It’s been rumoured that initial PS3 units will include the CPU/rasterizer combination chip used in slim PS2 (EE+GS) to achieve backward compatibility, but now it’s confirmed.
The PS3 will have the PS2’s Emotion Engine (EE) chip and the PS2’s Graphics Synthesizer (GS) chip built in.
Sony previously wanted to use an emulator to provide PS2 compatibility. Software emulation is the same trick being used by the Xbox 360 to play original Xbox title.
The number of PS2 game title names reaches a total of 8,181 across the world as of September 30, 2006 and It is uncertain if the emulator can support all of them. Sony in order to make sure that most of the games work properly, is using real PS2 hardware instead.
Sony also said that the EE and GS chips can be removed later to reduce the cost of producing a PS3. But for first gen PS3 they are using real PS2 hardware . First gen PS3 might be in more demand for that reason.
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Posted on December 7, 2006
That makes sense, I am sure they can save money by using current technologies in new products. The question is can you play ps1 and ps2 games on the ps3?