Adding trophies is impressive, although I don't know how much it warrants somebody purchasing games again for it. Depends on the individual.

Rendering games at a higher resolution is literally a few lines of code in the emulator, it is less than a percentage of the work that goes into the emulator. If they were to charge for that, they should sell it with the emulator for something like $20 (to cover the emulator's development costs), and let you play your original games at those higher resolutions after you purchased the emulator (only new content being produced.) 

Again...can I play XBox ORIGINAL games on the XBox One?

You've just said yourself that you need to MOD your Wii U to play games from two generations ago.

Video Games are MEDIA.

My MP3 player does not support my music CDs and nobody is gonna give me those songs again for free unless I pirate them.

BC is not something that's easily done at times. For the PS3 it's all the more a hassle because of its architecture. Tell me how that PS3 emulator is running at the moment on PCs.

Yes, they could emulate the PS2 and the PSOne. They are not, however, obligated to do so. Nobody ever is.

"I sold off my PS2 when I bought a PS3 and can't play my games on it anymore."

Uhhhh...why'd you sell your PS2 in the first place then?

"I don't want to log around hardware."

But you'd rather log around "all those games".

Seriously, some of the arguments of the thread make no sense to me.

Buuuhuuu, they're charging gamers to pay three times to play the same game.

However, who the bloody fuck buys a game three times? I got Crash Bandicoot 3 on the PS3/TV/Vita, only because my physical disc is too scratched to be played properly by my PSX.

Would I pay for it again on the PS4?

NO! I can already play it on three other systems, four even if I charge up the PSP.

My laptop does not have a DVD-Rom. Who will I go to strangle because I can't play Command and Conquer: Renegade now?

Ohhhh...it was my choice to buy a system that does not support physical media up to a point. Well, you see now, I am now not owed anything because I got a system that will not play something that I already own.

If there were large enough demand I am sure Microsoft would bring Xbox Original games. There isn't, and they chose to do the much harder task of bringing 360 games instead, because of higher demand. 

Yes, but Nintendo isn't providing a service that sells Gamecube games as a replacement. If they were committed to Gamecube BC they would just unlock Gamecube controller support in Wiimode the same way the mod works. Since people can already do it themselves, it isn't a big issue. 

I never said video games aren't media. I said they aren't OTHER media. 

It is perfectly legal per fair-use to rip the songs from the CD and put it on your mp3 player. But it is a silly discussion because an mp3 player ONLY plays digital media, and not discs. The PS4 supports the physical media via hardware. 

That is a ridiculous comparison, as nobody is talking about running PS3 games on the PS4, and Sony has already made an emulator in this situation. That is how these games work, via emulator. Sure there are specific tweaks in addition to the emulation, but the core of it is an emulator. 

They aren't obligated. But we are talking about appealing to consumers. Nobody is obligated to do anything, but they sure should if they want to keep in touch with the competition, and they don't want to come off as arrogant like they were at the start of the PS3 era. Anti-consumer policies are going to push consumers away, and not supporting games off the original discs because you want to make even more profits by manipulating people to rebuy their games - for some even a third time - is anti-consumer. 

Please get your quotations right. i never sold off any of my PS2's. They broke because they have shit lifespans, and the only one that is in half-working condition is a phat which I don't want to lug around. It isn't much of an issue because I can emulate my games on my PC. And overall this is not a personal issue, as like I said, I can emulate my games on PC. Nevertheless, I will call Sony out on anti-consumer practices. 

There can't be installs to the HDD? What technology prevents that? Who said I will be carrying my games with me at all times? I can't have three or four games that I am playing over a long period and then switch them when I go back home again? 

Like I said, consoles break. Sometimes buying the game again is the cheapest option. At the very least PS3 digital classics should had transferred to PS4 like Wii virtual console games transferred to Wii U. 

Fortunately in this circumstance the PS4 DOES have the hardware (and now the software) to play PS2 titles. Again, your comparison fails. 

Except it DOES support the media physically and now through software. The lack of support for games off the disc is an arbitrary decision by Sony. 

If Sony had the attitude of not providing services they don't owe their consumers, then they wouldn't be in first place right now in home consoles sales. That is the point of competition and appealing to consumers. The PS4 is such a success because Sony did a lot of what consumers wanted. 

You are missing the point of all of this.

You did not buy a game to play on a PS4. You bought it to play it on a PS2. That's it, nothing else.

It is not ANTI-Consumer for a company to take a decision to not support a previous platform's software on a current platform. Why is that so hard to understand?

You even acknowledge that nobody is obligated to give you this.

I am not saying that people are wrong to want the option.

I am saying that people are wrong to demand it as something that is rightfully theirs, when it's not.

Anti-cosumer would be if a company would take away your right to play your games on the platform you've bought them on.

However Sony chooses to offer BC, as long as they do not mess with what they've previously done, they are doing no wrong. I would stand behind this for any of the Big Three. As long as you buy a game for a specific platform, that is all there is to it. As long as the game works on the platform you've bought it for, that is as far as anyone owes you anything.

Nor did I buy a Wii U to play Wii games. It doesn't mean it isn't a nice feature to have, and one for which the companies should compete. 

It is anti-consumer when they choose not to because they want to resell the games instead. You'd have a point if there were extra costs involved in allowing off disc play, but there are not. Meaning Sony wants to maximize producer surplus at the expense of consumer surplus, making it indeed - anti consumer. 

Again, what is obligated is not the same thing as what is right for the consumer. I already explained this. Sony was not obligated to drop the price of the PS3 when it failed, but they did because they wanted to sell PS3's and please their consumer-base. 

Nobody is demanding it as rightfully ours. We are criticizing Sony for a decision that reduces consumer surplus to bolster producer surplus. 

Anti-consumer is much greater than fraud. That would be a very specific type of anti-consumer activity which is illegal. That doesn't mean that there aren't forms of anti-consumer activities and decisions which aren't fraud. 

So did Microsoft not do anything wrong when they decided people couldn't sell used games? (You bought that game to play it, not sell it.) Or did Nintendo not do wrong when they decided to region-lock their platforms? (You bought that console to play games released in your region.) These are decisions which we criticize them for, because they limit the options of consumers to benefit the producer. The same is true when Sony produces an emulator, but restricts that emulator to only games that a repurchased digitally through them. 

Does Wii U play GCN discs? They took GCN compatability out of the later Wii models. I'd be surprised if they re-added it to the Wii U.

None of the manufacturers seem to allow 6th gen playback on their 8th gen systems that I can see?

I don't think bc is as straight forward as people seem to think. The PS3 only played PS2 games because they put half of the PS2 hardware into early PS3 consoles. The PS4 is completely different to the PS3 hence no bc there (while XB1 is closer to 360 and Wii U has been designed to run Wii software as a design choice)

As for the Blu-ray vs DVD analogy some people came up with. The PS4 versions AREN'T a PS2 image. They have been modified to run on PS4, so technically the analogy is people complaining they have to buy a blu-ray of their favourite classic film to be able to enjoy it in "remastered" form which actually, yeah... that's exactly what Blu-ray owners have to do if they want to take advantage of the newer format. Just as DVD owners had to rebuy their VHS films if they wanted to take advantage of the DVD features.

Wait, let me get this straight, you want Sony to let you put in a PS2 game, download it to your hard drive, and then never have to use it again, hence not carrying your library around with you?  So I can just download it to my PS4, hand the disc off to my friend, so he can then get it.  Make sure all my friends who want it have it, then sell it.  Genious, pure genious.

Even if that's not what you would do, that's what most people would end up doing.  It's not going to happen.

I really don't understand why some people don't seem to understand this. The games are 10 to 15 years old, and if you own the software, I would assume you'd also own the system to play them on, sure it isn't as convenient, but if you want to play the low res SD versions of these games, hook up your PS2. If you want to play higher res versions of these games with extra features and trophies, buy the game for 10 to 15 dollars. It really isn't that expensive. Sony is not gorging you or ripping you off. They're offering you a better product at a fairly cheap price. Don't like it, don't buy it. Simple.

And has no one ripping this practice apart upgraded a movie they really love from DVD to Blu-Ray?

Not sure I understand this right, I mean on the most basic level if you had a blu-Ray player chances are it would perfectly play DVD discs, it'd be very rare to find a player which didn't, so while you could well have the option of going from the ps2 version to a upscaled to 1080p version from the psn store... it is the lack of the option to simply use the original which makes this comparison fall apart.

You could have picked VHS to DVD at least there a DVD player wouldn't play a VHS for obvious reasons, but when the system functionally is capable of playing the media, charging for the option to play the older format on an individual game basis is not the same. If you could have a 1 off payment of the ps2 emulation software running on the ps4 for say 100 or so, I would imagine a lot of people would have no issues paying that fee to add the feature onto their ps4.

I don't think you get the process of emulating the Emotion Engine on the PS4.  I also don't fully understand it, but I'm sure it costs more than a Blu-Ray player having a red laser and a blue laser to read both formats.  And as someone else stated earlier in this discussion, Sony has to get money back to developers for the right to play on a new format.

I'll admit, that last analogy was poor, because the Video Game industry is not the same as the movie industry.  DVD's are still available for sell on almost all titles, meaning you can still buy old movies on DVD brand new.  Then the movie company still gets money in their pocket.  Games are not the same.  I can't walk into Target and buy GTA III on the PS2 brand new.  So for Rockstar to allow their games to be played on new hardware, they want some money.

And to anyone who keeps saying Microsoft is doing it right, I find it funny that the majority of their 360 games playable on the Xbox One are Microsoft published titles.  I haven't seen any announcements for Rockstar games like Red Dead, because I'm sure Rockstar would rather release it as a downloadable title so they can make money.

So I guess my point is that the movie industry and the video game industries are completely different.  But I'm sure some people had no problem shelling out an extra 15 bucks to upgrade a favorite movie of theirs to Blu-Ray.