• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Sony confirms PS2 emulation coming to PS4

As long as I can play Poy Poy at 1440x1080, it's all rosy.
I'd prefer 1920*1080, currently they're 1292*896, so I hope they can get to Full HD when they release the emulator. If they can't get to full-hd on launch day, 1440*1080p would upscale pretty nicely for these old titles tbh. GT5 looked mighty sharp at 1280*1080, so I hope they get the vertical scale to 1080p at the very least....

Hope there's a nice AA solution too...
 
I'm going to guess that SE will give that a remaster. Using the International Zodiac Job System version as a reason to "warrant" a remaster.
It'd be great for people outside Japan. IZJS seems very different just by implementing the class system, and I'm curious to find out if it improves or hurts the game. I liked the freedom that XII offered with regards to how you could adjust your characters, but who knows? The class system could be really cool.
 
YES! I was just daydreaming about this.

I really hope they implement Share button features like screenshots and video record/upload.

I'll play the shit out of God Hand again and share it with all my friends who don't know better! And remote play, too! Mwahahahaha!
 
I thought that PS1 emu sort of "came free" with PS2 emu, being that the PS2 audio chip was basically a PS1 main chip? obviously not as simple as that but I thought that's how it was described. can't remember where though.

also, side question - I have an old BC phat PS3 but the optical drive cracked our years ago and I replaced it with a slim. should I fix it while I can?
 
Regardless of the details this is a good thing, I'll be curious to see how far Sony takes it. The ideal would be disc based and digital, with the digital releases enjoying the benefit of reduced load times and/or trophy support for those who care about it. This would offer the incentive of making digital purchases while showing a high level of respect to customers already sitting on substantial physical collections (which I think would be brilliant PR, but only time will tell). No region lock would be balls out amazing in this context, but I don't know whether there are matters of licensing between regions from that era that would prevent this. I also suspect like most emulators compatibility will be a work in progress. I'd be shocked if every game worked perfectly out of the gate, even with the benefit of internal documentation when developing the emulator.

I feel like the elephant in the room though is enhanced performance as seen in the games shown and seemingly alluded to in the language “We are working on utilizing PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation” . This seems to only be getting passing mentions, but that's a huge deal to me. If what Digital Foundry describes with 4x the pixel count + upscaling and improved frame rate is universal this could be incredible. I personally think it's a bigger deal than 360 emulation on the Xbox one, because it provides a discernible boost in image quality and performance for dated games, and could largely act as a substitute for PS2 era up ports while providing profits for publishers via digital distribution. If they managed to have disc support it would actually make people's entire PS2 libraries relevant again, without the ugliness of 480p upscaled to modern HD televisions. It might be hope against hope, but if that's the policy I'll go bananas.

So worst case scenario this is a positive step in the right direction, and best case scenario it could be a system seller for enthusiasts eager to relive PS2 experiences with better fidelity or people on the fence who just need that extra excuse to jump on a PS4. As someone who doesn't own one yet it would definitely push me over the edge if it falls on the more inclusive side with disc+digital and all around resolution and performance upgrades.
 
I'd prefer 1920*1080, currently they're 1292*896, so I hope they can get to Full HD when they release the emulator. If they can't get to full-hd on launch day, 1440*1080p would upscale pretty nicely for these old titles tbh. GT5 looked mighty sharp at 1280*1080, so I hope they get the vertical scale to 1080p at the very least....

Hope there's a nice AA solution too...

I believe there is an AA solution. The Digital Foundry video mentioned it, and if you watch it, the image is massively improved in that regard; jaggies were cleaned up pretty well.
 
I see little chance of disc-based, despite their competitor opting for it with 360 emulation. Sony don't wanna miss making profit on software.
Not everyone who has a PS4 has a PS2 collection, and digital would still be cheaper and easier than hunting down physical games for a lot of people. Not every game is easy to find either. Games with limited distribution and imports in particular could find new audiences through digital, even if they have disc based emulation.

And like I said before, better load times + trophy support on certain games could create a dichotomy that favors digital releases without leaving disc owners in the cold. Not to mention that many people increasingly favor going digital to spare space in their homes. Outside of the enthusiast market I don't know how many people are actively sitting on huge amounts of disc based PS2 games at this point.
 
They should announce PSP emulation as well. No idea why they didn't ever do this. (PS2 classics emulator on PS3 was capable of playing PSP games, but Sony never ended up releasing any PSP games for it for some reason)

This is why competition is good for the industry . Without ms trying this I doubt Sony would bother .

Too bad we will never get PS3 emulation though
They definitely would, they didn't start developing this when MS announced BC. There has been patents and other evidence for quite a while.
 
Just please don't fuck up with the upscaling. PS2 games on PS3 were a shitshow.

Upscaling =/= Enhancing Native res

They basically just stretched the original res out and put a filter over it. PS4 apparently is actually changing the native res of the game to about 4x the original, which has a huge impact
 
So does that mean we can play our PS2 digital games that are currently in our library?

PS2 Classics will have to be re-rated for digital release but chances are when the same games are re-rated that you already own in your PSN library, you will be able to redownload them on PS4.


I'm in the camp that believes disk-based emulation is likely. I don't believe the conjecture that they wouldn't allow it due to lost profits of PS1/PS2 classics in the same respect that there was no lost profits on PSone Classics on PS3. Sony historically has supported playing older games on their platform since the PS2, albeit it wasn't executed in a perfect manner in every regard but it is in their ethos to do as much.
 
I do hope they allow disk based. I've sold off most of my PS2 games, but I still have a few classics like Black, SSX Tricky, Dark Chronicle and Dragon Quest 8. I did sell off my copy of Persona 3 FES recently but I sold that at a premium knowing I could buy it digitally if I needed to.
 
Just look at the star wars thread, they look pretty good.

Upscaling =/= Enhancing Native res

They basically just stretched the original res out and put a filter over it. PS4 apparently is actually changing the native res of the game to about 4x the original, which has a huge impact


Thanks, sounds promising then. More like PCSX2.
 
I'd absolutely love disc based emulation. I have 100s of PS2 games just sitting there waiting for it.

I very much doubt this will ever happen though. I would however buy back a number of classics if they were emulated well and had a few extra bells and whistles thrown in (HD, trophy support etc...)
 
They should announce PSP emulation as well. No idea why they didn't ever do this. (PS2 classics emulator on PS3 was capable of playing PSP games, but Sony never ended up releasing any PSP games for it for some reason)


They definitely would, they didn't start developing this when MS announced BC. There has been patents and other evidence for quite a while.

Source? I know they brought a PSP emulator to the PS3, they used it to play PSP Minis, but built into the PS2 emulator?

I agree that they should bring PSP emulation to the PS4 though. The Vita's not doing that well, so they may as well make some money selling those games on a successful system.
 
Excellent news to see this confirmed. My CPU is too slow for most games I want to play on PCSX2. Also hope to pick up many classics I missed.
 
thelastword said:
I'd prefer 1920*1080, currently they're 1292*896
I expect the resolution chosen was because it's an exact multiple of 2 for the particular game (and 1080p is not).
With the way PS2 games work, anything that isn't an exact multiple will usually NOT upscale nicely and require lots of game-specific hacks to work. So I wouldn't expect 1080, maybe some games could handle 16x upscale (2500x1700 or thereabouts) but I wouldn't hold my breath for that too often.
 
Hm...there are still plenty of PS2 games on CD. PS4 doesn't support CD.
Isn't that just a matter of the right codec? PS2 support would be their reason to do it. They already added 3D Blu-Ray support in response to Xbox One's support, so just because it doesn't work out of the box doesn't preclude it, just like no BC at launch didn't limit Sony from eventually introducing it.
 
I expect the resolution chosen was because it's an exact multiple of 2 for the particular game (and 1080p is not).
With the way PS2 games work, anything that isn't an exact multiple will usually NOT upscale nicely and require lots of game-specific hacks to work. So I wouldn't expect 1080, maybe some games could handle 16x upscale (2500x1700 or thereabouts) but I wouldn't hold my breath for that too often.

Basically this. 4x is probably the official emulation choice
 
I bought a bunch of PS2 Classics in the last big sale in September (JRPGs in particular) with the explicit hope that I will be able to play them on PS4 at some point.

Can't wait to see if that was the right decision/which ones become available.
 
Nice. Let's hope we can get disc based emulation as well.

Would be happily surprised. Can't see it happening to be honest since the software PS2 emulator on PS3 got to the point where with CFW you could just rip your games and run them with very high accuracy, but Sony never allowed discs then.
 
Nice. Let's hope we can get disc based emulation as well.

don't count on it

Never say never, especially with this Sony leadership team. They really seem to be listening to fans and delivering. I would not be surprised if they did allow for disc based BC, since that's another goodwill mark in their favor. Shall I list some for you? ;)

- Yakuza. Check.
- The Last Guardian. Check.
- Shenmue III. Check.
- No online requirements. Check.
- You want indie games? We got 'em. Check.

What am I missing?

We did ask specifically about disc-based BC, but no comment.

ToMjGpKniGqRNLGBrhu.gif


Edit:

The very fact that Sony XDev is asking on Twitter 'what PS2 games would you like to see on PS4?' heavily implies this will be digital releases of PS2 games rather than backwards compatibility for discs.

I'm guessing the emulation isn't robust enough in the general case for them to simply release it with disc support and claim (close to) full backwards compatibility. So they'll cherry pick some titles, make sure they run OK on the emulator, and release them digitally.

Ah, bummer. I have tons of physical PS2 games, I would really be hesitant to rebuy them unless there's a crazy discount on PS+ or something, and at that point, what's the benefit for Sony to do the effort in releasing them?
 
Sony would rather sell digital copies than give us disk based BC, I'm sure. So how about a compromise. Only digital copies have trophies. Then some would want to buy for that reason. Because obviously they can't have trophies for every PS2 disk ready for a BC launch.
 
Guys…
GUYS…

Gradius V

However knowing Konami, they will install a virtual coinslot and lock the difficulty to the highest setting.
 
The very fact that Sony XDev is asking on Twitter 'what PS2 games would you like to see on PS4?' heavily implies this will be digital releases of PS2 games rather than backwards compatibility for discs.

I'm guessing the emulation isn't robust enough in the general case for them to simply release it with disc support and claim (close to) full backwards compatibility. So they'll cherry pick some titles, make sure they run OK on the emulator, and release them digitally.
 
If they do full BC as in both discs and digital, it probably won't be backwards compatible for the discs at least. PS1 and PS2 Classics could be bought from any region and played on hardware and an account from a different region. As long as you made a seperate account for the purchase, all digital versions were region free.

However the discs still maintained their region lock. Probably a mox of licensing and coding on disc. The discs were designed to be made for specific regionw and that won't have changed. Hence why I could download Chrono Cross and Xenogears off PSN and play them, but my NTSC import wouldn't play on my PAL PS3. With digital versions they renegotiated the licensing to allow region free, but that will never be possible for old discs.

It might be possible but it depends if the PS4 has hard region encoding in it. Like how PS3 was region free for disc games, but some DVD and Bluray movies were still locked to specific regions. If region locked Blurays don't work on PS4, I doubt seperate region PS1/2 games on disc will work either.
 
Top Bottom