"Thousands" of B/C Games for EU PS3 Phil Harrison claims PS2 compatibilty won't be an issue. by Rob Burman, IGN UK UK, March 1, 2007 - Phil Harrison, head of Sony's worldwide studios, has said that despite the change in hardware there will still be "thousands" of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games playable for European PS3s at launch, later this month. Speaking to The Guardian and on Sony's semi-official blog Three Speech, Harrison responded to criticisms over the EU PS3's reduced backwards compatibility by saying, "There will still be thousands of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 titles playable on the PS3 at launch. It's very easy to over-react." Indeed, following the March 23 launch Sony will be working on its firmware updates, available from the PlayStation Network, which will improve compatibility with more titles from the PS2 back catalogue. When asked whether the removal of the Emotion Chip could lead to a potential price cut, Harrison remained vague: "We strive to get the cost of manufacturing down as soon as possible. As soon as we can pass cost savings onto the consumers, we will." Harrison went on to say that potential PS3 owners aren't buying the console to play their PS2 titles, instead claiming, "the reasons why people buy PS3s are the new games that it offers, the HD content experiences provided by games and movies and the opportunity to access the PlayStation Network". Harrison also admitted Sony's tactics for securing third-party exclusives had changed too, with its focus shifting to producing in-house AAA titles rather than relying on the externally-developed big hitters like Grand Theft Auto. "When we launched the PlayStation there were no accompanying games developed by Sony," he explained. "When we launched the PlayStation 2 there was one - Fantavision, which, beautiful game though it was, was no game on which to launch a platform. But the PS3 will launch with more exclusive, high-quality games from our studios than we've ever done before."

Sony is still working on their PS2 emulation software. All of their PR sense the announcemnt of the Emotion Engines removal from the PS3 chipset shows it. The PS1 has thousands of games. So Harrison's quote gives no inclination of the compatibility percentage of PS2 software on the PS3. Until Sony releases a list of compatible games, there can only be pointless speculation.

The PS3 will have near 100% compabality with PS1. And obviously a good percent for PS2. Darc - you just hate sony.

I don't think there is anything "Obvious" about it ... The only way it would be "Obvious" is had Sony actually been willing to tell people which (or how many) games would work; their reluctance reminds me of Microsoft refusing to tell people what games were going to work and watching people complain about "Barbie's Horse Adventure" working and their favourite (and strong selling) game being left off of the list ... For a company that mocked Microsoft's approach to Backwards compatibility they sure have changed their tune ...

please, ..... stop exagarating he just says >1000 i wont call that thousands. it can be 1001. !! again sign for pricedrop soon

1375 PS2-games releas in USA 2451 PS2-gamesl releasd in Europ. (to date 2006-12-31) and over 1000-ps2 games will work 23 marsh in Eu

Nothing in my post was negative about Sony. I said that Sony is still working on their software and there is no point in speculating on compatibility until Sony puts out a list of what games work and what games don't. How is that negative Kwaad?

"Q: Can you give us a ballpark figure for the number of PS2 titles which will be playable at launch on the PS3? PH: “The situation is changing every day, but on March 23, we expect the list to include over 1,000 PS2 titles.”" http://threespeech.com/blog/?p=301 What was removed was the Emotion engine. The cell shoud be able to adequately emulate the functions of that hardware. A little shy of 50% of title will work but no one knows how many of the 2400+ titles are re-releases or platinum editions. Any calls of death and gloom exaggerated?

I don't think the number of games is as important as which games will or won't work. If Dora the Explorer doesn't run on a PS3, I can't see too many people noticing that one. If the GTA games don't work, then there'll be trouble.

Expect is the key word ... this is the company that Expected to have 2 Million PS3s at launch and ship 6 Million by the end of 2006 at E3 ... Regardless of the approach they used it is unlikely that they could completely re-test the entire library of the PS2 so the compatible game list might just end up being PS2 games that (when put into the PS3) boot up to the main menu; sound, graphic and stability problems are very common in emulation until you get (near to) 100% compatibility.