PS3's B.C. problems and how to blow it out of perspective

[wraggster]

We all heard the news; the PS3 isn't fully backwards compatible with every PlayStation game. Of the 8,000 or so games in the PlayStation universe, roughly 200 of them won't work as advertised. It looks like the backcompat issue is yet another black mark on Sony's already stumbling reputation ... but is this really that bad?


Business Week is one of those groups who apparently think background music not playing right in Radiata Stories during cutscenes is going to topple the Sony empire like Visigoths over Rome (alright, a bit extreme). They claim "the bad publicity could ultimately leave Sony at a disadvantage compared with Microsoft and Nintendo." We find that a bit of a stretch when Sony's got bigger issues out there and we haven't heard a peep from Microsoft's backwards compatibility efforts since August.

Yes, Sony does have a few bruises from their blunders this past year; however, since the PS3 is on a completely different operating system (remember, we have to download emulators just to get DOS or even Windows 95 stuff working on Windows XP) such incompatibilities are expected. If anything, the meager number of games that aren't 100% perfect -- and how minor the problems are with the bulk of the 200 -- is incredible.

[quzar]

Nothing new. The PS2 didn't have proper backwords compatability either. Thing is the games they don't play are for the most part usually ridiculously rare and the average user will never notice it. With an upgradable bios, they at least leave the door open to have some sort of software fixes for the games that don't work.

Also, source?

[F9zDark]

Anyone complaining of Sony's backwards compat problems should look at Micro$#@!'s efforts in the same department:

1)At launch of the 360 the only games that worked from the Xbox were Halo and Halo 2

2)Now that some other games have made the ranks of being backwards compat, Micro$#@! feels the need to charge users Xbox Live subscription fees to update their old games to work on X360 (must feel great, having 2 or 3 games and having to pay 19 bucks to make them work...)

'Nuff said.

[porchemasi]

So true

[lmtlmt]

ssssoooooooooo true

[punkypine]

the flipping out of that was just proof to me that people are hating on sony for no good reason.

peeople forget that you couldnt play most xbox games and still cant play some on the 360.

and ps3 still has by far the largest library of backward compatible games.

and of the games that were mentioned, only some sound problems in tekken and something about one of the gran turismos as well as the guitar hero controller problem (all of which will probably be fixed by the end of the year), these were the only ones worth even noting for 99% of people.

[Adrenalin]

well wii has perfect backwards compatability - XD

[briyan]

well wii has perfect backwards compatability - XD

yah it does but is their library comparable to Sony's or even Microsoft's? This is a moot point for Sony to hold themselves accountable for 10% of their older generation games that aren't working. But with that being said, the PS3 games will ultimately drive the console not the PS2 or PS1 games.

[quzar]

Anyone complaining of Sony's backwards compat problems should look at Micro$#@!'s efforts in the same department:

1)At launch of the 360 the only games that worked from the Xbox were Halo and Halo 2

2)Now that some other games have made the ranks of being backwards compat, Micro$#@! feels the need to charge users Xbox Live subscription fees to update their old games to work on X360 (must feel great, having 2 or 3 games and having to pay 19 bucks to make them work...)

'Nuff said.

I thought it couldn't play anything right out of the box because the backwards compatability was a download.

yah it does but is their library comparable to Sony's or even Microsoft's? This is a moot point for Sony to hold themselves accountable for 10% of their older generation games that aren't working. But with that being said, the PS3 games will ultimately drive the console not the PS2 or PS1 games.

The Gamecube has a fairly sizable library. and as it has been discussed by pretty much everyone on every venue, even with their small library size, the ratio of good to crap games is much higher than on the PS2 or PS. Of course, both have excellent games, but when compared to the number of total games...

[Darksaviour69]

about the xbox 360, it played more than just halo 1 and 2 but many games were not supported and a good number still are not supported.

you don't need a gold account to get updates, a silver account (free) does the same job, but you do need a harddrive