Agreed, best article here in a very very long while.

Thank you for the great info on this.

Now, how long until it is ignored by the people who like to propagate fanboy wars?

This guy is reaching. The original iteration of the PS3 touted backwards compatibility w/ upscaling. No one expected the Wii to play Gamecube games or the 360 to play Xbox games. Sony messed up by taking that promised feature away. People have been expecting its return ever since.

Because of technical issues, as well as pricing issues, they were FORCED to cut that feature.

They make it sound like it's a choice that they don't include it.

The fact is that they still can't afford to figure out BC because that would raise the price of the slim, a factor that is well in their favor.

The article is simple, logical, and, yes, even obvious in points. But "obvious" is a terribly subjective word--how come no other gaming journos have come up with the same arguments this guy has?--and it's refreshing to see a reasonable take on gaming hardware.

Edit: @ above:

Sony has already figured out TWO methods of B/C. The first was hardware (launch SKUs), the was second software emulation (original 80GB SKU). Besides that, if they're still selling loads of PS2's at $100 a pop, why would they jam it into the PS3 for free? Furthermore, if software is the real moneymaker for consoles, they would definitely want people buying new PS3 games rather than old/used PS2 games that wouldn't make them much money.

Wasn't their choice...unbelievable.

My 80 gig backward compatible (MGS Bundle) PS3 is collecting dust simply b/c Xbox spoiled me with party chat. My PS3 has missed out on a bunch of multi plat games for this one reason alone.

But i do load up Mega Man X Collection (PS2 game) every once in a while.

I already have BC so. Ha!

Your comment has absolutely nothing to do with the article at hand.

@Alcon Caper

I think you miss the point. Their is no debate on whether or not BC was expected. The question is on will it return, and we've known for more than a year that it would be going the way of the dodo so I don't see complaining about the latest PS3 not having as really an issue with it but with the product as a whole.

They already explained that people weren't willing to play for full BC with the original PS3, and I'd kind of believe the people who have the sales figures and user reports over some random gamer on the internet.

This article is solely dealing with why we aren't seeing BC through software and why they currently have a solid comment of it not returning at this time. The reasons they provide for this element alone are extremely reasonable, but don't negate the fact that they could still be working to make BC via software work.

Overall I think there are two sides to people responding to this article. People who understand that this is solely an explanation on the difficulties of BC via software emulation alone and people who are still complaining one way or another about BC being unavailable in general.

@Chrisny85 below: Yeah... talk about stretching that one a mile and then some to try and make your statement relevant to the discussion... I mean, let's take a single example in a sentence about improving the PS3 as a whole and then relate that to your whole statement of just playing your 360 in an article about... BC on the PS3 for PS2 games... Yeah, definitely not a stretch there.

@ 1.5

A software based backwards compatibility system will not raise the price of the slim at all.

Actually it does, if you read the article. The author says Sony is focusing on making improvements to other areas such as cross gaming chat. Their focus is to make popular features for the PS3 without loosing sales on PS2.

With that being said, I am trying to emphasize the loss of profit Sony is missing out on when they are loosing sales because of such a great feature that they still have not made.

I love my PS3 I am just agreeing with the author.

@ cgoodno it is what it is... my ps3 collects dust since i play online shooters and have actual friends(people who you play your games with who share common interests) i know A.I. does not talk to you but maybe one day. Go bother someone else.

Yes, that last statement of yours makes tons of sense because there is absolutely no chat option with PS3 games. None. Whatsoever. Seriously. You can't even use bluetooth headsets, it's all been a scam.

your attempt to make this into a fanboy thing is disgusting. dont brag about bluetooth, the last thing people want to hear is background noise from 12 different random people's TVs.. that is another reason why i think PS3 needs party chat... so i only hear my friends backgrounds instead of the whole damm community.

If ps3 had party chat i would buy my mutli plats on it. that's the point im trying to make.

go away.

He's not attempting to make it fanboyish. Your comment sounds very fanboyish. Maybe you didn't mean for it to but it does. Also if party chat alone is enough for your PS3 to collect dust then you need to meet more people than just your little network. Exclusives alone with or without party chat are enough to keep any PS3 from collecting dust. Even Killzone 2 only lets you talk to people in your squad (if you want) so you have a party system there alone. Even in games when you can hear everyone I seldom hear any background noise. Maybe PSN has more mature gamers than Live but even in the odd occasions when someone is a D!ck you can mute them. Your comments do seem fanboyish and quite a stretch to relate to the article which is almost entirely concerning BC while chat features are only mentioned in passing.

It was a good article and it had many good points but the Xbox has MANY games that run BC. All the ones i have run great on them and its not all big brand either. Of course They cant get every game to run understandable but most to work. Now Sony should release these patches for users so they could play at least some of the games until they work out the big solution. Thats one reason i got a Xbox because it had BC. Of course if you got the arcade your suckered in lol

?????

"4. Memory card utility - Sony is not interested in producing many of them due to high cost of PS1/PS2 memory card slot. Apparently it's a low profit hassle that also (for the reasons listed in reason number 2) slows down the sales of third party PS2 games."

that makes alot of sense and didn't even cross my mind.

If you wanted a BC ps3, then you should of bought the launch ps3, last i checked you guys all whined about the price and claimed you all had ps2's, why would you need BC. So you people demanded it to be taken out, sony followed suit and did that for you with a lowered price. Now your all whining again, put it back, put it back. Good job on getting it removed, I'll enjoy my 60 gig ps3.

I didn't even bother to consider SOME of those other reasons, I STAND CORRECTED! I guess I won't B***H about it no more.

HOPE MY K.KUTARAGI/PS3 60GB lives a LONG life. And I'm still thinking about getting me a Ps2slim to take over for my original PS2/SCPH-30000 ver. when it dies out.

The no B/C excuse is by far the worst.

Next it's

"The PS3 doesn't do drugs, I'm not buying it. Sony, give me a reason to buy a PS3!"

I fail to see how 2) will affect third party developers at all:

"PS2 is still selling good. Third party developers who are still releasing games on PS2 know that their games will sell better if PS2 is a separate console, as most people with a PS3 are going to primarily focus on buying PS3 games, which has a lot more games being released and therefore much more competition (even from the same publisher)."

I mean after all, the PS3 supporting BC has no effect on PS2 game sales. This just means PS2 now has a potentially (albeit less likely to purchase) a 20 something million new customers.

Once the PS2 dies, and once the PS3 costs either $99 or $199.

Since they always have a more expensive model with more features, they might as well add hardware BC as one of those "luxurious" features.

But its more likely for Sony to release PS2 classics that are fixed to work on the PS3 for PSN. More profit.

@IdleLeeSiuLung
People who own a ps3 and have some extra cash are far more likely to purchase a new ps3 game than a new ps2 game. Ps2 backwards compatibility is mainly wanted so people who have a collection of ps2 games don't loose their existing collection. Yes there are a few people with ps3's that would buy a ps2 game; however, it's far more likely that a person who only owns a ps2 will purchase a given game, because that is their console. Once a person moves on to a new console there is a little bit of nostalgia playing, but after a while they typically will stick to newer system games only reverting to the older games when they desire to have a nostalgic trip.

Thanks for the clarification, but what I meant is I fail to see why that would be a hindrance. I mean even if the likelihood of somebody buying a PS2 game decreases significantly with PS3 owners, it is still an expansion of the PS2 market.

Besides PS1 games sell well, so why not PS2? Why let GameStop eat up your profits on older games that are no longer available brand new in-store? That is a huge catalog of games....

but if Sony were to make the ps3 backward compatible again, then when a persons ps2 dies there is a high probability that they would just purchase a ps3, and though from our standpoint that sounds appealing, lets think about this from a business standpoint. Adding ps2 backwards compatibility financially gets Sony very little at this point, because as I previously stated most individuals will mainly use it for playing their existing game collection, and when they have money to spend on a new game they are far more likely to purchase a new ps3 game rather than a new ps2 game. From Sony's stand point they loose profit on selling the ps3, and they loose profit on unsold p2 games, but make a profit on ps3 games. So that is 2 monetary losses to one potentially small gain.

Now if they keep the ps2 separate while there is still a decent demand for it It's far more likely that the gamer will buy another ps2 which they make a profit on, the user now is still obviously interested enough in the ps2 to have purchased a new one, so they also have a market for new ps2 games, and eventually if the person decides to go to the ps3, they have the additional revenue from that ps2 sale to help off set the cost of the ps3 purchase. Basically the person spent $100+ dollars on something that Sony only makes a profit on at this point. Thus it's currently a win win solution for Sony to keep selling the ps2 separately from the ps3 until their simply isn't enough demand for it any more.

Once the profit level of the ps2 drops to low for it to pay for the manufacturing of it, then Sony will more than likely kill it off at which point they are more likely to add it back in as a downloadable emulator for the ps3, and charge people a small fee and they potentially make a profit again. See how this works, by waiting, they have the opportunity to make a profit off the ps2 the whole time.

Listen up El Botto some people didn't get a chance to get PS2 or PS2 games they just got a ps3 or want to get a PS3 two play PS3 games and PS2 games not just PS3 games, so were going to keep talking about backwards compatibility in tell sony finally put it back on PS3. if it take 2-3 more years then we will keep talking about it for 2-3 more years as long as it takes to get b/c back.

"El Botto some people didn't get a chance to get PS2"

Yup, people like me who sucked it up and got both a PS3 and a PS2 slim (after it dropped to $99).

Because the PS3 is still selling? What about the PS2? It had BC throughout its lifetime...I remember the PS1 was selling good and Sony never removed BC from the PS2.

can opnly render PS2 games without jaggies .... no where did I put my 4D goggles ...

Ebay?! Are you mental? You'd get scammed easily! Hell, I could but a 60GB HDD into my 80GB and pass it off as a 60GB on Ebay!