| dallas said: The software emulation is probably 100X's cheaper than the hardware alternative. Once you have the software solution, you really don't need any more work on it so a considerable amount of cost savings would result. But since sony already went ahead and did its R&D to make this software emulation, why would it NOT want to include it on other editions of the PS3? How would this save sony any $$$$$?  |
The PS2 is made of two different chips, the Emotion Engine and the Graphics Synthesizer, and both are pretty custom tailored hardware. The EE has always been relatively hard to emulate in software, but with "da powa of da Cell" they made it. The GS on the other hand is still being built into newer PS3s, because it's "really hard" (not to say outright impossible) to emulate thanks to its insane eDRAM bandwidth (48GiB/s vs. the RSX's 22.4GiB/s to GDDR3). This is also why PS2 games are upscaled and not simply redered at a higher resolution - they are still being rendered by PS2 hardware.
So, there you have it: that's where they get to save a few extra bucks. PS1 backwards compatibility on the other hand, should really be free - you should feel ripped off if it's not included (and if they end up doing that, it's because they want to sell those downloads). But PS2, not so much, and after all, if the $99 PS2 also ends up coming out, that's your savings right there.
