Following rumors that Sony‘s bringing “select” PS3 games natively to PS5, tech experts have said that the task at hand remains a difficult one, and fans should keep their expectations in check. Folks over at Digital Foundry reckon that some popular games will be near impossible to emulate.

PS3’s tech holds back its games from the PS5

Digital Foundry has corroborated what has been a widely accepted reason for why PS3 games can’t run natively on the PS5: the former’s complex architecture. The team says that the PS3 cell processor’s SPUs don’t work well with modern x86 processors, and games with heavy SPU usage will suffer from major performance issues.

The emulation community has aready tried and tested the above. Digital Foundry named Killzone 2 as one of the games that won’t be able to make its way to the PS5 natively.

That said, Digital Foundry thinks that there are some games that Sony might be able to emulate on the PS5. But the keyword is “some.” The team also pointed out that Sony’s existing classics library on PS4 and PS5 is already quite small, so it’s unlikely we’ll see a lot of PS3 games running natively on modern consoles.

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Another known insider has corroborated the rumor that Sony‘s looking into PS3 emulation to expand its classics lineup available on the PS5 and PS4. Yesterday, we shared a report that Sony is attempting to bring “select” PS3 games to modern consoles natively. And today’s report claims that official PS3 emulation has been in the works for “quite some time.”

PS3 emulation might follow Sony’s successful endeavour of bringing PS2 games to PS4, PS5

Today’s report comes from none other than journalist and insider Jeff Grubb, who mentioned in the latest episode of Game Mess Mornings podcast that he was personally expecting some news on the PS3 emulation front earlier this year, which is when he first heard about it.

“It’s something that I’ve heard has been in the works for quite some time,” Grubb said. “I thought it was going to get revealed earlier this year when I first heard about it. That clearly didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen — maybe it does.”

After years of requests, Sony recently started making PS2 classics available on modern consoles via PS Plus Premium lineup as well as standalone PS Store releases. Here’s hoping that PS3 games follow suit.

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Rumor has it that Sony is attempting to bring “select” PS3 games to PS5 via backwards compatibility. PS3 games are currently only available on modern consoles via PS Plus Premium‘s streaming service, which isn’t available in a large number of regions due to lack of appropriate infrastructure.

Select PS3 games will reportedly run on PS5 natively

The rumor in question comes from XboxEra’s Nick “Spheshal_Nick” Baker, who has somewhat of a mixed reputation when it comes to leaks. However, as of late, Baker has been spot on with nearly all of his leaks, so we’re not dismissing this one right away.

According to Baker, if Sony’s efforts bear fruit, select PS3 games will run on PS5 (and possibly also PS4) natively and no streaming will be required. If true, this means that PS Plus Deluxe (alternative to Premium in non-streaming regions) may finally get PS3 classics as part of the catalog.

Full PS3 backwards compatibility and emulation remains a pipe dream. It has often been theorized that PS3’s complicated infrastructure is to blame for the lack of cross-gen support. But with Sony finally starting to bring PS2 games to modern consoles, it’s speculated that first-party PS3 games might get the same treatment.

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PS3 and PS Vita multiplayer services are down again, marking the second time this month that PS3’s online services went down. The outage affects a large number of peer-to-peer and multiplayer games, and occurred a day ago. Sony has yet to fix the problem but players are starting to express concerns that the company is gearing up to pull the plug on both dated consoles.

PS3, PS Vita multiplayer and PSN outages might just be the beginning of the end

As reported on sites like PSNProfiles and Reddit, only a small number of PS3 and Vita games with P2P and online multiplayer are working right now. Users can play the games offline, but trying to connect to online servers results in various error messages.

It’s pretty commendable that Sony’s still keeping the lights on for the PS3 and PS Vita long after they became obsolete… or in PS Vita’s case, long after the company abandoned the console. However, the recurring lengthy outages has players wondering if Sony’s going to switch off the life support anytime now, especially since the server costs may not be worth it at this point.

You can check out the full list of games affected by the outage on PSNProfiles. The good news is, all Call of Duty games are unaffected.

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Rumors of Sony working on a PS2 emulator to bring classic games to PS Plus might have had some truth to them, if a PlayStation Store listing is anything to go by. The listing, which was found on the back end, is for 2002’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars. An official description specifically mentions that the game has been “converted” for the PS5 and PS4 consoles, with additional features.

Expect to see more PS2 games on PS Plus Premium and for standalone purchase

We first heard that Sony was working on a new and improved PS2 emulator last August from reliable YouTuber Mystic. Fast forward to March 2024, when fans discovered that Emulation company Implicit Conversions had officially partnered with Sony to bring “PS1, PS2, and PSP games to the PS4 and PS5.”

Implicit Conversions scrubbed its website and backtracked on its claim when the news made rounds. However, today’s discovery suggests that the company backtracked because it didn’t have Sony’s permission to share any information at the time.

The PS Store listing, as shared by PS Deals (via Gematsu), reads:

Experience Star Wars: The Clone Wars originally released on the PlayStation 2 console, enhanced with up-rendering, rewind, quick save, and custom video filters. This title has been converted from the PlayStation 2 version to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles and provides newly added features. Consequently, there may be times where the title plays differently from the PlayStation 2 version, or where some features may cause the title to not function properly. This version does not support the PlayStation 2 console’s peripherals, therefore some functionality may not be available.

It’s likely that The Clone Wars is headed to PS Plus Premium. PS Plus classics are typically available to purchase separately as well.

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Update: After a day of outages, some users are able to log back in. Those still struggling should try again in a few hours.

Original story:

A large number of PS3 owners have reported that PSN has been partially down on the console with no sign of a resolution, leaving them worried. The issue seems to be affecting those who aren’t already logged into the PS3, with error 80710A06 preventing users from logging in or accessing Account Management.

Players worried Sony is sunsetting the PS3 as PSN remains down

The PS3’s subreddit — which is surprisingly far more active than the PS4 and PS5 subreddits — has been flooded with threads from concerned users. Screenshots show that the option to use an existing account to sign into the PS3 is unavailable, which is peculiar.

There are currently no issues impacting PSN on PS4 or PS5. Do note that Sony pulled the ability to create new accounts via the PS3 a while back, so not being able to use existing accounts means that PS3 users are currently locked out of PSN.

Before we jump to conclusions, this could all be a temporary glitch on Sony’s end. It’s unlikely that the company will simply pull the plug on PS3 without any notice. That said, the console is more than obsolete at this point, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Sony will eventually take it offline.

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Sony has admitted that it hit a rough patch with the PS3‘s launch, starting with the console’s price and difficult architecture. In a video interview with CNBC, outgoing PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst, and former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden briefly discussed what went wrong.

Sony acknowledges that the PS3’s price tag was too high

Ryan said that if he had to “encapsulate the PlayStation 3 generation” he’d conclude that Sony got “a bit carried away with the success that we’d been enjoying on PlayStation 2.” “We kind of stumbled a little bit at the start of that generation,” Ryan added, admitting that the early days of the PS3 were “difficult.”

At the time of the PS3’s release, Hulst had only been part of the PlayStation family for a year. He led Killzone studio Guerrilla Games at the time, which Sony acquired in 2005. According to him, the PS3 was a powerful machine, but one that was very difficult to develop games for. He added that Sony had to work very hard with some “amazing franchises” to bring games to the PS3.

Layden is of the view that Sony’s PS3 era missteps led to the creation of some amazing first-party games that ended up defining PlayStation. Realizing its hardware and price fumbles, the company focused on software and won in that department.

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In the midst of all the grim developments yesterday, Sony Interactive Entertainment dropped PS3 system software update 4.91 — the console’s annual update for its Blu-ray player. Interestingly, patch notes for the update mention those vague “system performance improvements” that we’ve become used to now, but hackers have warned that the update renders current jailbreak useless.

Jailbreakers miffed by PS3 system software update 4.91

“This system software update improves system performance,” the official patch notes for the 200 MB update read. “Please note, to play Blu-ray discs, your PS3 system needs a renewed Blu-ray player encryption key. Please update your PS3 system software to the latest version to renew the Blu-ray player encryption key.”

Understandably, these annual exploit-patching updates continue to frustrate hackers. All existing jailbreak tools will have to be updated. As noted on jailbreak forum PSX Place, those who end up updating their system software by mistake will have to wait for all the expoits to be updated by their developers. There’s no way to roll back the system software. Resetting the system does not work.

In related news, PS3 continues to see millions of monthly active users, according to a leaked Sony presentation. However, support for the console has officially ended.

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Sony announced at CES 2024 that it saw a record number of active PlayStation players during the month of December 2023. 123 million PSN users logged on during the month across the PS5, PS4, and PS3.

PlayStation saw an increase in players year-on-year in December 2023

In December 2022, Sony logged 112 million active users, so the aforementioned figure is an increase of a whopping 11 million users. For those wondering about a breakdown, Sony didn’t have one to share but we recently found out via a leaked slide following the ransomware attack on Insomniac Games that even the PS3 is still seeing millions of players… or at least it was back in February 2023.

Other tidbits of information that cropped up during Sony’s CES 2024 presentation is our first look at the Gravity Rush movie, a revival of Patapon (either an anime or a game), and possibly a slight delay in Helldivers 2 as Sony listed a release date of February 28, 2024 as opposed to the original release date of February 8. However, this release date change could be an error.

We also learned that Sony Honda’s electric vehicle can be driven with the PS5’s DualSense controller.

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Sony‘s beloved PS3 apparently still has millions of monthly active users (MAUs) — nearly two million, to be precise. That’s according to a presentation leaked as part of the recent Insomniac Games‘ ransomware attack. This tidbit of information was tucked away in a slide about PlayStation Network‘s monthly active users.

Die-hard PS3 users still enjoying beloved classics

As spotted by Exputer, the slide in question is nearly a year old but sheds some light on the active player base of Sony’s consoles. PSN MAUs were expected to hit 107.5 million by February 2023, accounting for data latency. PS4 is understandably in the lead (71.5 million PSN MAUs) with the highest amount of consoles in circulation, but the PS5 is quickly catching up with nearly 37.1 million MAUs by February 2023.

Between December 2022 to February 2023, the PS3’s MAUs fluctuated between 2.3 million to 1.9 million. Impressive numbers for a console that’s almost two decades old. The PS3’s library continues to be in high demand, with fans hoping for emulation support of some sort in the absence of backwards compatibility.

Unfortunately, PS3 games are currently only available via streaming for PS Plus Premium members in select regions.

We won’t share the slide here for obvious reasons, but you can check it out over on Exputer.

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