My one PlayStation 3 answer?

Saturday, October 28, 2006 » gaming

Several months ago I asked one question about the PlayStation 3 which I hadn't heard anyone talk about since E3, and to which a favorable answer could have gotten me lining up in the early morning in hopes of reserving one (although probably not this early). The question was: Will PlayStation 3 be region-free for backwards compatible PS1 and PS2 games?

So apparently SCEE vice president Phil Harrison read my post, because last week he answered it! (Sort of.) Here's Magic Box's paraphrase:

PS3 is region-free, but PS2 is not, therefore Japanese PS2 games still won't run on American PS3

The reason it's a "sort of" is that Magic Box loves to quote stuff and not cite their sources, plus I seriously doubt English is their first language. But, they did list it among a bunch of other facts Harrison revealed during Sony's Gamers' Day event last week, so I'm leaning towards it being true.

...Which SUUUUUCKS. PS3 being region-free is pretty much the only feature that's been unanimously praised. Especially when Sony's people are gushing about being able to offer downloads of rare PS1 and PS2 titles over the PS3 online service, wouldn't it make sense to make the entire library of games playable if people already have the discs? Sony should realize this means people will just have to keep importing hardware, which they have not been too happy about lately.