PS2 lovers rejoice, Sony is finally bringing the world’s best-selling classic console back via PlayStation 4 emulation.
The feature, which was rolled out incredibly quietly in Wednesday’s PlayStation Store update, was spotted by Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry. Wired then gained confirmation from Sony that it was, in fact, planning to expand the service over the coming months, but it’s currently being incredibly coy about the entire project.
Don’t go rushing up into the attic or start blowing the dust off your copy of The Getaway, though, as it looks like only digital titles will be supported. So far, there are only three titles available to emulate, and they come in a complete package with Sony and EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront PS4 bundle. Provided as PSN codes, you can now play Star Wars: Racer Revenge, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.
You can see what PS2 emulation looks like in Digital Foundry’s breakdown video.
As Digital Foundry discovered, this emulation isn’t a half-arsed attempt, with Sony providing increased texture resolution, frame rate and image upscaling. Put side-by-side with an original PS2, games appear to look better and run more smoothly – something any PS2 fan will be happy to hear.
Currently, it’s unclear exactly what will happen with Sony’s emulation plans, but I expect they’ll stick to a policy of PSN-only, as they did with the PlayStation 3. Perhaps it’ll make previous digital PS2 purchases on the PS3 available on PS4 for no extra charge, removing the worry of having to purchase an old PS2 game for the third time.
It’s also unclear what this means for PS2 games via PlayStation Now – perhaps Sony is testing the service through PSN before rolling it out wholesale on its game streaming service.
Unsure about getting a PlayStation VR headset when it launches next year? Take a look at the list of all the games planned to hit the PS4 with VR support.
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