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Sony's Harrison on Euro PS3: 1,000 PS2 games at launch
As you can probably imagine, the reaction to Sony's newly-spec'ed European PS3 hasn't been all that warm, so Three Speech decided to hit up big Phil Harrison himself to get responses to the criticism straight from the horse's mouth. Perhaps the biggest relief to nervous Eurogamers will be Harrison's claim that over 1,000 PS2 titles will be available on the PlayStation Network at launch fully software-backwards compatible (despite the Euro PS3's removal of PS2 hardware), a list of which will be made available online on the 23rd or perhaps even sooner. However, it's clear from the way Harrison dodged a question about the importance of backwards compatibility that Sony does not place a lot of weight on the feature, instead hoping that people will go out and spend loot on games and Blu-ray flicks. One possible positive revealed by Harrison was the fact that the PS2 Emotion Engine chips being omitted from European (and possibly all future) models are not the same ones mass-produced for the PS2 itself, but rather, are manufactured specifically for the PS3 -- meaning that Sony will indeed see a significant cost reduction which could theoretically be passed down to the consumer. Want some more potentially good news? How'd you like all those legacy games to utilize the PS3's upscaling ability and add new life to your favorite classics? Well that's exactly what Sony plans to do with a firmware update this summer, claims "Rumor Reporter" Bruce Kelly, whose sources tell him that the company is looking to bring 1080i/720p support to its upcoming emulator. Kelly goes on to say that Sony will add compatibility for select games in batches of ten or so, but hopes to eventually offer support for almost every title on PSN. We'll believe this one when we see it, but if Kelly does turn out to be right, we don't think Sony will be hearing one more word about that discarded Emotion Engine. Read - Harrison interview [Via Joystiq]Read - Upscaling rumor [Via PS3 Fanboy]
