The PS1 Emulation On PS4 & PS5 Is Seriously Underrated

PlayStation Plus Premium has had its share of critics. Sony’s 2022 response to Game Pass landed hollow on its launch, with most of the complaints centered around the library (or lack thereof). Unfortunately, the black eye that the sparse library gave fans made it hard for them to see the things that Sony did right with the service, one of which is the PS4 & PS5’s emulation of classic PS1 titles.

[rippermcrip]

Lack of library? There are a shit ton more games on there than GP.

The only things GP wins on is first party day 1 releases.

[matt139]

I don't think it's really comparable, gp is leagues ahead in terms of quality titles.

[shinoff2183]

The revamped ps plus has been since September.

[andy85]

No it isn't 😂😂

[AsunaYuukiTheFlash]

Quality and Xbox can't be mention in the same sentence /smh

[TheEnigma313]

Nah

[YourMommySpoils]

Don't make me laugh with your gp.

[JackBNimble]

Extra and premium have a shit ton of shovel wear, and little quality or I would be subbing .
More dosen't mean better.

To be honest, GP could be complete garbage too , I don't know since I don't own an xbox and I only game on playstation.

[MadLad]

I have more classic PlayStation games on my Series S than Sony does on their PS5, and it's not locked behind a monthly paywall.

[DickyD1226]

It's not? You can outright purchase classics other than ps3.

[babadivad]

It's underrated on Xbox too.

[SonyStyled]

It is? I swear a couple years ago Xbox’s partial bc program was making waves on here and it was the big thing to compliment the gamepass news, but maybe attention has shifted to Zemimax/ActBlizz now.

Why would you say it’s underrated, or do you mean it’s not widely used?

[babadivad]

@SonyStyled
I'm taking about Playstation emulation on Xbox.

[DarXyde]

Aren't they cracking down on emulation?

[FallenAngel1984]

The author was specifically talking about PlayStation Plus Premium, not just the entire service as a whole

[Profchaos]

Article is talking about PS1 games specifically not the entire library.

As someone who paid for the top teir I am pretty underwhelmed so much more should have been done given how far advanced community emulators which are open source like duckstation.

[IMissJimRyan]

For an official emulator it's fine. But compared to emulators on PC it's still decades behind.

[mastershredder]

Lol no. A big proprietary wrapper and licensing no.

kids….

[MadLad]

You're getting disagrees for just being real. This article is literally making a giant deal out of save states. Simple save states lol.
You can fully revamp and extend games via emulation with the dropping of a couple files. Host online multiplayer for games that never had it.

Two entirely different ball games.

[Terry_B]

The people who disagreed to your comment probably never played a PS1 game via an PSX Emulator like Epsxe. Or don't know about the many technical features it has.

[Deathdeliverer]

I really don’t understand the bad press PlayStation gets for its gamespass equivalent. It’s far cheaper, has a ton of games and classics are regularly added to, which is a far bigger legacy collection than Microsoft could ever have. There isn’t really a legacy outside of early Halo, Gears, so on. You could argue crimson skies (amazing back then) and Phantom Dust, but those games got zero support from Microsoft, especially the latter. But Xbox gamers just didn’t appreciate how Bad Azz that game was. Day one releases, Gamespass all day. Everything else AND if you’re old enough to care about PS3 and earlier, PlayStation wins.

[jjb1981]

I agree with this. The PS classic catalog is robust.

[JackBNimble]

Excluding the ps3 games of course.
And to clarify I'm talking about emulating ps3 games not streaming or having ps3 BC.

Ps3 BC should be top priority in my opinion

[Unknown_Gamer5794]

The bad press is because it’s Sony’s service, and not MS’s, as the cringe games media seems to love everything MS does, and have a special disdain for everything Sony does. Obviously unbiased sources are difficult to come by these days, but Sony manages to stay on top regardless.

[MadLad]

Do you guys really believe that crap? All I ever see is positive press for Sony. Their games. Their sales.
The moment an outlier falls through the cracks, or people do actually have a bit of criticism towards something Sony related, all of a sudden the entire industry is out to get them at every turn.

[babadivad]

The Sony persecution complex you guys have is getting ridiculous. I remember an IGN game journalists say on camera that he hates Xbox (this was during the X1 PS4 era). They were talking about Sony and Xbox game presentations. He got zero push-back from his panel of co-host either. The just laughed and kept going.

I'm not going to argue there's an anti-Xbox conspiracy but no media would be so bold as to show such open bias against Sony.

Sony is the market leader so they give them more slack when they mess up. Because if they don't, Sony won't give them early review copies of their games and drive traffic to their sites.

Look how long it took for major reviewers to give a review on the broken state of Last of Us PC. They are just now trickling in. They waited until some patches came because they didn't want to embarrass and anger Sony.

The reason being, Sony is the market leader. They aren't persecuted.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

PS fans really talked themselves into believing there's an anti-Sony conspiracy, that's absolutely amazing.

You must not have been here long to think that, this entire site has been pro-Sony since I've been here back in 2008.

[Deathdeliverer]

To all the upset people, I didn’t say Sony as a whole is hated on. Can’t speak for everyone else. Their SUBSCRIPTION service gets negative articles. Often. That’s a fact. Other areas of PlayStation get good publicity because it’s kicking butt. You might see an article here or there about PlayStation NEEDING something but they are usually click bait. Microsoft is crapping the bed in several ways so they are getting bad press. At the same time people will still turn it into a positive for Microsoft like gamespass simply negates all the bad or it cannot be completed with. Like I said, as far as new games that’s correct. For everything else AND if you’re old enough to appreciate the classics, PlayStation has the better service in my opinion.

[generic-user-name]

@babadivad

Quick to forget G4's Froskin (or whatever her name is) and how freely she stated "PS5 has no games, it's dead on arrival, Xbox will destroy it" (or something along those lines. Her co-hosts simply laughed.

[sadraiden]

Different subset of gamers primarily use Playstation vs Xbox. Playstation users are more likely to buy physical copies of games, hence digital only service won't be seen as favorably as it is on Xbox, where the entire point is to own nothing and stream CoD and Fifa all day long.

[senorfartcushion]

As someone who has plus essentials-only, is there input lag?

[Deathdeliverer]

If you’re streaming a game that depends on your connection. If you’re streaming a game AND playing online like I did with SF3 then it’s an even bigger test on your speed. I have GB up and down so I had zero issues. Even playing KOF 13 through streaming I was able to pull off combo trials. YouTube KOF combo trials to see what kind of testament that is.

[Smitty2020]

I expected a lot more from the retro library that’s why I downgraded

[MadLad]

Having save states isn't that big of a deal. It's standard expectation from an emulator. It's cool that they finally have some BC on Playstation again, but it's pretty base level and barebone.
Again, cool that it's there, but they aren't really going out of their way in what it offers.

[thesoftware730]

It's serviceable, and not a big deal to me. To be honest I don't go back and finish any of the classics, I try them get my nostalgia fix, show my kids my younger years games, and move back to more modern games.

Sony BC was never bad, just not as much of a push that MS did. I honestly like PS+ now, the fact that they have moved closer to the GP like model, they are showing more effort than when it was PSNow, which I subbed and never went back after it expired.

In other words, I don't find it a big deal.

[anast]

They have a big library and PS + is now better than Game Pass.

[thesoftware730]

Only in your dreams.

Ask Sony, they plainly said that the PS+ service can't compete with GP...

You should email Sony the FTC and CMA, and tell them that you think Sony lied and PS+ is clearly better, clear up any misconceptions for the FTC and the CMA.

[gold_drake]

underrated .. the rewind feature is pretty neat. but i had multiple crashes while doing so or simply playing the games.
there is definitely room for improvement

[Hofstaderman]

Me reading this comment thread looking at my PSone hooked to my CRT.

[SonyStyled]

You can play your ps1 discs on your ps3 if that’s more convenient. That’s what I do to save shelf space

[Hofstaderman]

Got my megadrive and Dreamcast on there too. PS3 is packed away as most most of the games I play on there were released as remasters for PS4 with the exception of MGS4.

[Terry_B]

Nothing beats EPSXE still when it comes to PS1 emulation.

[Dwarrior]

Does it have PGXP? Is it doing 16x?

Making a big deal about sstates? Lol.

[ufo8mycat]

The PS1 emulators you can get are far superior on PC. Not to mention they make the games look better.

[sadraiden]

Underrated? How so? A Raspberry Pi 3b+ (and probably earlier models too) can emulate essentially every single last PS1 game at full speed. People are emulating Switch and PS3 currently, which I would be surprised if the PS5 couldn't emulate those. PS4 should be able to handily emulate everything up to gamecube/ps2/og xbox.