After some conjecture earlier this week surrounding the re-release of some older PS2 Star Wars games, Sony has come out and confirmed that PS2 games are coming to the PS4 courtesy of emulation.
“We are working on utilising PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation,” Sony told Wired. “We have nothing further to comment at this point in time.”
Not very communicative, but then, that’s par for the course with Sony and PS2 games on the PS4.
(image: Digital Foundry)
While Sony doesn’t have anything further to say officially, Digital Foundry has taken a look at the Star Wars games in question — collected in a bundle that includes Super Star Wars, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars: Racer Revenge and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter — and put the emulation through its paces.
You can check out their findings — and some comparison screenshots — here.
Comments
25 responses to “PS2 Emulation Coming To The PS4”
So keen on playing Shadow of the Collasas, never played it
1. Pinch PCSX2
2. Get running on PS4
3. ???
4. Profit!
Jokes aside though, I have to ask the common question; will the emulation be region locked?
If experience has taught me anything, the answer will be yes but I hope others. Considering that some features like HDD support to reduce load times and progressive scan were removed in the PAL releases, such as Star Ocean 3 which had progressive scan widescreen (anamorphic, I know) in the Japan and US region but was removed in the PAL regions.
And yes, I know that some games required holding the Triangle and Circle buttons to enable progressive scan as no setting exists in game but that too was also removed. It was even done for God of War from what I can tell.
And no, I don’t use PCSX2. A Google search indicates it is a mature emulator so sorry in advance if this is completely wrong.
PCSX2 isnt region locked. You just need to choose the region version you want for the rom. Unless Ive misunderstood the question. I usually just make sure to get the US version as a rule unless I know the pal has additional content.
My apologies. In terms of region locks I was talking about the coming emulator on the PS4.
IF this means I can put my PS2 discs into my PS4 then WOO!
IF this means I can then stream my disc PS2 games to my Vita then OMFG yes! Sitting on my copy of Yakuza 2 if I can play that in bed then gimme, gimme, gimme.
Let’s hope it’s not like the XBone where if you put a 360 disk in, it’s only there for the DRM.
The game in question is still downloaded and apparently one only has Microsoft one drive for the data storage.
I think it’ll unfortunately be like the PS3: a bunch of ‘classics’ for download in a small section on PSN to be emulated through software.
Just plug in an external HDD and you can have a extra 2TB easy. Also, MSFT DRM isn’t so bad and is understandable for it to work better over time plus if you own the game digitally then it works perfectly.
What’s DMR?? I have downloaded and played fallout 3 (360 version) on the xbox one and its basically your standard backwards compatibility. The system is great as far as I’m concerned
I don’t want to be a pessimist, but TBH I think it’ll just be like last gen. A handful of PS2 ‘classics’ you can buy from PSN to be emulated on your console, now with trophies and better resolution.
Side note: 1080p up-scaling has been possible on PC emulators with GPU’s worse than the PS4’s for years, so I’m not sure why they are sticking with +-720p? Maybe it’ll get an update! That’s an exciting thought.The only PS3’s that officially supported BC from disks were the ones with the PS2 hardware in them.
It was rumored that the PS2 games on PSN’s classics section were running under software emulation anyway, much like these on the PS4. The rumors were made somewhat believable with PS2 emulators coming out for those who installed custom firmware on their PS3’s.
I want to hope for disk compatibility, but if Sony did it the same thing on the sly last gen, why change now? I do hope I’m wrong though, and I’ll still pik up some titles undoubtedly, which is probably part of the problem.
Back when this gens consoles were released this was supposed to be nigh on impossible “Due to the new architecture” which everyone knew was just bollocks. I have hundreds of roms on my ssd all downloaded free. Id have happily payed for every one too but the service wasnt there.
Streaming these died before it even started up on the ps4 which was my main reason for early adoption so fuck em. Too little, too late.
Because of the way that news articles were written about backwards compatibility and the general leaning of the popular opinions in comments sections, I was always under the impression that PS3 backwards compatibility was the impossible one, and that PS1/2 were possible and might come later. Just saying.
I’ve actually had the luck to play with the Cell B.E. SDK which has since been pulled due to the discontinuation of the Cell chip.
While it is possible to emulate a Cell chip on x86_64 hardware, the overhead will significantly cut into the performance.
That aside, there are also the games which (like with Uncharted) are finely tuned to the two ring buses in the chip and have a lot of coding specific to the hardware to squeeze every drop out.
Thus, differences in the resulting timing between components due to the emulation may break games.
So while not impossible, PS3 emulation is currently impractical. But PS2 and PS1? Child’s play.
Sony just doesn’t want people with older games using them on their newer hardware when Sony can be penny pinchers and bait them with remasters.
Yup, like I say, Sony were perfectly happy letting PSN downloads of PS2 games (Not the remasters, the flat out ’emulated’ titles) be the primary way to play PS2 games on PS3, don’t see why that would change now.
emulate on pc?
play them on ps3?
or waste $500 to play on potato?
Lol, yeah, IMHO BC is normally only appealing for those who already own the console/ early adopters.
I know a lot of people do it, but I’ve always found emulating on PC just never quite hit the spot for me, even when playing with a controller. I don’t know what it is, just doesn’t feel quite “right.”
I never had a PS2 either way though, so there is no nostalgia value for me at all, which is all old games really have over all the newer ones I’m yet to also not get around to playing.
yeah everyone has different preferences when it comes to gaming and emulation.
I can’t play emulated stuff on my pc monitor but i’m fine with it on massive TV screen 😛
As long as Sony don’t half ass the emulation and games run in a miniscule box surrounded buy black and not charging 50 bucks a game it’s better than nothing for ps4 owners i guess.
While not perfect the ps2 emulator for pc is pretty good.
This isn’t exactly surprising. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they pinched the PCSX2 source code and ported it. I just hope this time, compared to the PS1\PS2 outing on PS3, that we get options like AA, superscaling, native res output, etc.
PS3 emulation on the other hand, that’ll be a pipe dream unless Sony goes down the route of recompiling games like Microsoft is.
It’s popped up a few times about PS3 emulation so for the curious, I recommend this book on Cell Programming.
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Cell-Processor-Graphics-Computation-ebook/dp/B004Y4UT7W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448087262&sr=8-1&keywords=programming+the+cell+processor
Don’t have to read it all, just the front matter on its architecture. It’s surprisingly simple considering what it is for. It also shows challenges can be faced if anyone tries the emulation route.
Without getting too far off topic, I sometimes wished I didn’t update the firmware on my PS3 – it would have been fun to learn to program that processor and take distributed, micro-programming learning for a joy ride.
My PS3 is still back pre 2.55 if you want to buy it 🙂
As long as it’s not 100% emulation
“We all remember the abysmal loading times during our PS2 era. Why, I remember the RPGs where I had to wait 16 seconds to walk into an empty house, then another 16 seconds to leave. That’s why at Sony, we’re going to make sure that your games load at a 5.25 MiB/s bottleneck”
Fantastic! Now we can have another console that permits PS2 emulation but will never get any games for it and the few it does are completely undiscoverable because the storefront has absolutely no way of finding them. (Yes, I know there is an obscure way of finding them on PS3’s PSN interface but even then the categorisation is horrid and not all games appear in it).
AU and NZ territories may even get Suikoden III before then.
Only if i get Battlefront 2 from my ps2 that still works and port it to ps4 to play when Battlefront (reboot) gets slow. That would be awesome. Even if lego star wars 1/2 does, (they are both small game sizes). What the heck, if i get to play DBZ budokai tenkaichi 3 comes to ps4 ill be in love with sony
If this means I can put any of my PS2 discs in the console and they will run…..all for it, guaranteed PS4 sale right here.
If it is used as a method to sell PS2 games in the Playstation store on PS4….nah I’m good, don’t want to re-purchase all the games I already own again.