playstation III question

The 40gb PS3 has no PS2 backwards compatibility.

As one of Sony's cost cutting measures, the GS chip was removed from the PS3 motherboard. (The Graphics Synthesisor used by the PS2 - was also used in the 60gb PS3 along with the Cell emulating the PS2 'Emotion Engine' to achieve the PS2 emulation by a mix of hardware and software)
 
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It will have said, however Sony don't throw it out on the box for obvious reasons.

I am fairly certain the box does say certainly in the USA, not certain for USA.

tbh considering the amount of times the question comes up here, I am surprised at the buying error, but I appreciate not everyone reads this forum daily like we do.


rp2000
 
damn thats bad it wasn't made clear at point of purchase. i would have bought the 60g version if i would have know

It says on the box, and it's pretty well known that the 40GB version doesn't play PS2 games. Should have done some research beforehand, especially with such an expensive purchase.
 
on the back of my 40GB ps3 box it says in bold text in a box about half way down on the left:

IMPORTANT
Playstation®2 format software titles do not perform on this system.
 
It does mention it on the box, but if you got it from a gaming store i would hope the staff would mention it, i guess they dont have to but it should be done IMO.
As for getting a 60GB PS3 there not available as new just about every where, but they would fetch a premium everywhere. TBH if you want to play PS2 games and dont have one get a pre owned PS2, as that is the cheapest and probably the only way to now unless you have a 60Gb PS3.
 
The rumour was around for months before finally confirmed by Sony about the lack of PS2 backwards compatiblity in the most recent (40gb) model, which also saw the loss of some USB ports and flash memory ports, again cost cutting.

There's been three versions of the PS3 to date:

US / JAP launch - 60gb - with both the 'Emotion Engine' and 'Graphics Synthesisor' in silicon on the PS3 motherboard, to give full hardware backwards compatiblity with PS2 games.

EU launch - 60gb - (And later US/JAP models) - only the 'Graphics Synthesisor' in silicon, with the Cell emulating the Emotion Engine in software. With the hardware/software emulation mix not all PS2 games would work, and some with glitches.

Current model - 40gb - 'GS' removed, so no backwards compatiblity at all.
 
I don't get why cell and RSX cant software emulate PS2 through software alone.

It's more than powerful enough.

It's powerful when doing the right things, but the cell isn't the best cpu for everything.

The Cell has one full PowerPC core, and 8 SPE's (although 1 disabled in the PS3, and another reserved for the OS). The SPE's are small digital processing cores - really geared towards doing lots of fast number crunching. They have limited memory and all sit on a ring bus which can slow down their access to the 'outside world'. For emulation, they're not really much use for the varied tasks that would be required when software emulating the full PS2. As it stands, we don't know how much of the main PowerPC core and the SPE's are used for emulating the Emotion Engine alone. Let's not forget that Sony did originally brag that the Cell would be doing the PS3 graphics too - but they then later had to go to nVidia for a seperate graphics chip.

(By comparison the 360's CPU has three full PowerPC cores, each core suitable for any tasks so that's how it can emulate the XBOX pretty well.)
 
Gees give the guy a break. I would think that 99% of the public wouldn't even know the ps3 was at all BC.

Easy mistake, its just not anything you can do about.
 
probably just like people buying a xbox arcade then getting home and finding out they cannot play their xbox1 games because of no HDD. I don't see why the shop should tell people unless they "actually ask".
 
probably just like people buying a xbox arcade then getting home and finding out they cannot play their xbox1 games because of no HDD. I don't see why the shop should tell people unless they "actually ask".

A little thing called good customer service would have been a reason - but we seem to lack that more and more these days!
 
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