High PS3 cost takes toll on PS2 backwards compatibility for PAL PS3

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 23 February 2007 20:05

Your IT - Entertainment

PS3 owners in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia will lose some of the backwards compatibility built into US and Japanese versions – how long will it be before new models for the US and Japan suffer the same fate?

According to an article from Reuters entitled “PlayStation 3 in Europe will play fewer old games”  we learn that the PAL TV format PS3 will have more software emulation for the PS2 and fewer dedicated chips, which would seem to be because of statements by Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's chief financial officer, that, according to the Reuters article, Sony “aims to bring the negative PS3 margin to break even toward the second half of the next business year, which starts in April, by component cost savings on chips driving the PS3”.

At this point, the article quotes Sony executives apologizing for the development, hinting towards the cost savings for Sony, and saying in a statement quoted by Reuters that “Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3”.

If I read this correctly, it sounds like Sony is eliminating many of the extra chips needed to guarantee hardware PS2 compatibility. The original story went along the lines that the PS3 would have the PS2 chipset inside, ensuring the PS3 could play all PS2 and even original PlayStation games.

But, it would appear that continuing to lose US $200 per console was starting to be too much for Sony to bear, and so the PS2 chipset has been eliminated as much as possible, replaced by software emulation which, it would seem even with the amazing power of the 9-core Cell processor, is either too difficult or more likely too fiddly and expensive to continue tweaking for optimal PS2 emulation.

If this is the case, then perhaps the US and Japanese versions will soon go the same way so the cost savings can be global. After all, the savings must be significant when multiplied across tens of millions of games consoles. 

Given that Sony really wants PS3 owners to focus on the new and upcoming range of PS3 titles, along with the digital media, home entertainment and computing features the PS3 offers, instead of worrying too much about PS2 and PS1 compatibility.

There are really only three things you can do about this. One is to get offended and assume that Sony is heartless and only out to rip us off, as seen in an article from Playfuls.com entitled
“Sony Offends European Gamers. Again…” - and to buy the PS3 anyway.

The second thing is to likely feel some disappointment at this revelation, but to simply accept that Sony has made this decision, which is undoubtedly saving them money and getting Sony closer to a break-even point where the PS3 isn’t losing money with each console sold, and playing whatever PS2 games do work through the new system while playing PS2 games that don’t on your existing PS2. If your feelings are stronger than that, go back to option 1.

Option one and two ultimately involve buying a PS3 anyway, whether immediately or at some point in the future. So what is the third option? Read onto page 2 for the conclusion...