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Why do Sony struggle with backwards compatibility?

HTK

Banned
I don't think it's a technical thing at all, I think it's a small minority that actually uses backwards compatibility and in the grand scheme of things, most don't care. Personally I could care less about backwards compatibility and I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I just think they don't think it's a big deal and I don't believe it's because they can't figure it out.
 

YCoCg

Member
People don't want to admit Sony dropped the ball hard in this area and thus come up with fanboy like excuses. They've made a lot of strange choices, PS2 on PS4 was going to be big before Sony forced in the trophy requirements meaning a lot of work had to be done just to get that old code working with the new bs requirements imposed. And then there's the fact they never updated the emulator for the PS4 Pro. PS1 games can be emulated but again, they chose to do nothing with it. If the PS5 can handle what the PS4 can then it can at least play PS1 and PS2 games via emulation, you'd think they would push that properly but frustratingly they bitch the options.

The PS3 could perfectly emulate PSP games but Sony did nothing with that.
 

NeoGiffer

Member
If you dont like them, dont post in them.

tenor.gif
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
You want to compare BC performance of MS and Sony?
How about enhancements such as resolution? How about adding HDR to old games that didn't have it?
Its a none contest. And if you read my post, you would have seen where I also brought up how the changes to the design of the XOX including RAM didnt matter.
You are comparing recent BC offerings of MS with a machine that doesn't offer BC?
Let's actually compare it with a Machine with BC as we're judging backwards Compatibility from both companies
Xbox One X BC vs PS2 BC
So about 600 standard BC games on Xbox One?
And a handful that are enhanced for Xbox One X
All those are the work of several years of updates
vs
7759 games with enhanced graphics and faster loading available day one
I still say Sony dropped the ball here with PS4 but MS has got long way to go too
Quality of BC is fantastic but what's available is poor
 
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thelastword

Banned
OP, tbh it's simple. Sony did a survey and realized that people rarely use BC vs playing newer games. It's a nice feature for sure, which Sony paid extra cash and invested in more silicon to deliver to PS gamers twice in a row on PS2 and PS3, but at the time when they had to revise their PS3 plans from the 60GB fat console, they did surveys as to case by case uses. Do people really play old games, did they really want an other OS or SACD. Sony is all about giving gamers the best, the most cutting edge tech and being the nice guy, but when they were on the ropes with PS3 with a $600 system which was the butt of many jokes from XBOX fans like "George Forman Grill", "The Amirox nervous breakdown", they had to dig deep and be more careful going forward.

They devised the slim which slimmed down on BC a bit and a few other features and realized that gamers just want a fast system at launch that can give them the best looking next gen games possible.......No TV TV bs, no high focus on extras. In essence make sure gamers can see some real next gen games and most importantly, that it's affordable to them.........It's why their PS4 was both cutting edge with 8GB of GDDR5 and a bonafied 1080p system with 32 ROPS in 2013, but moreso gamers got that at $399. Sony did it's homework as it did several surveys during the PS3 era, apart from the BC one, they did one on pricepoints and realized that price is very important to the consumer....All these lessons they were taught from PS3..........

I can tell you regardless, Sony is the good guy of the industry, because had PS4 been on an advanced Cell CPU, PS4 would have had full BC with PS3 regardless of the survey, but there's no way the jaguar can emulate Cell when very fast and expensive Intel processors have had trouble doing it....Yet we know Sony will deliver a feature if it's possible, that's why there will be PS4 BC on PS5 as a guarantee......


But yet the general question of why? .....And truth be told, I wont even use the Sony Survey stats to show.....I'll use the very company you believe is ace at BC, thinking that they are doing it and touting it's horn because there is huge demand and constant playthroughs of old games? There.......


XBox-One-BC.jpg



They are only using it because Sony did not invest in BC this gen because of hardware conflicts, not because there's huge demand.........
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
OP, tbh it's simple. Sony did a survey and realized that people rarely use BC vs playing newer games. It's a nice feature for sure, which Sony paid extra cash and invested in more silicon to deliver to PS gamers twice in a row on PS2 and PS3, but at the time when they had to revise their PS3 plans from the 60GB fat console, they did surveys as to case by case uses. Do people really play old games, did they really want an other OS or SACD. Sony is all about giving gamers the best, the most cutting edge tech and being the nice guy, but when they were on the ropes with PS3 with a $600 system which was the butt of many jokes from XBOX fans like "George Forman Grill", "The Amirox nervous breakdown", they had to dig deep and be more careful going forward.

They devised the slim which slimmed down on BC a bit and a few other features and realized that gamers just want a fast system at launch that can give them the best looking next gen games possible.......No TV TV bs, no high focus on extras. In essence make sure gamers can see some real next gen games and most importantly, that it's affordable to them.........It's why their PS4 was both cutting edge with 8GB of GDDR5 and a bonafied 1080p system with 32 ROPS in 2013, but moreso gamers got that at $399. Sony did it's homework as it did several surveys during the PS3 era, apart from the BC one, they did one on pricepoints and realized that price is very important to the consumer....All these lessons they were taught from PS3..........

I can tell you regardless, Sony is the good guy of the industry, because had PS4 been on an advanced Cell CPU, PS4 would have had full BC with PS3 regardless of the survey, but there's no way the jaguar can emulate Cell when very fast and expensive Intel processors have had trouble doing it....Yet we know Sony will deliver a feature if it's possible, that's why there will be PS4 BC on PS5 as a guarantee......


But yet the general question of why? .....And truth be told, I wont even use the Sony Survey stats to show.....I'll use the very company you believe is ace at BC, thinking that they are doing it and touting it's horn because there is huge demand and constant playthroughs of old games? There.......


XBox-One-BC.jpg



They are only using it because Sony did not invest in BC this gen because of hardware conflicts, not because there's huge demand.........
I'm sure it was the second requested feature after name change
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Let's be honest, how many people here changed their names on PSN when the feature became available on PSN, notwithstanding Meirl or Chunk obviously.......
I don't actually know, I think it was a unnecessary feature but then again I'm happy oANUBISo and the "o" don't bother me.
 

sojuwarrior

Member
I think I am one of the few ppl here who doesnt care about BC lol
not a big deal to me personally if my PS5 can only run PS5 games...
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Why did you make two nearly identical threads?


My thinking for a while has been that GNM is more bespoke to hardware than the DX12 variant in Xbox. DX12 did lower overhead compared to the DX11 variant the XBO launched with, but it's likely still built to be more portable as Microsoft also cares about PC cross platform games, or had planned ahead to the upgraded consoles. GNM seems further lower level, but the trade off is less portability, which is why Sony was so careful about even simply increasing clock speeds in Boost mode.

Getting someone to talk about both (heavily NDA'ed) would be very hard, but this is my strong hunch.

May not be the only reason they went with 36CUs though, maybe it was just the figure they saw fit to hit balancing everything else (tempest engine, SSD speed, controller cost etc), and I don't see why they couldn't toggle the extra off.
 

thelastword

Banned
I don't actually know, I think it was a unnecessary feature but then again I'm happy oANUBISo and the "o" don't bother me.
Tbh, I'm all for multiple features and bonuses, but even name change was being pressed more by XBOX fans than Sony fans on forums. After name change, there was some ruckus about not getting all your content etc and some people were angry they had to pay after the first etc....The content thing sorted it self out, but It's always another story. Frankly, I never had use for name change I've never been one to resort to some of the more glamorous names on PSN or XBLIVE even when I was much younger.....

I'm just saying, after a feature is implemented, you never hear about it again, it's like all the noise came from somewhere else.....I have not seen PS fans making name change threads....Look at Crossplay, there's not much talk about crossplay again, because we all know who was making all the noise about it as if it was some life altering existentiality that Sony was denying gamers. Look at all the talk of BC, then Sony announced 4000+ PS4 games will be compatible and boom, silence. The noise is now on the 100 games that will be PS5 enhanced to 4k etc.....Or look at all the noise on hardware RT, but now only PS5 is showing RT when the other guy was saying PS does not have hardware RT and it's worse etc, so things are now a bit ho-hum.....There's a concerted effort to keep the noise on high when the other does not have a feature, not so much that the demand is huge. Yet I never saw PS fans go ham because the other console did not have Shareplay, a Share button an earphone Jack, VR, a touch pad, motion controls etc....Which are all great features....


Yet for BC on PS4, it's a nice bonus for sure, if PS3, PS2 and PS1 BC comes fine, but not at the detriment to modern games, because I won't be playing GT1 at 4K 60fps when GT7 is available with modern visuals and RT. People can talk about Nostalgia all they want. I'd rather Crash be remade like it was on PS4 and the same applies to much older titles......Even Demon Souls, I'm ecstatic that it got remade and that's a PS3 game....Not even PS2 or PS1......
 

sainraja

Member
i see your point re: PS4 having PC architecture.. but maybe it's the PS5 that isn't so straightforward :p and the games need to be optimised to take full advantage of the new, like, workflow?

Didn't they commit to the top 100 PS4 titles at launch? With more to come? I mean, i can't really imagine many ways to be, like, decisively disappointed by that.. I dunno just guessing~

PS4 games are going to work on the PS5 - it's not actually limited.

--

Not all Xbox 360 titles are backwards compatible. Microsoft has been consistently working to add support for those old titles which is using up resources/time (and we still don't have 100% compatibility, do we?)
 
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MrFunSocks

Banned
This is thread is stupid when looking back at the amount of effort Sony put on BC aside from PS4.
They never actually put much effort in though, they just whacked the old hardware in to the new console as well to start with. Every ps2 literally had a ps1 inside it.

By the time the PS3 came around the Launch console had a ps2 in it. They then finally ditched that and did software emulation.

There is no reason why they don’t have full software emulation of the PS1 and PS2 in the PS4 or 5 other than they don’t want to. They should have PS3 emulation by this point too, the hardware is more than powerful enough.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
The whole digital store thing is becoming a pain as time goes by. There are some good games on PS3/PSP that still hold up. Puzzle Street Fighter and Capcom Classic Collection. Even things like Darkstalkers HD or something else. You have to mess with Content Manager and so forth. Try searching your digital library on a Vita to witness the frustration. I own 800+ digital items on PSN since the PS3’s store launched. Searching through it on a handheld can be insulting because the game doesn’t appear in the search. This is way more frustrating for digital purchases than disc based PS3 games if you ask me. PS4 is BC on PS5. That’s great, but it also doesn’t mean all digital items come over. What about my other games? :( Does Sony even care or is all about the future releases? can anyone up at Sony see my frustration?
 
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Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
They never actually put much effort in though, they just whacked the old hardware in to the new console as well to start with. Every ps2 literally had a ps1 inside it.

By the time the PS3 came around the Launch console had a ps2 in it. They then finally ditched that and did software emulation.

There is no reason why they don’t have full software emulation of the PS1 and PS2 in the PS4 or 5 other than they don’t want to. They should have PS3 emulation by this point too, the hardware is more than powerful enough.

Yeah, they “just” whacked in the old console chip and reused it to power features in the new console and emulated other portions... trivial. Remind me why we do not have anywhere near 90% or hey 60% or even 50% of the OG Xbox and the Xbox 360 libraries since they are so easy to emulate and they actually have less custom HW to cover (CELL BE vs homogeneous triple core Xenon)?!

Sure, not like PS2 did not enhance PS1 titles, not like PSP and PS Vita and launch PS3 had support BC of the classic console with far far more titles supported than Xbox One did (and PS3, PAL model, had partial software PS2 emulation and fully software PS1 emulation with still a super wide range of titles supported)... you can be a happy fanboy warrior for your HW box without having to embarrass yourself with these kind of partisan half truths and exaggerated digs at the competition that reach into the farcical “it is easy, I can do it myself, just stick the old console in there”... sure buddy, trivial...

PS5 should hopefully have BC support of PS1/PS2, but PS4 emulation aside of remasters and classic HD titles (PS2) was a result of the shift they did with PS3 Slim which traded cheaper HW for lack of old consoles BC which their customers mostly cheered and voted on with their wallets.

The reason most are more bullish about BC now is that the rise of digital sales and consumers expectations in terms of digital libraries support have changed the landscape while brute force emulation at a low cost for PS1 and PS2 titles is now possible with extended PC emulators thanks to the Ryzen 2 cores. PS3 BC is also inevitable at some point as they have reasons to deprecate the old PS3 blades they run in their PSNow data centers.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
1. Hardware Incompatibility: Prior to the PlayStation 4, PlayStation consoles did not use the x86 CPU architecture and each PlayStation console used a radically new architecture relative to its predecessor. Hence, the programming for the previous PlayStations' games was incompatible with the then-latest PlayStation. Microsoft doesn't have this problem because they've used x86 CPUs in all of their Xbox consoles except the Xbox 360, as well as application program interfaces (API's) that are compatible with those of previous generations of Xbox.

2. Licensing and Royalties: 3rd-party developers of games released on the PlayStation 3 and prior would be entitled to compensation if said games were republished/ re-released on newer iterations of PlayStation due to licensing agreements. Obviously, Sony wouldn't want to process all of these agreements for the thousands of games released on previous iterations of PlayStation. Microsoft doesn't have this issue due to handling their agreements with publishers differently.
 
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Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
1. Hardware Incompatibility: Prior to the PlayStation 4, PlayStation consoles did not use the x86 CPU architecture and each PlayStation console used a radically new architecture relative to its predecessor. Hence, the programming for the previous PlayStations' games was incompatible with the then-latest PlayStation. Microsoft doesn't have this problem because they've used x86 CPUs in all of their Xbox consoles, as well as application program interfaces (API's) that are compatible with those of previous generations of Xbox.

2. Licensing and Royalties: 3rd-party developers of games released on the PlayStation 3 and prior would be entitled to compensation if said games were republished/ re-released on newer iterations of PlayStation due to licensing agreements. Obviously, Sony wouldn't want to process all of these agreements for the thousands of games released on previous iterations of PlayStation. Microsoft doesn't have this issue due to handling their agreements with publishers differently.

Xbox 360 used a PowerPC core, actually got a hold of the core IBM designed for the CELL CPU from IBM (the PPE not the SPU) and got IBM to extend it (few more instructions and wider VMX registers), and rushed to market. Still, it was a much much more conventional core and Xbox has always used a bit higher level abstractions that made emulation a bit easier: also look at the actual percentage of OG Xbox and Xbox 360 titles the Xbox One actually supports.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
Xbox 360 used a PowerPC core, actually got a hold of the core IBM designed for the CELL CPU from IBM (the PPE not the SPU) and got IBM to extend it (few more instructions and wider VMX registers), and rushed to market. Still, it was a much much more conventional core and Xbox has always used a bit higher level abstractions that made emulation a bit easier: also look at the actual percentage of OG Xbox and Xbox 360 titles the Xbox One actually supports.

Well, my point about Xbox's implementation of API's still stands. Games for each generation of Xbox have been designed for the API of that particular generation, rather than directly for the hardware of that particular generation, which is what you meant by abstraction.
 
just look at it as simple as possible

sony is tech hardware company

microsoft is software company

easiest way would be to add all hardwere into the newest console for a sony, but the price goes up bottlenecks etc

i still have the og ps3 with ps1 2 3 - tbh i never in day of my life used any ps2 / 1 disk on that thing.

its more reasonable this days tbh, just because this n next wont be a huge leap as ps1 2 3 was .
 

T-Cake

Member
easiest way would be to add all hardwere into the newest console for a sony, but the price goes up bottlenecks etc

I think I would hate that. The games restricted to the hardware they originally ran on with no enhancements? 720p with aliasing everywhere looks awful now in the modern 4K TV setting.
 

Tulipanzo

Member
The interesting thing about this kind of discussion is how little we actually can predict Sony. While the business case for BC is clear (look at XBox), Sony does not have a clear-cut approach.
Xbox clearly aim to expand its selection as much as possible, improving older titles yet further.
Nintendo use BC as a treat for subscribers, and have seemingly little interest in moving towards full BC.

Sony, however, are trickier.
Their past efforts with BC were far better, but the PS4 was compromised by the switch to x86 at a point in time when AMD could offer little, AND by the notoriously difficult PS3 architecture. The plan was "to use the Cloud" for BC, but even that didn't quite pan out. PS2 emulation did not take off.
And yet, we now know Sony has internal emulators running for PS1, PS2, and PSP, yet they've barely been used.

So they are working on x86 emulators, but why are they not releasing them? The secrecy of the whole process (third parties are barely involved) leaves two solutions, about as equally likely
- Sony is looking towards having more comprehensive BC in the future, possibly on PS5; the PS4 was not planned to have any BC, and PS2 support was a byproduct of some titles running ok on it
- These are just internal emulators for whatever projects, but no full BC effort exists

I'm an undying optimist, and I really like what XBox has done for BC (ultimately a big reason I bought an OG X1), and I'd be very happy if Sony tried, and I think there's a chance. Then again, they are packing a game about rescuing previous PS from within the PS5 on every console, so maybeeee? We'll see
 

T-Cake

Member
We must also remember that 7 years is a long time. Maybe we'll get PS3 BC in 2024 or some other random date in the coming generation. We've seen all sorts happen in the last one.
 

Pallas

Member
It's because of the cell architecture of the PS3.

It isn't complicated. The specialized cell processor was very weird. It makes BC much more challenging than porting 360 titles. The 360 had a very PC-like architecture. The PS3 had a weird, alien architecture -- which in retrospect was a mistake. One of the downsides is that it makes BC much more difficult.
360’s Xenon CPU had Cell like qualities and in fact designed by IBM, the same company that did PS3’s Cell processor, so no it wasn’t exactly a very pc like architecture. Both consoles were PowerPCs. Infact there’s a bit of a funny story about Xenon and Cell’s development, iirc they were designed pretty much in the same building

You are not comparing the Xenon to the CELL BE running at full tilt now, are you?

Nah Cell was more advance and costly and by far more complicating, but people seem to think it was a cake walk to get that crap running on the Xbox One. I don’t think many realize that Xenon is related to the Cell Processor.
 

psorcerer

Banned
360’s Xenon CPU had Cell like qualities

Nope. It was a simple PowerPC core (x3) with no special instructions.
PowerPC arch was supported by DirectX 4.x (which Directx 9c used in X360 is a variant of)

Overall FYI:
Directx 4-9: 4.x core
Directx 10-11: 6.x core
Directx 12: 10.x core
Essentially there were only 3 core versions of DX, all others are just minor API changes.
 

Pallas

Member
Nope. It was a simple PowerPC core (x3) with no special instructions.
PowerPC arch was supported by DirectX 4.x (which Directx 9c used in X360 is a variant of)

Overall FYI:
Directx 4-9: 4.x core
Directx 10-11: 6.x core
Directx 12: 10.x core
Essentially there were only 3 core versions of DX, all others are just minor API changes.

Those cores are lightly modified versions of PPE that’s in the PS3’s cell processor. I’m not saying they are the same but they are related.
 

psorcerer

Banned
Those cores are lightly modified versions of PPE that’s in the PS3’s cell processor. I’m not saying they are the same but they are related.

PPE is a regular PPC core too.
That's why early PS3 games did not use any SPE.
 
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sephiroth7x

Member
I understand the love for BC but from Sony's point of view, they literally stated: “When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much,” - Jim Ryan.

I am sure many people do use it and I know a lot of the Xbox servers were crammed with old 360 games at one time but for the effort required, perhaps they just see it as not worth their time?

Perhaps they think if people want to play PS2/3/4 games they can go buy an old console to do it. MS shut their production on consoles down almost immediately while Sony only just stopped manufacturing the PS3 in 2017. That is four years after the PS4 launched.

Don't know. Who knows what goes on behind the scenes in these meetings.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
1. Hardware Incompatibility: Prior to the PlayStation 4, PlayStation consoles did not use the x86 CPU architecture and each PlayStation console used a radically new architecture relative to its predecessor. Hence, the programming for the previous PlayStations' games was incompatible with the then-latest PlayStation. Microsoft doesn't have this problem because they've used x86 CPUs in all of their Xbox consoles except the Xbox 360, as well as application program interfaces (API's) that are compatible with those of previous generations of Xbox.

2. Licensing and Royalties: 3rd-party developers of games released on the PlayStation 3 and prior would be entitled to compensation if said games were republished/ re-released on newer iterations of PlayStation due to licensing agreements. Obviously, Sony wouldn't want to process all of these agreements for the thousands of games released on previous iterations of PlayStation. Microsoft doesn't have this issue due to handling their agreements with publishers differently.
This is all literally just made up.

Firstly PS1 emulators are a dime a dozen. Sony have had one for almost 20 years now. There’s no excuse for any PS console not playing all PS1 games.

Secondly, people have made damn good PS2 emulators themselves, and Sony have a working emulator themselves. Again, no excuse not to have it in any PS console.

Thirdly, the 360 was thought to be “impossible” to emulate, yet here we are.

Fourthly, all games use APIs lol. Just because something uses APIs it doesn’t mean it’s backwards and forwards compatible.

Lastly, Microsoft has those same licensing restrictions. They don’t have any special licensing that allows them to do software emulation.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Lastly, Microsoft has those same licensing restrictions. They don’t have any special licensing that allows them to do software emulation.

The licensing isn't about the emulation, its about the content and clearing rights for it from the original owners. Its a legal minefield for any real business as unlike community authors they are likely to get sued should they fail to cover themselves.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
The licensing isn't about the emulation, its about the content and clearing rights for it from the original owners. Its a legal minefield for any real business as unlike community authors they are likely to get sued should they fail to cover themselves.
No, the licensing is about the emulation. If it played the game off the disc there would be no problem.
 

Hostile_18

Banned
The whole "no one cares about backwards compatability" is nonsense. Yes sure that might be true when you have no other option, but come on.

Imagine upgrading from DVD to Blu ray and been told you can never watch an old movie ever again, it's new ones only because new is better. Or upgrading PC and not been able to play your old games only better than ever "because no one cares to do so".

It's short sited corporate suits that don't care about back compatability. At least give us a more expensive SKU choice. There's a reason this gen are all compatible with last gen and it's not because "no one cares about it".

Rant over 😉
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
PS3 was a completely different, crazy architecture, so it's not really possible to have BC with it unless you just do an emulator (which the PS4 could never handle, although the PS5 might).

But even if we're talking PS4 to Pro or PS5, it's not really comparable. On PC you have massive software layers between the game and the hardware that abstract away the differences between different GPUs etc. If you upgrade your hardware, it will still work with those same APIs (like DirectX). On consoles you do have that as well of course, but usually that software is less abstracted, and you can build your game specifically for the console hardware in a way you never would on PC. You specifically target the number of compute units the console GPU has, etc, to make the most of it. This makes it harder to just translate that to a new generation of hardware.

MS has built in more layers of abstraction in software, so for them it's a bit easier. Sony hasn't, which is why they have to keep the CU count and clock speeds compatible (although they also have boost mode, with the caveat that some games might not work perfectly with it). Sony just haven't focused on BC, and they can't go back and retroactively fix this. So they're doing what they can. At least they're keeping the same architecture now, so all games should run fine on PS5 (but again, not all might work perfectly in boost mode).
 

DonMigs85

Member
Wonder if OP got banned for this thread.
Anyway in Sony's case I think they just don't want to devote too much resources/manpower to BC programming, so they try to make the hardware as easily compatible as possible by keeping the functional blocks at multiples of the original hardware being emulated. Similar situation with GameCube BC on Wii and Wii BC on Wii U
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
360’s Xenon CPU had Cell like qualities and in fact designed by IBM, the same company that did PS3’s Cell processor, so no it wasn’t exactly a very pc like architecture. Both consoles were PowerPCs. Infact there’s a bit of a funny story about Xenon and Cell’s development, iirc they were designed pretty much in the same building



Nah Cell was more advance and costly and by far more complicating, but people seem to think it was a cake walk to get that crap running on the Xbox One. I don’t think many realize that Xenon is related to the Cell Processor.

I get that, there is the book “The Race for a New Game Machine” that details pretty much how IBM kind of fucked Sony over on that one giving MS a chip which was essentially co-funded by Sony and Toshiba.

Xenon shares the same fundamental high frequency dual threaded in order PowerPC core with the biggest customisation being VMX extended to a 128x128 bits vectors register file and additional instructions (such as some “horizontal” SIMD instructions like dot product). You have three of these cores running at 3.2 GHz (you download an Xbox One image and not just do JIT of the executable on disc so there are some benefits to that approach... Xbox 360 BC is not anywhere near 99% of the titles or so).

Taking one of those cores (minus VMX changes) and then adding all the SPE’s and all the manual crazy stuff developers could pull with it was a massive bigger effort to emulate on those eight 1.6 GHz Jaguar cores.
 
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real reason money stubbornness seriously sony has had and has EA like tendencies. Ps3 comes out cost $600 later on they get butthurt that no one wants to pay that much for a console few years down the line they block ps2 BC on all future models even though the emulation is built into the OS software. PS vita comes out memory card price are absurd no price cuts at all system fails because they bank it all on Cod then soft kill the platform. Sony over pays for onlive/gikei rip getting any hardware based BC even though the ps4 has built in ps1 and ps2 emulation. O and they make a bunch of money on remaster and they started that trend on ps3 when they block BC for ps2.

The obvious answer to the OPs question is indirectly highlighted in this response: over the past decade or so, Sony has at times been hanging on to financial solvency by their fingernails. The Playstation division has periodically been one of only two profitable parts of the company (the other being their insurance division). Some execs at SONY no doubt look at BC as a situation in which every game they allow thru to BC is a potential lost sale.

Basically, Sony needs the short term revenue from every game sale and the company as a whole doesn't have the luxury of looking at BC as a long term investment to pick up more and greater profit thru fostered goodwill. These execs would likely view further heavy investment in BC as counter productive, throwing good money after bad, continuing a sunk cost fallacy philosophy, etc...

I disagree with the barebones approach and believe Sony would reap far greater long term rewards by investing deeper into BC as MS has done. But at least they are bringing some form of PS4 BC, which is enough for me to pick up a PS5 at launch despite the lackluster launch lineup of games.
 
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mcjmetroid

Member
PS3 is the problem. It's just a weird fucking system, always was always will be.

seriously though there is something to be said AGAINST backward compatibility as well.

If we're constantly tethering along old consoles then there would be less innovation going forward on system design or controller types.

Nobody complained about the Switch not being compatible with the WiiU or the Wii.

There are 2 sides of argument here. Personally I'd rather have backward compatibility though.
 
Sony measured how much people actually used it on the PS3 and realized its not worth the effort. Its just a vocal minority that's crying about it, the rest are too busy playing NEW games. Microsoft doesn't have the same library and IP's like Sony does, so they are trying to compete with BC.


They also looked at the sales they got from remastered titles and thought releasing remasters is way better than developing a framework in which their titles can be played on future generations, what’s the point in keeping a library of games such as Steam/Uplay/Origin/GoG do?

#forthegamers
 

SoraNoKuni

Member
Well, I get it from marketing perspective.
They don't gain a lot from BC, so they don't actually care that much.
I would love to have PS3 compatibility but at this point as I have a decent PC I can probably enjoy those few games via emulation, or getting a used PS3 really cheap.
It's not a big deal for me personally.

Though I give kudos to MS for the Auto HDR in previous gen games which sounds really great.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
Well for me, there is nothing like Jade Empire, Republic Commando, Burnout Revenge, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Metal Gear 2,3 on the PS4, let alone PS5.....I'd gladly play MGS2 over 5 any day!
 
Emulation of PS1 aPS2 is pretty good and
I don't think it's a technical thing at all, I think it's a small minority that actually uses backwards compatibility and in the grand scheme of things, most don't care. Personally I could care less about backwards compatibility and I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I just think they don't think it's a big deal and I don't believe it's because they can't figure it out.

BC with PS1 and 2 is irrelevant now that you can emulate those with a laptop CPU.
Anyone who wants to play Suikoden or Xenosaga can- for free.

The biggest PS3 titles have or are getting remasters.
 
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