Sony have confirmed that they are working on bringing emulation for PlayStation 2 games to PlayStation 4. Digital Foundry spotted that the old PS2 Star Wars games bundled with Star Wars Battlefront on PlayStation 4 were running via an emulator rather than being specifically recoded ports.
“We are working on utilizing PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation,” a Sony representative told WIRED via email. “We have nothing further to comment at this point in time.”
PlayStation 3 games would be much harder to emulate due to the custom hardware inside the old console, which is why Sony has introduced the PlayStation Now streaming service.
Two months ago three PlayStation 2 games were rated for PS4, Ape Escape 2, Dark Cloud 2 (Dark Chronicle) and Twisted Metal: Black.
Crazy_Del
If I want to play PS2 games. I’d play them on my PlayStation 2 which I still own. Simples. I just want new gen games or new IPs right now!
JR.
AMEN!
spacedelete
well its happening so your gonna have to deal with it. besides this is done entirely by different people than the ones doing new games. you will get your new games so stop whining over nothing.
Kronik76
I’m sorry? How exactly was Del whining? He was simply expressing his point of view. I’m sure he’s not offended about this happening, he’s purely saying it doesn’t interest him, which he is entitled to do. I think you need to calm down.
The Lone Steven
Because he had a glass next to him thus is classed as whining. Along with a bowl of wine gums.
cam_manutd
I like the idea of this. If you are able to rebind the controls, even better. Also, the games in question are emulated classics with trophies rather than being a remaster. I wonder does that mean if lets say Final Fantasy 12 goes on the store, can it come with trophies? If its disc based I’m still cool without the no-trophies.
colmshan1990
Higher resolution, upscaled and with trophy support.
It sounds great. I bet they pick the worst games though. They definitely made some odd choices when releasing PS2 games digitally for PS3.
double-o-dave
Hang on, does this mean they could release Taito Legends (which I just looked up) so I can play Bubble Bobble?!
Starman
Nice effort that they’re putting in trophies. I wonder if many developers will bother though.
gazzagb
I think it would be cool if Sony allowed us to vote for which games we could play! I wonder if you will need to pay for these games again, or if somehow you can just insert the disk which acts as the license?
freezebug2
That’ll be Riding Spirits 1 and 2 for me then :)
hazelam
will they just enable it for games bought off the store?
or will they actually allow people to play PS2 games from discs they already own.
given how they handled BC on the PS3, i suspect the former.
hazelam
also, PS1 emulation would be nice, with higher resolution rendering rather than just post render smoothing.
emulating a PS1 should be a relatively simple matter by now, considering that there are even emulators on android now.
Andrewww
I honestly can’t see this being used much at all. Two generations back? People hardly play their PS3s anymore, as there’s now more than enough new stuff out on the current console.
And while PS3 games are interesting for people who were in the other camp last gen, PS2 games are definitely much less so.
Whenever we get pixel retro stuff with Plus, there’s a shitstorm in the PS blog’s comment section that I doubt there’s such a big demand for retro games.
freezebug2
Upscaled nostalgia with tropheez dude ;)
On saying that the PS3 was a huge leap (PS4 much less imo) and this probably won’t appeal to the masses, although I’ll take my Riding Spirits in an instant…the rest of the bigboys have been remastered for PS3 already.
Andrewww
I was actually thinking hard which PS2 titles I still remember, and there’s really not that many at all… maybe Red Faction, or Half-Life, or Gran Turismo 3, but all of these would likely suffer a lot in my perception, as they can’t have aged too well, and for all of these there were already sequels on the PS3.
I actually remember more C64 games that I found outstanding at the time. That would be a good emulator… ;o)