PS2 Coming To The PS4 – Why No Love For The PS3?

MWEB GameZone writes: "Although the news should make PS2 game fans extremely happy, fans of PS3 games are feeling the sting of disappointment. Everywhere the news pops up that PS2 games are coming to the PS4, there are multiple gamers who ask the question 'But why no PS3?'; Some call it a strange move by Sony, while others are upset at Sony’s 'decision'.

Here is why there is 'no love' for PS3 emulation on the PS4."

[TwoForce]

Would love to see it, but PS4 have different tech. So it difficult to implement it. PS2 has similar tech like PS4, so it easy to give PS2 games emulate to PS4

[Sillicur]

Exactly that, people should know about that before just screaming at Sony!

[XisThatKid]

besides why cannibalize an viable resource the PS3 is still being sold and developed for. I don't expect Sony to go back on their 10 year plan before dropping support on PS3. Unlike their competition, MS has very little value in the 360 as a hardware. Not saying that's va bad thing especially in their part. But people must understand that worldwide people still buy PS3s.
Personally BC isn't a major play in my book I bout my ps4 for ps4 games and remade PS3 games especially the ones that weren't too popular that should get ba second chance without its stigmas of last gen when released.

[saywat247]

well all the worthy ps3 games are being remastered for ps4 so i say we are kinda getting both :D

[miyamoto]

Like, "Leave the PS3 alone!"
Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Seriously PS3 is fine by what it is.

[kitsune451]

Oh god...here we go again.

Backwards compatibility is achieved either by having two systems with similar architectures or emulation. The Wii U easily achieved bc because it was essentially running a triple core version of the CPU found in the Wii. All they had to do was disable two cores. Nintendo purposefully made the Wii U this way to prioritize BC and thus performance was no where near as good as PS4/XBOne. It was being held back by a decades old CPU architecture (which itself was really just a slightly upgraded Gamecube CPU.)

Every generation of Xbox has a system very similar to PC, but the components are different. Unlike a PC however, Xbox games were designed solely to be used on a single hardware setup. Thus Microsoft needs to go into each game one by one and make sure they work properly with the new hardware. It's basically like creating a game that only works with Nvidia, then making it work with AMD. This is why we are only seeing a few games being released for BC on Xbox One with (hopefully) more to come as they get certified.

PS3 BC through architecture is nearly impossible. Sony created their own CPU which was notoriously difficult to code for. The idea of translating this to the new AMD setup is borderline insane. That's not even including the extra work going from Nvidia to AMD. Porting every game from scratch would probably be more realistic than this.

PS2 BC is possible through emulation. Like a high end PC, PS4 is capable of emulating and upscaling PS2 games easily. As of today however, even the highest end PCs can't even run a single PS3 game smoothly, so a $300 console is unlikely to achieve this any time soon. I suspect we will first see very, very high end PCs emulating PS3 games, then perhaps console emulation with PS5 or PS6.

Gaikai is Sony's only hope for backwards compatibility. The mistake they made with PS3's architecture still haunts them to this day. Let's not forget that the US Air Force actually purchased almost 2000 PS3's to create the world's fastest supercomputer (at that point in time). These are very powerful and complex machines.

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

Lol we are lucky that PS2 can even be emulated on PS4 but you expect PS3 to be a walk in the park? Unlike 360 to XB1, PS3 and PS4 have zero similarities on the software/hardware side of things.

But regardless of all the excuses I do like my PS1/PS2 more than my PS3.

Another thing is the fact you can actually play PS3 games in HD already on a PS3. But PS1/PS2 games are almost unplayable on the original consoles on a HDTV because of the extremely low resolution which this emulation seems to boost significantly which is why I'm looking forward to it. I haven't really played my PS2 much during the whole PS3 generation and I would really like to go back to the games I missed and even replay a few gems.

[Death]

It's amazing to see people regurgitate the same nonsense over and over. The 360's Xenon processor is PowerPC just like the Cell. This is straight from the Wiki on it, "The processor is based on IBM PowerPC instruction set architecture. It consists of three independent processor cores on a single die. These cores are slightly modified versions of the PPE in the Cell processor used on the PlayStation 3" https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

The Xbox One and PS4 APU's were both created by AMD and are x86 based. If both last gen consoles are PowerPC and this gen they are both x86 based, what exactly are you claiming is so different?

[uth11]

Ps2 being a 15 year old console shouldnt be too much of an issue for emulation. I've followed emulation for a long time and it always seemed like the system you want to emulate needed to be 8-10 years older than the system you are running the emulator on to get good results. More if it was a complex archecture with many coprocessors.

This is why I doubt we will ever see a ps3 emulator for ps4. It's why I'm also skeptical of how well MS's 360 emulator works for the more taxing games (I think it's no accident that the first list of 100 games for bc focuses mostly on loghter-weight titles for this reason)

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

@Death

It's funny that you think the Cell processor is the same as a PowerPC processor, I'm not going to go into details but they are most certainty not the same. The biggest issue with emulating the PS3 is the fact it is actually more powerful than the PS4 CPU which is a completely different situation compared to emulating Xbox 360 games on Xbox One. The XB1 CPU is actually several times more powerful than a X360.

Don't believe me check out this chart Ubisoft created:

http://goo.gl/Yokomo

Yeah I'm not so sure if this chart is combining the PS3/X360 GPU and CPU or strictly one or the other but it still shows a difference being in XB1's favor.

You are delusional if you think the Cell CPU is the same as a PowerPC CPU, go read the Wiki and learn something. Sony is distancing themselves away from the Cell CPU because it cost several times more money to manufacturer and it has a more complicated code base than PowerPC and X86 CPU's which is why the PS3 failed at launch.

[Death]

@Uth,

Gears of War 3, Gears of War Judgement, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Just Cause 2, Bioshock Ininite, and COD: Black Op's are light weight? What games do you consider demanding? Is there an agenda behind your posts claiming Xbox 360 b/c games are limited? Maybe you should try it so you don't have to wonder how well it works.

@Dr.

You seriously need to put the koolaid down if you think the PS3 processor is more powerful than the PS4 processor. If what you claim is true, why wouldn't Sony create the PS4 around it so the system could not only have more power, but have native b/c with PS3 games? That is some serious denial you are wielding.

[Dabigsiebowski]

@ death. Believe it or not the PS4 processor really isn't that strong at all. It's ample to supply the needs of development but the cell is literally right there with the 8core if not a little more. Both have different advantages.
Fact is most developers were capping out the old consoles due to the the lack of memory mostly and the GPU just couldn't squeeze anymore. No one ever complained about processing power, all you really heard about was how hard cell was to program for but it was never a slouch to begin with. The reason why they didn't go with cell this generation is obvious. The advantage of CPU and GPU on the same die eliminate certain bottlenecks and is a lot more efficient cost wise and power wise. Smart choice but I'm sure it was a bit of a tough one.

[kitsune451]

@Death If you had kept reading the EXACT same wiki you posted, it would go on to say that the Xbox uses 3 PPEs and the PS3 uses 1 PPE and 8 SPEs. Congratulations, you found a correlation between one out of nine units.

[freshslicepizza]

it can be done though, that is the point.

[MRMagoo123]

Maybe you can help Sony implement it then huh since you know it can be done lol

[FarEastOrient]

With all your experience, show them what they are missing.

[_-EDMIX-_]

like on PC right bro? /s

[freshslicepizza]

they managed to get ps2 games to run on the ps3

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

perhaps some of you should read this. the ps3 was completely different than the ps2 as well.

[joeorc]

@moldybread + 34m ago
it can be done though, that is the point.

Umm, I would not be so sure of that, there is a few caveat's that to be frank, make it not only unlikely to work without recoding the majority of the spur's engine optimization code, that I really doubt 1) for performance, 2) its very unlikely if you could do such to get past that code sweep, that you than have 2 more problems in cross loop in simulation of the PS3's EIB ring token bus , direct talk to iO to command a DMA.

Not saying its impossible completely out of the question. But its very unlikely at this point.

There are other points past this to allow the emulation to take hold on performance even though the PS4 has spurs engine support on the PS4's GPU also, its just unlikely will be able to be able to handle direct code of spurs emu code fast enough, due to the way the SPE's design choice in how it direct the code through a token ring EIB, simulation of that code direction is not as 1:1 it would need to allow such performance hits to be able to do so on the PS4 soc without such performance hits, that the recode needed is pretty much really the most cost effective way to do such.

So you are correct that its feasible, its just very unlikely to be feasible to do so. If your going to have to recode its more cost effective to stream or recode from core to the x86, so remaster or than you also than have to deal with the license of iP's on top of this.

[Dabigsiebowski]

Please quit being one of these people.

[ShadowWolf712]

Dude, the PS3 emulated PS2 games through additional internal hardware (Emotion Engine) that drove up costs. Therein lies the difference.

PS4s don't have internal hardware made to process PS3 games.

[bmf7364]

It's simply too difficult to emulate the CELL CPU, and the PS3's Nvidia GPU, given how the PS4 runs with a mid-tier AMD APU.

The reason why the X360 could be emulated on X1 is because the X360 already ran on an IBM/ATI(AMD) architect, which would not be difficult to emulate given how close to a PC both systems are.

Sony's solution for the PS3 is Playstation Now. In short term, it gives access to the PS3's library through a Netflix-like service, which would also serve them in the long-term if they choose to transition away from consoles and into the service.

[Death]

I'm impressed you know that Xbox 360's Xenon processor is an IBM design. I'm disappointed you don't realize "Cell" was made by the same company. Both Xenon and Cell are PowerPC based processors which are IBM designs.

The Xbox One and PS4 are indeed x86 based APU's with AMD graphics. I wouldn't get too caught up on the nVidea to AMD change since the 360 emulated nVidea graphics from the original Xbox just fine.

You are correct about PSNow. Emulating the PS3 and allowing gamers to access their games for free would undermine their subscription service. As long as fans keep claiming b/c isn't possible Sony doesn't need to even try.

[Aenea]

@Death

Again, yes, both the 360 and PS3 have a PowerPC based CPU in there, except the 360 has 3 cores, the PS3 has only 1. That core would be doable to emulate on the PS4, the problem lies in the 8 SPEs (which the 360 does not have) that are going to be very difficult to emulate on the hardware in the PS4...

[Spotie]

Death, either go into detail on why they're different, or don't bring up the differences as a point in your favor.

Even if they had the same base, the Cell doesn't work like processors in any other console. That means it's not as to emulate as you want others to think.

Edit: I mean hell. Devs were having a hard enough time porting games over adequately from the 360, which you claim was more similar than commonly thought. Yet now, with still different architecture, you imply it's just that simple? Why, then, are there no GOOD emulators out there that work for all PS3 games?

[player911]

Because these are emulators. The PS4 isn't powerful enough to emulate a PS3.

[Fro_xoxo]

some form of backward comp' is better than none. #Options

[Sillicur]

Definitely is, fully agreed!

[MRMagoo123]

Doesn't bother me at all. If it's there it's the same to me as if it wasn't. I have a ps1 and Ps2 hooked up to an old school crt for when I wanna play them along with a megadrive and a snes.

Other ppl may feel differently it's just my opinion.

[player911]

It is not backwards compatible. This is a Shop to make more money. Like a WiiShop. Thats nothing but emulators too. They want to sell you games you already own. Backwards compatibility means "compatible", not emulated, as in plays natively.

I am sick of paying for the same game over and over and over. You know how many times I bought Mario, Zelda, and Final Fantasy titles?

Fortunately I skipped a PS2, but consoles should improve upon their foundations, not clean slate every gen. 1 game should play across a PS3 and PS4, but with improved graphics. Texture packs can be downloaded on install depending on your system. Easy. I am tired of being raped.

[Malice-Flare]

blame Kutaragi for over-engineering the CELL processor...

[nitus10]

Why would you want to do that.

The CELL is quite an elegant design however for years the Intel architecture has dominated the PC gaming industry and that is what developers prefer and for some they did not really want to learn something new.

I am well aware that the popular opinion of the CELL was that it hard to develop for which was not true, however it was different and required developers to approach a solution in a different way.

In any professional engineering and scientific environment you get people who look at something new as a challenge and are willing to learn as well as those who just don't want change because it means re-learning.

[AstroCyborg]

because sony is having to much fun robbing people with psnow

[sactownlawyer916]

Here is the legal definition of robbery since you obviously don't know what it means.

The taking of money or goods in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, by force or intimidation.

[TKCMuzzer]

Why don't people like you think before you post a comment? How on earth can you be robbed when paying for PSNow is an option? It's a streaming service, they are NOT asking you to buy any games again, if you sold your old games and consoles that was YOUR choice, Sony did not ask you to do so.

Please, go beat a different drum...

[Eiyuuou]

No. You choose to give them your money. Or you choose not to.

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

I don't see it as overpriced considering you could finish the whole PS3 collection within a 3 month subscription. The prices you are wanting would basically mean they are giving them to you for free which is not something any business would do.

[Death]

Please define "whole PS3 collection".

There are just over 400 rentals on the service, https://www.playstation.com... with just over 250 of those available in the subscription service https://www.playstation.com... of the more than 1000 games released on disc https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... and also the ones available by download only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

[gamejediben]

The PS3 was even more complicated than the Sega Saturn and even now in 2015, there is no fully functioning Saturn emulator.

Maybe in 2025 we'll get PS3 emulation.

[Death]

SSF has been doing it since 2009.

[gamejediben]

SSF and Yabause are VERY FAR from fully functioning. They can only play certain Saturn games and even those it can play are far from accurate.

[uth11]

Probably because ps4 could not run a ps3 emulator at an acceptable speed? There aren't even any good ps3 emulators on PC and the most promising ones need a pretty powerful system manager

People act like Sony could just flip a switch or wave their hand and make it happen

[Dabigsiebowski]

These articles are part of the ugliness in the industry. Find something to complain about every time once a new feature is announced that they really didn't have to do. I guess people would rather whine and moan about things they aren't educated about, and really it just makes them look like an idiot. There isn't a PC in the world that can fully emulate a ps3 let alone try to enhance it which would be something fools would also complain about. I just sit back and laugh at the ignorance of stupidity sometimes.

[Realms]

Very good observation they are just click bait articles that are written to further flame the fanboy war. The constant need for clicks is what drives them to continue this perpetual cycle of negativity that never ends.

[Relientk77]

PS3 is really difficult tech.

If we get both PS2 and PS1 backwards compatibility that would be sick

[Shazz]

i really hope they dont try charge us for ps1 and 2 games through ps now , i still have like 40 ps2 games boxed

[ChronicPsycho]

Ah so now there is a new issue.

First it was no BC on ps4, and now when we are getting BC, the issue is why ps2, why not ps3. Cute.

[asadachi]

I'm confused, isn't the PS3 already backwards compatible? Why would it need to emulate?

[nitus10]

All PS3's can read and play PS1 game disks (ie. CD) to nearly 100%. They can even smooth and scale those games however on a large screen HDTV the presentation of those games can look fairly grainy although that depends on the game.

It is only the first release PS3's that could play PS2 games. In NTSC regions PS2 backwards compatibility was done by full hardware emulation (basically a full PS2) while in PAL regions PS2 backwards compatibility was done by hardware and software emulation which could only play properly up to 90% of PS2 games.

Like PS1 games the PS2 games could be up-scaled and smoothed and unlike PS1 games can look quite good on a large screen HDTV. Think an up-scaled DVD.

Obviously you can tell the difference between an up-scaled PS2 game compared to a native PS3 game however the display of a PS2 game is much more acceptable than a PS1 game.

[JasonKCK]

Because PS3 games are still being sold, resold in some cases.

[Malokii]

I dont know, but for me, people who want to play PS2 games can play on PS2, because if you want to play games from old days you also want to feel the old days, so for me playing ps2 games on ps4 it just not it, and also this creepy "hd" graphic on old games, brrrr i dont like it.

[ShadowWolf712]

Upscaled, anti-aliasing, running at 60fps... how is that bad?

[Malokii]

Its good of course, but on new games, please dont kill "old games" spirit.

[nitus10]

I would say that many PS1 and PS2 machines are pretty much end of life and you would be hard pressed to get one much less get it repaired.

Because most games are either on CD or DVD this media is very easy to damage which will render them useless. People who still have playable disks normally take care of them and do like to replay them on occasion.

I do have a BC PS3 and PS2 games even on my 55" HDTV look quite nice (think up-scaled DVD) although you definitely can pick the difference between a PS2 and PS3 game.

[Artemidorus]

Blame the CELL tech for Playstation 3. Best off asking for a remaster if popular.

[joeorc]

The power PC core processor of the CellBE is not the issue, the SPE's & the token Ring EIB connection BUS IN THE PS3 is with its direct DMA not just to memory but how it transfers code to iO through the EIB!

There is no EIB in standard RISC based powerPC processing, that and its added 2nd Bus on the EIB is or cannot be looked at the same way as what Microsoft's doing with its own power PC chip inside the xbox360.

Now for many that do not know , is that the PS4 does contain SPURs, like the PS3 did, but its not the same SPE type that Sony employed inside the PS3.

The main problem is simulation of SPE's for the most part is not feasible to simulacrum the PS3's SPE processor core.

Dr. Hoffstee went over this point extensively when white papers came out on what an SPE is. The SPE is a full processing core in of itself, its based to accelerate GPU extended functionality directly on the CPU stack out side of transmission instructions to the GPU, dynamics physics , lighting etc.

The point is the PS4 CPU does not contain such GPU accelerated Hybrid CPGPU cores exactly like the CellCBE has, it has hybrid designs along the same idea or thinking in certain ways, but is not designed to duplicate such functionality.

Now inside the SOC stack in the AMD GPU Sony did indeed duplicate, some design methodologies "like" the CellCBE in the way it moves data instructions being multicore design like all GPU's are anyway. But again its not any where close to a full on duplication of said hardware. Can it mimic some or same functionality?

Sure, would that be conducive to the compute environment? Not really most of the time, no but certain situations ..maybe, but Gains may be outweighed by the hit to the overhead in performance hits.

[johndoe11211]

Death is going to completely ignore your post and continue with his irrelevant, uninformed campaign to paint sony in a bad light for not trying to emulate ps3 games. It's as if that guy is being paid by Microsoft or something to spread FUD about Sony.

[nitus10]

But, but we all know how Microsoft invented the wheel and helped save the world from that Communistic bit of software called Linux. You mean to tell me that was lies ... I am shocked! :-)

[JasonKCK]

Every PS3 remaster ported to the PS4 requires emulation. They are not being built from the ground up, they are ported. The emulation was created for the first port Sony made, then just copied for all the others. Did you think they just created a new one each time?

There is no PS3 BC on PS4 because of money money money. It is truly that simple.

[dillhole]

Because PS3 still sells a few thousand per week

[dillhole]

Well disagree all you like but it does. Sony has a 10 year plan and it's still running.

[zombie78rock]

It's because they are still selling PS3 and making money of of it. so why would they give you a FREE Emulator when they can charge you for it. it's called business.

[UserNameIsNotTaken]

Because we already have every ps3 game remastered already lol its true.. just a few left.
Ps2 is way more important for me.

[skratchy]

Are people completely oblivious to what PlayStation Now is?

[Azzanation]

While BC is nice, PS1 and PS2 eras is a waste. Most gamers pirated there games and most of the games weren't anything great either. I have over 100 PS1 and PS2 games sitting in a chest at home, and only 10 are probably worth playing while the rest is trash.

[MannGamer]

I hope whatever classic PS2 game I have already bought on the PS3 are available for free for me when this launch.

[neomahi]

You're upset because your ignorant. Everyone knows the PS4 CANNOT play PS3 games because of the complexity of the PS3's Cell Processor. The PS3 was and still is NOT a PC. The PS4 pretty much is. You're therefore wasting your time and causing yourself immense stress that you don't need thinking about it. Let it go. It's NEVER going to happen.

[joeorc]

Again I guess I will have to go further in depth to explain why exactly a Emulation of the PS3 is not only unlikely to work on the PS4, its would not be able to brute force the speed required to simulacrum how the SPE that is needs to be able to simulate the not only the EIB, but the Simulation of a SPE's Internal Local Memory to mimic the Local Store DMA of a Cell SPE without SPE processing going to undoubtedly Stall!

Not to mention DMA though a SPE to EIB simulation and again Not Stall.

This is not about the Money lost if Sony did this, the problem is its d@mn near impossible to in effect mimic the EIB of the PS3 on a PS4 without it going to stall because it does not have the bandwith needed or required let alone the clock speed of the SPE required to shift the DMA through the PS4's own GPU to simulate that Process to & from a simulation of a EIB ring token Bus.

That PS3 EIB token Bus has a 209 GB/sec peak bandwidth/each SPE is running @ 3.2 GHz with
256 KB of Local store Memory!

That's not cache, that local store memory acts as a SPE's system ram.

In an emulator where would you inject your code to shift that Emulation of not only a EIB, but an SPE Local store..to PS4 system ram to loop ? Try again that's not going to work..emulation. Boot to System Ram to local HD to by pass the ..nope again you have to be able to simulate the EIB to SPE transfer to iO and do this by having the PS4 simulate the EIB' 204 GB/s ring token Memory Bus controller and @/the same time simulate the PS3 Cell BE SPE processor which has itself 256KB of local store memory that is again not cashe its ram and that SPE is clocked @ 3.2 GHz pee SPE! And there is 6 of them and the 7th would also have to be simulated.

There are 6 of them, that could be used for game developers use that's equivalent to 1.5 MB of system Ram that would need to be duplicated with a speed @ 3.2 GHz per each SPE that operating independently from the powerPC main Core that is also running clocked @ 3.2 GHz with 512 KB cache and.

Top it off the PS4 would than have to simulate the SPE security vault that is also running @3.2 GHz that Sony PS3 games used for authentication of the SPE pass through of PS3 compliance code through the SPE vaults security Sim.

Now if you can find away around such problems of the bandwidth, the simulation of each SPE clock speed & simulation of its local store system ram/ & than the SPE security vault..than I am sure Sony would be quite interested to hear you out.