GlenF
02-28-07, 05:28 PM
http://www.trustedreviews.com/gaming/news/2007/02/24/European-PS3-Will-Play-Less-PS1-PS2-Titles/p1
Surely this couldn’t be true, the PS3 released to the rest of the world officially plays 98 per cent of older PS2 and PS titles. So this was the hardware change...It turns out that despite charging us a whopping great price premium Sony is actually cutting costs on the internals of our PS3s. Whereas consoles shipping to the rest of the world have a dedicated chip to handle backwards compatibility the European PS3s will scrap it in favour of weaker software emulation.
Oh Joy we get to pay more than our NTSC cousins, not have the option of the lower end model and now they have taken out the hardware to play PS2 games on it.
What a deal!
Yesterday – just one month from the console’s official launch date – Sony sent round a curious press release to journalists detailing the ‘Hardware Specification of PlayStation 3 for Europe’. This seemed odd since other than switching to PAL and cutting on a different plug there seemed no need for a ‘European’ PS3. Then it all clicked into place when Sony referred to the machine being “compatible with a broad range of original PlayStation (PS) titles and a limited range of PlayStation 2 (PS2) titles”.
clearly Sony has sunk to new depths in the handling of its European customers. I can only hope that the public votes with its chequebook, namely by keeping it in their pocket, but I fear far too many will be unaware of this deliberately last minute alteration until it is too late.
Surely this couldn’t be true, the PS3 released to the rest of the world officially plays 98 per cent of older PS2 and PS titles. So this was the hardware change...It turns out that despite charging us a whopping great price premium Sony is actually cutting costs on the internals of our PS3s. Whereas consoles shipping to the rest of the world have a dedicated chip to handle backwards compatibility the European PS3s will scrap it in favour of weaker software emulation.
Oh Joy we get to pay more than our NTSC cousins, not have the option of the lower end model and now they have taken out the hardware to play PS2 games on it.
What a deal!
Yesterday – just one month from the console’s official launch date – Sony sent round a curious press release to journalists detailing the ‘Hardware Specification of PlayStation 3 for Europe’. This seemed odd since other than switching to PAL and cutting on a different plug there seemed no need for a ‘European’ PS3. Then it all clicked into place when Sony referred to the machine being “compatible with a broad range of original PlayStation (PS) titles and a limited range of PlayStation 2 (PS2) titles”.
clearly Sony has sunk to new depths in the handling of its European customers. I can only hope that the public votes with its chequebook, namely by keeping it in their pocket, but I fear far too many will be unaware of this deliberately last minute alteration until it is too late.