Europe's PS3 to have limited PS2 backwards compatibility?

Felix

Maintenance Worker

Filed under: Gaming
We'll admit, we're feeling starting to feel for you folks in Europe, as not only do you now have to actually pay attention to where you're driving, but the PlayStation 3 you were planning on snagging exactly one month from today might be hamstringed right out of the box. According to comments made by David Reeves, president of SCEE, support for PS2 titles will indeed be limited, as he stated that "rather than concentrating on PS2 backwards compatibility, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3." It seems that original PlayStation titles won't be hindered all that much, but the situation looks fairly dire for your current PlayStation 2 discs. The actual list of compatible titles won't be published until launch day, and while it was noted that future titles could be added through PlayStation Network downloads, a Sony spokesperson purportedly stated that "backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as in the US and Japanese models." The reason, while still not pinpointed, could potentially be linked to the Euro-spec'd PS3 rocking a "new chassis" designed to bring manufacturing costs of the console down, which might have demanded some hardware cutbacks somewhere along the line. Regardless of the "why," it looks like UK users could get snubbed by Sony once again, so we seriously hope your PS2 won't mind sharing cabinet space with its newfangled sibling come March 23rd.

[Thanks, Stoo and Ryan]
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Mr. WikipediaSpamBot

The exact reason is that the PAL version of the PS3 will use software emulation (like the Xbox 360) rather than having the Emotion Engine chip built in (like Japanese and North American PS3's). It kind of sucks for European and Australian gamers that were planning on selling their PS2's to help pay for the PS3.