Sony: PS3 Firmware 3.0 Features Just Wild Speculation

Well at least Sony is trying

http://www.ps3news.com/forums/playstation-3-news/patent-shows-ps3-ps2-backwards-compatibility-no-ps2-chips-106712.html

I'd rather have an emulator that works with half the games (Like how the Xbox 360 Xbox 1 Titles are limited), rather than have no emulator at all.

Emulation is tough. Or, more precisely, fast, precise emulation is tough.

The PS2 was a funky architecture, and was programmed in a rather different way than PCs or even the Cell work. Games would carefully time how long various operations took, and try to keep everything flowing as fast as possible, sometimes down to the clock cycle. Emulating hardware to that level of precision is really hard. The PS3 is plenty powerful, but emulating other hardware takes serious juice. (Look at QEMU - it imitates a full x86 processor, and even running on an x86, the speed hit is dramatic.)

Getting 80% of the way there is pretty simple. It's the last 20%, the unusual conditions and corner cases, that take the most effort. And guaranteed, for every possible weird use case, there's some game out there that exercises it. Right now, people are still willing to buy PS2s, which are so cheap to make that they're almost pure profit for Sony. Until that changes, Sony has no need to put forth that development effort.

So far as I can see, what'll happen is Sony will write an emulator that handles 80% of the job, and then - for the PS2 games it owns - port those games to avoid the 20% corner cases. They'll be PSN downloads, eventually.

Here's my 2 cents on what I would like to see improved with the PS3.

I'll put these into two categories: the possible, and the improbable.

The Possible:

Allow automatic syncing of PSX game saves with the PSP and PS3. I would like to be able to play Metal Gear Solid on the PS3, save my game, then pick up where I left from the version I have downloaded on my PSP, while I'm out and about.

Unified theme for the PS3 and PSP, I would like to see a PS3 version of the PSP's "original" theme (Note, not classic)

More visualizations for audio

Support for Instant Messaging clients like AIM, etc.

Email support, perhaps allowing users to create *@playstation.com addresses or *@psn.com

Remote Play on Any Device (This would include PC's, PSP's, SmartPhones, etc) This wouldn't even have to be full fledged Remote Play. Basically, I would like to be able to queue up downloads while I'm in class or at work, so that by the time I get back, they're ready.

The option to automatically install content that you have downloaded (After stepping out for 45 minutes for a demo of a game to download, I don't want to come back only to find out that I could have been playing the game sooner if I had came back and manually installed it)

Some form of Voip. The PSP has it.

Adhoc PS3 networks that allow playing multiplayer PS3 games from 1 disk.

More supported video formats.

Uniform music behavior!! I want to continue to listen to my music when I start up, play, or quit a game!


The Improbable

Allow more customizable partition schemes. I don't want to be limited to using 10g for either the PS3 or for Other OS

Allow direct access to the GPU while in otheros. I would really like to see the full potential of the PS3 express itself in every way possible.

Software emulation of the PS2 for later PS3 consoles! I believe this is possible even without the emotion engine. The PS3 is powerful enough to handle PS2 emulation.

Ability to download full PS3 games on demand

More useful XMB while in games. What's the point of even having the XMB in a game when I can't use it for much else but quitting the game??

Anyways, there you have it.

Hmmm How about Region Free Blu-Ray?.... No

I have a BC PS3 and I would rather not wear out the laser of a $500 machine. You can get a PS2 for like 50 bucks and you can get it modded to play burned games. I really do not understand all the the BC crying.