| Lollerdongs said: oh, @yourmother, at least they didn't take it out of the 80gb ps3? Obviously they want to give it to you, but you'll have to cough up the extra % $, they're not gonna hand you a PS2 GPU for free. |
That's right. No argument there: You can still have it if you want it, but you need to fork over the extra cash. Again, no disagreements.
ssj12 specifically said Sony doesn't want to "make an extreme promise" yet that's what Sony did, then retracted on that statement. Joystiq says it pretty well (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/06/why-the-ps3s-lack-of-backwards-compatibility-is-upsetting/):
"So what's the big deal - why does the backwards compatibility matter? The previously-mentioned "core value" quote from Phil Harrison best sums it up, that with the PS3 we are buying into the PlayStation brand and all that it entails. Gamers who pick up the 40GB model have lost access to over 8,000 titles - many of them the best gaming has to offer. The elephant in the room is that Sony could ween out backwards compatibility from all its available models over all regions. Should you care? We think so.
Update: With some help from Engadget Japan's Ittousai, we have found diagrams indicating the switch from Emotion Engine + Graphic Synthesizer chip to just a graphics synthesizer chip, implying the software emulation was partially hardware-supported (as noted by many commenters). If that's the case, then, the ability to download emulation software later may not be possible. We don't want to spread misinformation, so for further clarification we have contacted Sony for a definitive answer.
Regardless, the loss of backwards compatibility marks a paradigm shift in the PlayStation branding. If you buy a PS3, your connection to the previous generation - one that saw Sony reign mightily in the realm of console gaming - is severed. Does the cost of branding outweigh the financial benefit of losing a graphics chip?"
This flies directly against this earlier claim by Sony PR:
"Backwards compatibility, as you know from PlayStation One and PlayStation 2, is a core value of what we believe we should offer. And access to the library of content people have created, bought for themselves, and accumulated over the years is necessary to create a format. PlayStation is a format meaning that it transcends many devices -- PSOne, PS2, and now PS3."
I don't know about you, but the contradiction is clear as Evian to me.
