Digital Foundry, via Eurogamer, are reporting that Some of the Star Wars games are running emulated on the PS4.

As it happens, the PlayStation 4's PS2 emulator is now available, released with no fanfare whatsoever. A new PS4 Star Wars bundle has been released, including a package of four 'classic' franchise titles: Super Star Wars, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars: Racer Revenge and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. All four titles are supplied via a single PSN code, as opposed to a physical disc included with the hardware. You'll note that three of those titles hail from the PlayStation 2 era, and after we downloaded them, it became clear that all of them are running under emulation.

- http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-hands-on-with-ps4-playstation2-emulation

I hope that they they allow backwards compatibility, rather than re-purchasing a game from the store. Maybe putting in a PS1 disk, it installs it to the HDD and downloads whatever patch/wrapper it needs for the trophy support. Then Just does a disk check to make sure you actually own the game when launching. That would be rad.

It would also explain the delay on the re-release of FFVIII PC version to PS4. If they can get the original PSX version running on PS4 with this same system, surely they'd do that.

Pretty excited to see where this goes. Kinda want to mess with star fighter to see how that holds up.

I just wonder if they will allow games to go up for PS4 without having trophies added. That might be whats holding everything back since someone has to go in and make the trophies for each game they're gonna add.

While this bodes well for a possible PS2 Classics store on the PS4, as in selling PS2 Classics for the PS4, I don't see this allowing consumers to put in PS2 or PS1 games into their PS4 and just playing them. There are just way too many hurdles with licenses and such to allow such a feature. Not to mention lost revenue.

I'm more shocked that Nintendo hardware has been emulated on other consoles. Officially. We saw it with the Rare Collection, now with Super Star Wars. Where is thatstory?

@gaff: ...what? The PS2 and PS3 could play PS1 games, why would the PS4 have licensing issues for backwards compatibility?

When was Super Star Wars on PS2?

@believer258: I would imagine that most some publishers would rather block backwards compatibility vehemently disapprove of including their games, with hopes of re-issuing them providing added value later as an HD re-release.

Please look forward to the HD release of last-gen's HD release.

@gaff: I don't think publishers can stop console manufacturers from emulating their own hardware.

@gaff: I don't think that publishers have that much leverage with Sony. Sony deciding to not introduce compatibility so that publishers can rerelease HD versions of games and have Sony take their small cut is a different story altogether.

@believer258: I know Konami has blocked Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles from being playable on Playstation TV. And they aren't the only ones.

I guess all it takes too is just one ok from Konami, and the game gets whitelisted. There was a PS Tv firmware update that accidentally made it and a bunch of other games playable for a while.

Now granted that was a digital game, not a physical disk. But It wouldn't surprise me if publishers had a way to make this tough for Sony, if they want to.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what's holding up the 'Bone's 360 back-compat.

But I'm talking about putting your own physical disc in, not digital downloads.

What makes you say that?

If you can't put in a disc and go, I'd wager anything this whole fucking thing is already dead on arrival. Sure, there's a decent amount of people out there who would be fine with re-purchasing all those old games, but I think the XB1 backwards compatibility (provided they keep pumping out new titles on a consistent basis) is gonna hurt Sony more than people think. Without disc support, the only way I can imagine Sony getting away with this is if they launch this service with every goddamn, motherfucking title people could want. Every popular jrpg, every obscure jrpg, every gosh darn platformer - all of it. I could be tooooooootally wrong, but I just don't see it working for them any other way regardless of how well the platform is doing.

@babychoochoo: I don't know, I can think of a worse scenario.

"We are proud to finally announce backward compatibility with PS2 and PS1 on the PS4..."

*cheering*

"So that you can play all of your old favourite games EXCLUSIVELY on our PlayStation Now service!"

@believer258: Microsoft came out and explicitly said that they needed the go-ahead from publishers to enable their respective games for backwards compatibility. Also, Red Dead Redemption and all the CoDs people want haven't been added to the list yet, despite being heavily voted for by fans on the poll Microsoft set up.

@believer258: They can't stop them emulating their own hardware, but because the games would have a wrapper to add trophies and the like they'd need publisher sign-off on that.

Also, as I understand it, When you purchase a disk you don't actually own that game. In the terms of the law, most of the time you buy a single licence to use the software on the disk in the ways that publisher grant. In this instance playing the game on a PlayStation 1 or PlayStation 2. If you were to play that on an emulator, even one made by Sony, you'd be breaking the law because the publisher has not given you a licence to use the software on a PlayStation 4 system.

Yeah I keep saying that the trophy thing is the main bottle neck here since its the NEW part of all this. cause if they were just doing PS1/2 Classics like they did for PS3 they would just add all those titles to the PS4 but they have to start fresh with new licenses for every game and new labor to do trophies for each game.

@believer258: @lanerobertlane: The bigger problem is that, in order to have a game run well on emulated hardware, you would need to either...

• Perfectly emulate the PS2 hardware, including the Emotion Engine and the PS1 chip that was shoved in there. Considering PCSX2 still doesn't have a 100% compatibility rate even considering the progress in PC processing power, achieving this on a fixed platform like the PS4 is unlikely.
• Or find workarounds to get some games to work that'll hopefully allow other games to work as well. More often than not this will entail messing with the code, tampering with it, and so on. And as we have seen in fan translations of games and other hacking activities, companies really don't like it when you do it without permission. Thanks copyright laws!

Thanks to Phil Spencer explaining BC on a GB E3 podcast!

Screams of media outlets making up stories to me. There was no "fanfare" with the "release" of PS2 emulation because they haven't released a PS2 emulator. Fact. Of course they were going to have to emulate these games on PS4 to get them running for the bundle, what else did you expect? It doesn't mean I think anyone will be slamming PS2 games in their PS4 and having it do anything anytime soon.

Why do Microsoft and Sony have licensing issues when it comes to backwards compatibility when Nintendo has had full BC in its last two consoles? Were there licensing issues when PS2 had full support for PS1 or when Xbox 360 had partial support for Xbox?

I do not understand why there are suddenly licensing issues when BC existed for, like, 10 years without issue. What changed?

The virtual console deals in Nintendo first party stuff and third party stuff which have either been re-released before or don't really possess the earning power to validate a re-release. Although the short answer is that the business has changed.

It's probably not going to happen. But I have a bin of PS2 games that would love to work in my PS4.

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/playstation-2-emulation-coming-to-ps4-sony-confirms/

I guess it's official?

@lanerobertlane: What about for all our old ps1 and ps2 games that were compatible with the first fatty version of the ps3? There's no way the fine print in those licenses included usage on a ps3 system that would appear 15+ years in the future?

@neurogia: those actually had ps2 hardware inside and weren't running entirely on emulation, IIRC.

You raise a good point though, I think back to things like The Super Gameboy for the SNES and the Power Coverter for the Mega Drive / Genesis that allowed you to play Master System games and wonder weither it was just a different time and publishers weren't so protective of their software or weither there was something in place or a deal was struck with the platform holder to allow their users to use the software on different hardware.

I'd rather have a cheap PS Now subscription with lots of PSX and PS2 titles available.

Has anyone ever gone in depth into how non bc ps3s can play PS2 classics and not ps2 discs?

@devil240z: It's emulation, but it's been tuned for every single game separately. Emulation requires a very significant amount of overhead, so a 'one-size-fits-all' emulator on the PS3 was never really a possibility, so instead they fine tune a specific game until it reaches playable performance (how that happens, I don't know. Lots of optimisation involved). Might not be possible on the PS4 either, though Sony are obviously the best ones to try to make it work. IIRC, PS2's Emotion Engine CPU is the main factor that makes PS2 emulation a bitch to accomplish. A PS4 that is fully compatible with every PS2 game is very unlikely, assuming that Sony is going to use this tech to let us play PS2 discs and not just re-open Classics on the PS4 PSN. Though if those classics are upscaled, then I am fully onboard. (Just give me my Killer7 running flawlessly at 1080p with no slowdown. Put it into my veins).

The PS3's that were backwards compatible with all PS2 titles actually had the extra PS2 hardware inside to accomplish that, hence the higher price point on those machines.

@adequatelyprepared: you say it might not be possible on ps4 but if they can get these star wars games to run in 4x resolution then any ps2 game should be possible.

Hopefully they do this right and get a free app to appear in your library. There's a lot of things to think about, mind. Are they going to get the BR drive to read actual discs? Can they upscale the video output to 1080p like the PS3 could? Will there be load time benefits like the PS3 had?

It must be a mammoth task. I just hope they've been thinking about this long enough to have some idea how to do it on PS4's hardware. For comparison, here's PCSX2's recommended specs:

• Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32bit or 64bit) with the latest DirectX
  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3.2 GHz or better OR i3/i5/i7 @ 2,8 GHz or better OR AMD Phenom II @ 3,2 GHz or better
  • GPU: 8800gt or better (for Direct3D10 support)
  • RAM: 1GB on Linux/Windows XP, 2GB or more on Vista / Windows 7

It's not going to be disc's. They will port some games over and you can buy and download them on PS store.

@lanerobertlane: and this is why I didn't go into studying patent law, haha.

@cooperb212: sorry my post was off topic. That's not what I was asking.

@cooperb212 said:

If so, I guess my only reason for getting a PS4 will be for Senran Kagura: Estival Versus.

Oh fiddlesticks.