PS3 Unable to Play Some of Sony’s Earlier Games

Sony’s new PS3 (PlayStation 3) cannot play some of the games designed for previous generations of the popular console - even though the PS3 was hyped as being fully compatible with older-generation games. The compatibility problem is the latest in a series of setbacks for the PS3. Online software upgrades of the PS3 will be offered, but it is unlikely that all the problems will ever get fixed.

On Tuesday, the company acknowledged the console would not run some of the 8,000 titles designed for previous PlayStations — even though the PlayStation 3 was billed as being fully compatible with older-generation games.

For instance, the console might not play background music to the popular Tekken 5 combat game, and some scenes from the Gran Tourismo racing game might freeze, Sony said. The game Suikoden III cannot read data from a first-generation PlayStation, while a virtual gun in one of the Biohazard games will not fire properly.

Some older games will not run on the console at all, said a spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment, Satoshi Fukuoka.

Source: nytimes.com