Sony confirm PS2 emulation for PS4

Sony have rather casually confirmed that PS4 will soon have backwards compatibility with PS2 games.

The strangely understated announcement came after some speculation began when Digital Foundry pointed out  the recently-released Star Wars: Battlefront bundle for the PS4 includes three Star Wars PS2 games that appear to be emulated, rather than ported, to the newer system.

Sony confirmed the rumours speaking to Wired,

“We are working on utilizing PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation. We have nothing further to comment at this point in time.”

There is little indication as to how Sony plan to implement backwards compatibility in the future, or whether it will go beyond the PS2 Star Wars titles. Obviously the ultimate achievement would be a situation where we can simply insert our PS2 discs into our PS4 console, but it’s probably more likely any PS2 games would come in the form of downloads.

It will be fascinating to see what happens next with Sony, the amazing catalogue of games on the PS2 would be such a great addition to the PS4 lineup, but with the surprisingly relaxed attitude Sony is taking to announcing this new technology, one wonders whether we should be getting our hopes up.

 

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