It's been a long time since we first reported that classic PS1 and PS2 titles were heading to PlayStation 4, running under emulation. It's been so long in fact, that we began to wonder whether Sony had shelved the project. The company originally informed developers of the existence of the emulator at the same time it briefed them on the planned rollout for the PlayStation Now cloud service, way back in January 2014. Since then, the only hints at its existence came in the form of some telling PEGI game ratings, along with some sightings of PS2 classics appearing in shared media lists during the PS4 firmware 3.0 beta phase.
As it happens, the PlayStation 4's PS2 emulator is now available, released with no fanfare whatsoever. A new PS4 Star Wars bundle has been released, including a package of four 'classic' franchise titles: Super Star Wars, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars: Racer Revenge and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. All four titles are supplied via a single PSN code, as opposed to a physical disc included with the hardware. You'll note that three of those titles hail from the PlayStation 2 era, and after we downloaded them, it became clear that all of them are running under emulation.
How can we tell? First of all, a system prompt appears telling you that select and start buttons are mapped to the left and right sides of the Dual Shock 4's trackpad. Third party game developers cannot access the system OS in this manner. Secondly, just like the PS2 emulator on PlayStation 3, there's an emulation system in place for handling PS2 memory cards. Thirdly, the classic PlayStation 2 logo appears in all of its poorly upscaled glory when you boot each title. And finally, all in-game button prompts relate to the PS2's controller - nothing has been changed at all, effectively ruling out a remaster.
The arrival of PS2 emulation on the PlayStation 4 is a big deal - we reached out to Sony and await comment, but it is a little odd that a lovely piece of technology that's bound to excite a lot of interest has slipped out without any kind of fanfare. The PlayStation 2 is one of the classic pieces of console hardware, and the ability to access that back catalogue with enhanced visuals is a tantalising proposition. And with that in mind, it's actually a bit of a shame that the emulator has launched with a trio of mediocre titles, as opposed to a sparkling line-up of the console's greatest hits.
More here:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-hands-on-with-ps4-playstation2-emulation
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