The 80GB and 20/60GB are practically identical, with regards to BC, as of firmware 2.20 or so.

The 60GB has a couple more games it supports, but they both support 95%+ easily.

The reason Sony removed the Emotion Engine (the "EE", the PS2's CPU, but not the PS2 Graphics Synthesizer -- the "GS"... its GPU) from the 80GB was to save money and heat -- and the software emulation of the EE is darn near perfect, as evidenced by the BC of the 80GB.

They removed the GS from the 40GB (and the new 80GB), and thus crippled PS2 BC for those PS3 models.... however Sony *could* introduce software emulation of the GS at some point... and probably will if they ever start making PS2 games available as DLC from PSN. Money is all it really takes to motivate such a thing.

Both PS1 and PS2 games look better under emulation than they do on the actual consoles, due to upscaling and/or smoothing.  I've never noticed any difference in framerate, etc... although I could swear that some games that had some framerate drops on the PS1 and PS2, don't have them on the PS3.  Maybe I'm just less sensitive to framerate nowadays, with all the bad framerates of many HD games lately.

Oh, that's very interesting. More confirmations on the framerate would make me buy a 80GB instantly! Thanks for the input.

I'm interested to know what's better as well: Hardware emulation or software emulation?

buy the metal gear solid 4 bundled ps3 80gig if you can find one, it has complete bc (play all ps2 games), a great console (rofl) and one of the great games included (mgs4 oh yea baby!)

btw, welcome to the ps3 family :)

Actually I have been playing GoW2 on my ps3 and noticed there isn't the tearing that used to be there when it was on ps2, so I think the software emulation works pretty damn well, if I had to choose I would get a ps3 that does software emulation because any problems with ps2 games can be fixed, with the hardware emulation, you've to stick with what you got (I think).

Yep, I really think I'm going to buy the 80GB then. More inputs would be appreciated!

And thanks gengka! =P

the new 80gb sku does not include BC,

i think sony should keep selling the MGS4 bundles at the price they are selling them now

the new 80GB does include B/C with PS1 games
Every PS3 SKU includes PS1 B/C
20GB 60GB motorstorm/MGS4 80GBs include PS2 B/C

Is the MGS4 bundle being removed from market? I thought they were gonna keep selling it with the new no-BC 80s?

study + nostudy = no fail +fail

*isolate study on one side and fail on the other

study(1 + no) = (no + 1)fail

*divide by (1 +no) on both sides

study = fail

Yeah 80GB is a good deal in the US!