Daniel's Blog » Blog Archive · The real reason comes out for PS3

Oct

2007

The real reason comes out for PS3

Dropping software backwards compatibility in the new 40GB Playstation 3 is a bit dubious. They aren’t actually saving any money as I suspect they’ll probably still improve the backwards compatibility on the older systems for a little while longer. So, what’s a few extra megs to go towards backwards compatibility?

GamerNode reports that the real reason why BC was dropped was simple – to get people buying games, Playstation 3 games in fact. Their research has shown people actually don’t care that much about BC… when other research does.

As I hinted at in my last post about this topic, people will migrate eventually… soon the only games being released on the Playstation 2 will be the really bad, crappy, childrens games that no one wants to buy. That’s what happened to the PSone at least. People will still be getting their favourite games, or at least trying them out for now, but eventually they’ll still go out and get the PS3 games. Maybe what Sony needs to do instead is reduce the PS2 games they are publishing and nudge the developers all onto the PS3. It is the console that makes the games, and if they start pushing properties that people enjoy on the new console people will go – look at Singstar and Ratchet and Clank (although I’m sure the latter is the one people are going for).

6 Comments

Post New · Trackback · Web Feed

Actually, it saves them considerable money, as they have been able to remove all traces of the PS2 hardware from the PS3, such as the PS2 graphics synthesizer. This allows for them to save considerable money.

I think your complaints are lazy - you don’t seem to consider the fact that a cheaper PS3 without BC is a great idea - I have a PS2 available to me if I want to borrow one - so why should I spend another $300-$400 on a PS3 with BC if I don’t need it?!

In summary:
First version of PS3 with hardware BC: Basically had a PS2 in it with the Emotion engine (CPU) and Graphics Synthesizer (GPU).

Second version of PS3 with software BC: Had no Emotion engine (CPU) but included the Graphics Synthesizer (GPU) for the software BC.

Current 40Gb version of PS3 with no BC: Excludes both Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer.

October 19th, 2007 11:03 am Jonathan Giles

Then second version of the PS3 (the one we got) actually did not have the graphics synthesizer either. It is all software based. They actually aren’t removing any hardware with regards to backwards compatibility. The Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer have been a single chip for some time.

October 19th, 2007 12:29 pm Daniel

And from the looks of things the PS2 EE+GS chip is about US$27.

October 19th, 2007 12:31 pm Daniel

I believe you are mistaken. The first version had the EE+GS on one chip, the second version had no EE, just a GS (EE was done in software), the third version (40GB) does not have a EE or GS, and hence software emulation is not feasible (yet, who knows if they can emulate a PS2 GS).

I refer you to http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2007/0314/kaigai02l.gif for more information regarding the architecture of the PS3 in it’s version 1 and 2 builds.

October 19th, 2007 12:54 pm Jonathan Giles

I did do a little bit more of a dig and found that yes, there is a Graphics Synthesizer “of some form.”

I’m not against having no BC as a good idea… I’m saying that it’s not a good idea right now. It has been less than a year and Sony have already dropped it completely, before there is anything really stellar for everyone else to really go out and buy one. There are still some great games coming out on the PS2, and there will be great games coming out for the PS3 over the next year. Maybe next year, but not right now, and I certainly didn’t expect Sony to lose interest in BC so soon.

And, yeah, I have a PS2 myself. It’s close to being on its way out, so I was hoping that the PS3 can be a replacement. Unfortunately it isn’t the case anymore.

October 19th, 2007 1:01 pm Daniel

The 60GB has not been discontinued AFAIK - and that will continue to have BC.

In regards to your $US27 comment, consider economics - Sony sell the PS3 at a loss. Sell a PS3 with $US27 less cost involved, they save $US27. Sell a million consoles at a $US27 saving, they save $US27 Million dollars. Over the life of a PS3, who knows how many consoles could be sold, but they could easily save hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. That’s a _lot_ of money!

$US27 is based on peoples approximations, personally I don’t know nor care, but if you’re bleeding money, considering the economics, this is a lot of money in the bank that isn’t going down the drain.

October 19th, 2007 1:18 pm Jonathan Giles