Siliconera has found a patent from Sony that might be of interest to current and future PS3 owners. It’s a patent for how to convert the Emotion Engine chip  instructions from the PS2 into Cell Processor compatible instructions for the PS3. This could be good news for everyone waiting to buy a PS3, and PS3 owners who still have their PS2 sitting next to it (like me). First, Sony went from hardware to software emulation, then removed the PS2 backwards compatibility altogether. I personally have an 80 GB PS3 with software emulation, but I was annoyed that I still had to play Ar Tonelico II (which had its own annoyances) on my PS2 because it wouldn’t work on the PS3. I also know that certain things were not rendering properly when I played Persona 4 on the PS3, such as the box that told you how deep in the dungeons you were. Hopefully this detailed method of emulating the Emotion Engine can be expanded to all PS3 systems, present and future. With a fully accurate way of re-coding the PS2 instructions, perhaps all PS3s will achieve 100% Backwards Compatability. It may or may not be require a sizeable firmware update, but I would be more than willing to give up some drive space to have full, working compatability. There’s no timetable or even an official statement from Sony about it at this point, but perhaps we will see one in the near future.

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3 Responses to “There and Back Again – PS3 Backwards Compatability Possibily Making a Return?”

  1. Kiraman Katibin on 01 Jul 2009 at 1:46 pm #

    Taking out BC was the only thing that stopped me from getting a PS3. If they can make it a download I’ll probably get one of the cheap versions. I’ll be pissed (but not surprised)if it will only be available on new systems at an inflated price. (Like back up to $600+ for a system.) And while some may say no company would be stupid enough to do that. I thought no company would be stupid enough to take out BC either.

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  2. Dan Chi Sao on 01 Jul 2009 at 1:49 pm #

    @KK
    Yeah, I never thought they’d get rid of BC either, but finding out it was getting completely ditched drove me to hurry up and buy one. Otherwise I would have waited a little longer to buy one myself. Either way, they better fix the software emulation on mine. I don’t want to have to get my PS2 out again if I don’t have to.

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  3. Sony To Move All PS2 Titles to PSN? | G.A.M.E.S. on 23 Sep 2009 at 9:57 am #

    [...] be coming to the PlayStation Network. This further lends credence to the theory that Sony’s patent was to block others from using the technology, not so they could re-introduce an improved backwards [...]

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