Will games like GT4 run as well on a PS3 without the Emotion Engine, if at all? We can only hope...
Sony's Phil Harrison has said that he expects over 1,000 PlayStation 2 titles to work on the European PlayStation 3 through software emulation.
When Harrison was questioned about which of the ~1,500 PS2 titles would work on PS2, he said that
he couldn't give information on individual titles, but the aim would be to cover all of the big PS2 titles.
This whole debacle has come about because of Sony's announcement detailing the hardware specifications for the European PS3. One thing missing from the list of specifications was the Emotion Engine, which
is currently used to 'emulate' PS2 games (it's the PS2 graphics chip, so it's hardly a complete emulation).
This was done in a bid to cut costs. What the company forgot though, is the fact that European customers have to pay
a £125 price premium for a product with fewer features. To rub more salt into the wound, Harrison now claims that the Emotion Engine inside US and Japanese PlayStation 3s is a 'custom component'.
Having over 1,000 PS2 games supposedly working on PS3 without the Emotion Engine is great, but when the company used PS3's "awesome backwards compatibility" as a piece of PR against Microsoft's Xbox 360, you can't help but feel a little cheated when you're only going to get around two thirds of the promised backwards compatibility. The other thing that he hasn't detailed is whether or not this so-called 'custom component' is going to be removed from the US and Japanese units.
When is Sony going to stop pissing all over its European customers? Place your bets
in the forums.
38 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyJust what I was thinking, marketing BS. Why do Sony think it's ok to blatantly rip off customers with their sub-standard over priced george foreman grill lookalike plastic box. I never thought a company could make a product that I so strongly didn't want to buy. This is supposed to be a must have uber fantastic bit of technology that I dream of owning but I'd rather buy unnecessary dental surgery.
1,000 titles?! Yeah, maybe by 2010...
Never - why would they?? There's no laws to say they can't charge more, there's no govt body (that I'm aware of) to stand up and defend our rights to fair pricing. It's always *assumed* that because we're the UK (and Europe), we always have to pay more.
Sony, M$, car manufacturers... anyone and everyone will charge more here than elsewhere because they know they can get away with it. <shrug>
I hope Sony fall flat on their face, nintendo wii for mii! hell il even buy an x-box now.
* = Sony wanted there debug PS3 back and were "de-inviting" them from all future sony events.
** = That Sony are working on a copy of nintendo's mii's etc called "PS3 Home".
Also seems like a nice round number, I imagine they thought compatibility has to be less than 98%, but more than half of the 2500 titles to make people interested still, I reckon they just made it up
or they put both the chips in the PS3 (id put my money on this option)
I feel sorry for you guys...as long as you feel sorry for me having to live under G.W. Bush ...
Regarding the cars... I don't know if you realize how much higher the build quality of European vehicles actually are. I would take a european built (or at the very least -engineered) vehicle over any of the shite we shodilly produce here
Sony have turned what could have been a spectacularly successful machine into a shameful demonstration of corporate greed.
That may be true, but it's twisting the knife a bit when you can buy a German made Mercedes from the US for less (including trans-atlantic shipping) than you can buy the same car shipped from Germany to the UK. I suppose volume discounts and all that come into play, but still.
Thats exactly the point it does..
..Just not in europe
And as for the 360, it does emulation, albeit in software, but Microsoft never said anything about hardware emulation. A bigger hard drive doesn't cost that much money, especially when you can buy a 200Gb hard drive at retail for less than £50. LIkewise, replacing the DVD drive with an HD DVD drive wouldn't considerably increase the cost of the machine.
Bottom line, Sony is acting arrogantly towards European consumers, and we don't like it. Does that make us babies?
Although, does the 360 takes 3.5" drives or 2.5" drives ?
And yes, getting a worse performing machine for more money is just ridiculous, Sony thinks its European customers are idiots, and treats them like such - and i think i speak for most people - WE DONT LIKE IT
Just because we are in Europe doesn't mean were all idiots and know nothing about Computers, whatever Sony might think
Why not just import a PS3 from the states right now, pay less and get better functionality ?
Sony saying imports damage [insert ******** here] is just a way for them to stop imports and then screw us
I know Microsoft never said anything about emulation. I was just speculating about how much it would have increased the price of the 360 on it's debut. Also, a 20GB add-on HD for the 360 is $99 on Newegg, and an HD-DVD add-on is $199. Not so cheap now is it? And yes you guys are all babies for crying about how much it costs and how it's lower specced than the US and Japan. How is it any slower when you take out the Hardware-based emulator and replace it with a software? It still has the Cell processor right? and it can still run native 1080p right? And who knows, maybe it will be able upscale regular DVD's in the near future... Secondly, how high are the tariffs there in Europe and the UK? Are they playing into the price or is it just "pure greed" like you are saying? And just like I said before, if you want Sony to burn, then just don't buy their stuff. Simple as that because they sure aren't feeling obliged to losing money on their new console just to make you happy. I still agree the price is too high, so just let the people with the money buy them and then once the price drops to your level, buy it.
Current amazon.co.jp price for 60Gb PS3 59,980 yen
Rough conversion to GBP = £270, 17.5% = £47.25 total price is approx £317
Current amazon.co.uk price £424.99
omg you're just as ignorant as the other guy. I never said that I thought it was slower than the PS2. He said and I quote "we're being forced to pay a premium price for what is effectively now a lower specced machine than you can buy for less in the US or Japan". I understand the reason for calling it lower specced due to the emulation now being software-based, but to call it "effectively lower specced" is a little too far. That's why I was asking those questions to reinforce that there is, when it all comes down to it, nothing really lacking in the PS3 that actually matters; atleast not to the 90% of all future PS3 owners unlike yourself. And for the upscaling... Aren't you happy that they are adding the feature? I mean now you're just talking it down even more which makes absolutely no sense, unless you've just hated it from the get-go. I can tell you, from having seen the PS3 and played it, it is worth the money to the people that actually care and not to the people who don't want to spend the money. So why don't you keep playing your PS2, because there are still new games coming out as we speak and wait until the PS3 drops into your budget.
US PS3 plays 100% of available PS2 games
UK PS3 plays 67% of available PS2 games
OK so it may not make a big difference to people who are just buying the PS3 for it being a PS3, but many people do like to move their collections over
With the 360 it wasn't that big a deal, i mean how many games were there available at the time for the xbox, now the PS3 has a backlog of PS2 and PS1 games, probably coming up for many thousands of games
At that rate, if only 2/3 games play, that leaves (assuming there are only 3k games) 1k games that wont play, and someone is bound to bump into that, and wouldn't you be pissed if your very expensive PS3 wont actually fulfil its backwards compatibility promise
Or that you could have gone to the US and pays less and it would have worked ?
Anyway this discussion is quite fruitless, the PS3 is what it is, and Costs what it costs, and for most people the combination is just downright wrong
Also sony will be saving $27~ on each console due to having no hardware emulation, so why aren't those saving being passed on to us.
We're already paying more than the rest of the world (and the difference, as discussed in other threads, cannot be justified with taxes and import duties), and now Sony have the gall to tell us that we'll be having a cut-down version of the console, even though we're paying more.
Oh, and I don't take kindly to being called ignorant. Care to tell me the difference between "lower specced" and "effectively lower specced"?
"Effectively" can mean whatever you want it to when you put it in context. I took it the wrong way, of course, so I'm sorry. Secondly, there has to be a reason why the PS3's more expensive there. I don't know what the reason is, maybe it's taxes/tariffs/whatever, but either way, people who have the money will pay for it upfront, just like people did here in the US for $800-2000. I, myself, am waiting until it hits the $400 range, and more titles hit the shelves. Now if I were you, I would wait until it's been out for a good few months, and then if it's still in the "omg" price range then start getting mad. I think the price will drop with time, just like the PS2 did. Lastly, Sony needs to stay afloat or the next Xbox720 or whatever you wanna call it sure as hell won't be as good as we will come to expect.
We get it later, we pay more and we get less, Sony are really just not getting the point, and when the rest of the Europeans catch on, i bet Sony is going to plummet
still waiting on that link....... don't speak too quickly now, and secondly there's still B.C. that should include every major game released (or atleast the ones that are actually worth playing more than once), so what are you saying about Sony not living up to the B.C. that they promised beforehand? The B.C. is still there.
randosome...c'mon... Sony wouldn't be in business today if they just wanted to screw everyone on their products and make bookoos of profit. Now the PS3 may not be meant for you right now due to it's price... so big deal wait like the rest of us normal middle-class citizens who spend their money wisely, and get it when you can afford it and when it's actually worth buying.... sound good?
^^ Was the actual comment from ken katuragi, though I cant find the original interview now because every other site under the sun seems to be using the quote in there commentry on the chip now being removed.
Anyway by there own logic they have chosen to stop investing and have issues ? :)
It all works for me though, anything that drops the price of PS2's and games increases the odds I'l actually buy a second hand one sometime ;)
Last thing while I'm rambling : If I come across as a sony hater I can only apologize, its not my intent - its just that they make me laugh with the arrogant P.R. they've managed over the last year or so that keeps coming back to bite them in the bum and I can't seem to help myself from commenting on it now and then.
First, you are a stereotypical Sony fanboy. You have to resort to complaining to present you point.
The fact remains still that Sony is forcing Blue-Ray onto consumers who have absolutely no need for it. The only people who benefit are those who have a 1080p TV, and that's not many people.
And about the Hard Drive. I have an Xbox 360, and I have a bunch of game demo's (which is really all you need the HDD for), and its not even half full. Don't even say that the HDD is for media, because it's not...use streaming.
First off, I'm not a stereotypical Sony fanboy. To be completely honest with you. I've never owned a PS2, but I did own a PS1 with a mod chip. I do not own a PS3 and more than likely I will never own one since I'm getting ready to spend all of my "fun money" on a new gaming rig.
Secondly, buying a PS3 will ensure that you have a piece of hardware that will last you for a good few years, and that's even with all of the crazy things happening right now, hints HDTV. Now of course a person like yourself, with let's say a Tube TV, will not like the idea of paying for something that's not meant for you (hints the Blu-Ray), but someone like myself who owns a projector that can display 720p and 1080i will of course want to get his hands on it as soon as his pocketbook says. So like I said before in my other statement, wait for it to fall into your price range, or maybe until you upgrade to that new TV, or maybe when there's actually a selection of games, and then buy it at a price YOU feel it's worth. Again, sound good?
Oh and by the way, the HD can be used for more than just game demos; it can be used for movies, patches/firmware, music and offloading textures and other things for games (which is why Oblivion looks so much sharper than 360; if you don't believe me then go here: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/theelderscrollsivoblivion/news.html?sid=6165505&om_act=convert&om_clk=mostpop. Peace.