Topic: Sony's secret weapon is PS3 Slim... Jim?

[Stratos]

It's funny how BC has become such an issue this generation. I recall some poeple near the end of the last gen that were saying BC was a declining need and not that big of a deal. But here it looks like removing it hurt a lot of the chances PS2 owners  would jump up to the PS3. Unwise, I say, to alienate such a large userbase like that, especially when BC has pretty much become a standard now.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well what I'm saying is that Sony had the original PS3 that had the EE & GS inside. Ten Sony revised the hardware and took out the EE as they started to emulate it with cell, and then there were lots of BC problems as plenty of games weren't working correctly. Now Sony has the current PS3 w/o the EE and the GS and there is NO BC at all.

This just looks like they are finally getting the patent for the previous EE emulation that was accomplished years ago. Once they get some GS simulation on the RSX then they will have full software BC on all PS3's.

Am I completely wrong on that?

*EE = Emotion Engine, GS = Graphics Synthesizer, BC = Backwards Compatibility, RSX = PS3's GPU: Reality Synthesizer*

[TJ Spyke]

Microsoft had no choice but to use software emulation. By switching chip makers they couldn't use hardware emulation. I just wish they hadn't abandoned updating the BC list, I want to be able to play TimeSplitters 2 again. I don't want to have to get the GameCube version (which had longer loading times than the Xbox version).

[Stratos]

I don't recall the GC version's loading times being bad at all. Are you sure it isn't a negligeble difference?

Then again it has been ages since I played that game. I sold it off back in the day.

[TJ Spyke]

It wasn't bad on GameCube, but it was long enough to notice the difference between the two. I always got the Xbox version of multiplatform games for this reason (try Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Every time you go from one island to the other you have to deal with a loading time of about 5 seconds with the PS2 version, the Xbox version was less than 1 second).

[Chozo Ghost]

Is there anything stopping Nintendo from including PS2 BC in the Wii? Now that would be something, wouldn't it? And I think it would only be fair considering how the PSP has been used to pirate Nintendo's older systems. So turnabout is fair play...

[BlackNMild2k1]

The Wii is no where near powerful enough to emulate a PS2... The PS3 can't even do it properly.

[Stratos]

I still think it is possible to have PS1 (and maybe some PS2) games on the VC. Especially with the SD expansion in place now.

Sure you couldn't call them PS1 games, just call them 32-bit games or something.

[BlackNMild2k1]

They can't even use the game code for PS1/2 games in any official release on Wii. Since it was built with licensing from Sony.

If there was a HomeBrew Emulator, you should be able to emulate PS1 games without too much of a problem, but emulating a PS2 on a Wii would probably run like crap. frames in the single digits if you got games to play at all.

[TJ Spyke]

I don't see how Sony could stop any company from releasing their PS1 games on ANY system. For one, we have already seen Castlevania: Symphony of the Night released on Xbox Live Arcade. Second, compilation packs (like Mega Man X Collection) have been released for non-Sony systems that contained PS1 games. Unless it is a game Sony legally has some control over currently, there is nothing Sony could do from stopping them being released on Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, or other similar services. If Square Enix wanted to release Final Fantasy VIII on the Wii (I was gonna say Final Fantasy VII, but I don't know if Sony still has any control over it since they published the original version, although they don't own the IP), Sony couldn't do squat. The only issue is that Nintendo would need to come up with a different name for the system, maybe a "Other" category?

[Chozo Ghost]

The Wii is more powerful than the PS2 in all respects. Hell, the GC was more powerful than the PS2...

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Wii is so powerful, it runs PS2 ports.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Since you don't seem to understand it the way that I understand it to work, let me attempt to explain.

3rd party publisher makes game code to work for the PSX and get licensing from Sony to do so. That licensed code can not be released on another system as is. They would have to completely port/remake the game over to work on the new system getting new licensing for the different hardware.

Therefore Wii will never have a PSX VC since Sony wouldn't allow that to happen. 3rd party publisher would have to either use the PC version code or just remake it for WiiWare.

& Wii is not powerful enough to emulate a PS2. The Wii would need to be several times more powerful to run its own code and emulate a PS2 within that. The PS3 is all kinds of more powerful than a Wii and even it can't emulate a PS2. The Xbox360 is all kinds of more powerful than an Xbox and it can't properly emulate it. What makes you think a Wii is powerful enough to emulate a PS2? The Wii wouldn't even be able emulate a GC if it wasn't already a GC+x2.

[Mop it up]

The Wii wouldn't even be able emulate a GC if it wasn't already a GC+x2.

The way I understand it, the Wii doesn't emulate a GameCube, it actually IS a GameCube. I could be wrong on that though...

Especially with the SD expansion in place now.

That isn't really an expansion. The Wii still doesn't play games directly from the SD card, it just loads them temporarily into the Wii internal memory. So games are still limited by the 512MB limit... and I'd guess half of that is reserved for firmware updates and messges. So really it's a 256MB limit, and that means no other game saves either.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Mop it up, your right, the Wii is a GC and that was my point. The Wii wouldn't be able to emulate a GC if it didn't already have an actual Gamecube as its base and built around it.

[Ian Sane]

It's funny how BC has become such an issue this generation. I recall some poeple near the end of the last gen that were saying BC was a declining need and not that big of a deal. But here it looks like removing it hurt a lot of the chances PS2 owners  would jump up to the PS3. Unwise, I say, to alienate such a large userbase like that, especially when BC has pretty much become a standard now.

I think in Sony's case the issue is less that they don't have BC but that they clearly HAD it and then removed it... and then kept the PS3 at the same price.  So you remove a feature so that your costs are lowered but I the customer do not benefit in any way?  Uh, yeah, **** that.  If the PS3 never had BC I don't think it would be as big of a deal.  The Xbox 360 looks better for having partial BC than the PS3 does for having full BC and then removing it.