did emulation by hardware, so if I was to download a ps2 game on it, would it then think that the game disc was inside and I'd get the same results as if I had the disc? Or would it be the same as the (inferior) non hardware emulation that later PS3 models had?

@rekonmeister: You're smoking crack lol, all the ps1 and ps2 games I've played on my 60 gig ps3 worked perfectly fine. Emulation is never %100 though so I'm sure some games had issues, but that's the minority not majority of them.

I think the main thing that's holding them back from releasing tons of games for it and having full disc based backwards compatibility, is the trophy support. They've already said that adding trophy support to a emulated PS2 game requires additional development time and is quite complex thing to do.

There's some confusion on here. The original 60gb ps3 had perfect ps2 bc because it physically had the chipset built into it to facilitate more-or-less native ps2 game support. That is why ps2 games run just fine on it. By contrast, in order to cut back on manufacturing costs, the 80gb ps3 implemented software bc - which was imperfect, did not support all games and those it did were more likely to experience slowdowns not present on the original ps2 hardware.

Not all ps3 bc was created equally

The fact that these machines don't offer digital offerings of games from these companies past machines is bullshit, especially with their fake adding stuff, just add a big chunk.

Not just because entitled, by the way **** you in advance for having no backbone. But more so because I would like a lot of these games preserved. This is easily one of the worst mediums when it comes to preserving its history.

No, if they could they'd have every ps2 game made on the store right now, they're just slow. Like Nintendo.

They still suck for not having disc based emulation, we may have got it if they were the underdog this gen

40GB with the die shrunk RSX.

It doesn't matter what BS PR technical excuse Sony can come up with because at the end of the day they already know their PlayStations fans rather pay to play old games they already own again and again than have free backward compatibility. Unless there's enough PlayStation fans that demands for free BC and make Sony start taking notice, don't expect free BC for future PlayStations.

Not having disc based emulation is absurd. PS4 is more than capable of doing that. Let's be honest here, they want your money and they know you'll buy it.

If they have a convincing excuse to why we can't have disc based then a PS4 slim or the Neo can easily fix that. But we know they won't lol.