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  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The ps5 definitely does have a PS1 and PS2 software emulator on it, otherwise the playstation classics wouldn't work. It's the same story for the PS3 and PS4, they both have PS1 and PS2 emulators. It just isn't enabled for the user to use for their own disc games for multiple reasons. The first is obviously that Sony want to make money reselling your old games on the playstation store as PS classics. The second would be the insane amount of testing required to ensure all the games work. As someone that has "unlocked" the PS2 emulator on my PS3 and PS4, there are a ton of weird quirks with regards to configuration and all that.

    As for PS3 emulation, Sony would've had to create one from scratch (they have had PS1 and PS2 emulaton since the PS3, so they don't have to start over every time) and due to the complexity of the hardware of the PS3 it would be quite a task. PS4 emulation is there oviously, because the hardware is similar so it's a relatively small investment for a massive reward financially in terms of profit. The launch PS3 tried what you said (full backwards compatibility with all previous consoles, including disc games) and it was considered a massive flop as it was too expensive and not profitable. So to answer your question, capitalism, in many different ways.

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      There is a PS3 emulator and it's making pretty good progress, but you need a beast machine to run it.

      • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Yeah but Sony don't have the rights to that specific emulator, they would have to make their own. I'm sure if Sony really wanted to they could make a PS3 emulator on PS5, this is the same company that got a PS2 software emulator to work on the PS3, a console with 512MB RAM and essentially a GT 8800 for a GPU, in order to resell PS2 games digitally on the playstation store. It's just they know there's more money in remakes and remasters (see Demon Souls on PS5) so they won't do it. :-(

        • skeletorsass [she/her]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          There are actually hardware implications of parallelism of Cell that make it very expensive to emulate, more even than PS2. It was a mistake to use a scientific computing CPU on a game machine.

          Sony could use rpcs3, as it is GPL licensed, but they would have to publish any change. There is room for performance improvements in that emulator, but it is going to always be difficult to run.

          • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            It was a mistake to use a scientific computing CPU on a game machine.

            It did have a few benefits, look at games like the last of us and gran turismo 6, they look a lot better than what was available on Xbox 360 at the time. But there were a ton of downsides too.

            but they would have to publish any change.

            This is why Sony would never do such a thing, this is the company that still keeps PS2 documentation secret.