Sony was the first company to truly embrace backwards compatibility when it released the PS2. It was a pioneering move and it helped garner a ton of loyalty for the PlayStation brand. For the first time gamer’s past video games weren’t just disposable toys of yesteryear, but were actually a living breathing collection of games that could play on your new console.The PS2 also used backwards compatibility as a way to artificially extend the shelf life of PS One games by providing upgrades like; texture smoothing and faster disc loading.
you know what sony should do?, release a box that allows you to play PS2/PS3 on the "Orbis". If its near imposible to emulate these games via software, then sell that hardware seperately. a box that has the EE/GS and the Cell/GSX. attach it to the back of the "orbis", sell it for $80-100.
Im sure that people would be against the idea, but I think that should alleviate some of these problems, while keeping the "orbis" at a competitive price tag.
Damn that is a excellent Idea to be honest with you I never considered glad you read the article though
if the PS4 goes with the x86 architecture then Sony will have no excuses to not offer PS1 and PS2 BC through software because these already have emulators running on x86 architecture on the PC. And let me say that these emulators play the games much more better than the original consoles.
Now the only issue will be the PS3. An by the way things are looking now Gaikai will be the only solution.
I would love for the PS4 to have full backward compatibility but something tells me we may be disappointed. Unless Sony are working on a very powerful emulator, I think BC will be dealt with entirely through Gaikai. Is that a bad thing though? How many people subscribe to Sky so that they can gain access to hundreds of channels they will never ever watch?
'The times are a changing' as the saying goes. A friend of mine often complains about the gaming media and the insistence of a downloadable future, but it's clear that many facets of this business are keen on making that future happen sooner rather than later. Who can blame them, it cuts their costs down dramatically. So what has the above waffle got to do with the topic at hand?
Our obsession with ownership, the fact that we take for granted the tangibility of purchases, has lead us to believe that we will never 'DAMN IT!' ever 'DAMN IT!' accept the idea of owning something that is digital... Something that we can't touch or smell or hear while tapping it against our sweaty palms. This idea is slowly being eroded before our very eyes and yet we still cling onto that old, old notion of ownership.
For instance, the friend I mentioned above, whilst ranting about such an idea stands beside his PS3 with at least 25 PSN titles on it. He also subscribes to Sky and pays for content he'll never own. It's odd then that people see a problem with a subscription fee for Gaikai in order to gain backward compatibility. It's not a huge leap from watching your favourite films, sitcoms, documentaries etc on catchup (and paying for the privilege) to playing you favourite games (and paying for the privilege)
If the subscription fee is reasonable, reluctantly or not, people will eventually succumb to its convenience
If its a subscription fee that fine, however publishers are greedy and I doubt they'd take kindly to this model. They more than likely will want to sell access to every game game separately.
Movies are different because they are a watch once you get the whole experience where as games are everchanging thanks to DLC and online. Also there are more cost associated with them, like maintaining update, and online servers.
Besides we all know deep down that game publishers want to squeeze out as much money from us as possible, that the sad truth