This SONY PR guy certainly seems to think so....listen to his comments at 1.20

All the same functionality as the ORIGINAL PS3.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8207472.stm

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It is not.

theyve made it pretty clear that it wont be coming back.

So many times we see this question,

if you want BC in the PS3 , don't hold your breath. The answer is clearly no.

PS2 is cheap, why not just buy one?

Limited space and dont want to have yet another console cluttering up an already crowded shelf.

then how are we suppose to be hyped about firmware updates if bc is back? and how can we call ourselves sony fans if we can't hype?

nah its not back

100% guaranteed that their working onPS2 backwards compatibility via pure software emulation as well as planning PS2 games to be downloadable via PSN, as this will available day 1 for the PS4, but of course it is not something they will even talk about till they are close to releasing it and such.

Now the question is will this hit the PS3 at some stage?

I reckon their is a possibility, and it'll happen when PS2 hardware sales fall of the cliff, but then again I do also think that it'll skip the PS3 and go to the PS4, this way they can proposition the PS4 as the machine that can play the whole catalogue of it's own history....so it's a 50 - 50 probability right now for me.

i dont think bc will be back for the ps3

NO.