Ready the Emulator!

[Coded-Dude]

Sony’s going to let you shoehorn any of 7,000 original PlayStation games onto your PSP by the end of next year, at least that’s the word from PSP Magazine, which says the games giant has confirmed its plans for PSone emulation on the move.

It’s a tempting prospect, but several games would need redesigned controls, thanks to the PSP’s lack of second shoulder buttons and an analogue stick on the right hand side.

Still, we’d love to see classics like Tomb Raider, Castlevania and Final Fantasy make the jump to our pocket – and they’re among the reported launch line up of PSone games for the portable.

The new content should be downloadable too, with a new firmware update expected from Sony to coincide with the launch of the PS3 in November.

We’re hoping the handheld will then be able to latch on to Sony’s online service to suck down new games wherever there’s a WiFi hotspot. Fingers crossed, and memory sticks at the ready then!
source (http://www.t3.co.uk/news/247/games/psp/sony_preps_vintage_games_for_psp)

I can't WAIT to get some of these old psone titles in a portable format.....:queer:

These AAA titles should be available at launch:
* Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
* Final Fantasy VII
* Final Fantasy VIII
* Silent Hill
* Tomb Raider

[Z]

I think the mag people are a little too excited. if the games need to be re-touched in anyway, then there cannot be that much by the end of the year.

despite of that, playing PSOne classics is a a very welcome move from Sony. I can play some of the classics I missed out on. for me, I am excited to see this and not really paying attention to the really old games. that is because PSOne games are recent enough for me to get into and they controll much better than Genesis games or beyond.

I still hope PS3 will be able to do the same (and with PS2 games as well). there are talks about it. maybe they'll give a straight answer in TGS.

[Coded-Dude]

Agred, but you can bet alot of early PSone games won't need re-tooling only the ones that caem after dual-analogue. Unless of course Sony(devs) want to add features/functionality to a specific game. although I see them doing this, I don't see them change a majority of the games. Probably only the more popular ones, or ones that could greatly benefit from such a "tweak."

Of course you can bet your.....PSP(lol), that they have alrady started "tweaking' several titles, and probably even have a long list of titles that will make the port, but not get tweaked. I would expect around half of the 7k by the end of next year.

What do you mean, regarding your PS3 statement. We already know it is backwards compatible..... Are you saying you want emulation and downloadable roms? OR do you want "tweaked" PS2 titles as well. That woudl defiantely take more time.

Anywho, my patience wears thin as each day passes; I WANT MY CONTENT NOW!

[Z]

the tweaking won't only be for the controlls. they would have to deal with other issues like screen ratio, compatibility and what not.

as for PS3, I meant that I want to see the same thing that PSP does on it. I want to download PSOne and PS2 games to my PS3 HDD and play them.

[Coded-Dude]

:susp: how did you manage to do this Z......?
http://www.tvacres.com/images/twins_doublemint_2005_bike.jpg

[.®]

There aren't that many ps1 games that need dual analog control. One must rememer the dual shocck came out in response to the N64 controller and at the time many games only utilised one stick. Of course i could be wrong that was 11 years ago and i cant really remember too clear.

[venomv]

I had the normal PS1 controls and no game I ever bought or looked at required the Dual Shock, most had alternate control schemes.

[Coded-Dude]

Z your scepticism is undaunting.....


"Sony Computer Entertainment is pleased to confirm that PlayStation titles will be made available to download onto your PlayStation Portable as per our announcement at E3," the company told us.

"However, no further details have been released as we are finalising plans and awaiting official confirmation on software line-up. We will be in touch soon with more news."

[Z]

I am merely questioning such quantitybeing released so soon as the mag asumed. they practically thrown in all of PSOne's games. they surely don't expect every single PSOne entery will see a PSP re-launch, do they?

[Coded-Dude]

I don't expect every one, in fact there are some games that I think shoudl have never been made....cough Contra cough, but you didn't hear that from me! ;-] Anywho, 1k woudl be nice(by end of next year), but evevn that is a lot of titles. I guess time(or an official announcement) will tell.

[Z]

I really hope they don't ruin it with pricing. these games should be really cheap. I mean Live Arcade-like cheap or even less. they are practically digging them out og the archive graves. I shouldn't pay for such old titles (despite how great some of them are) in the same amount I would buy a Greatest Hits or a used game on current gen. *fingures crossed*

[Coded-Dude]

So, what would be a comfortable pricpoint(for you Z) regarding mediocre games vs. top rated/selling games?

I think $10/under per game is reasonable but would like to see it a little cheaper. PSOne discs run about 15-20 USD right now(if I am not mistaken).

[jaxmkii]

question...

FFVII was 7 disk right?

how will that fit in a psp?

will need a 6GB mem stick?

[Hrama]

Errr it was three disks Jax. And that is a good question. How are they going to handle the multiple disk games?

[BahnNZ]

One of the things about PS1 game is a lot of them were mostly red book audio, you can turn that into ACC, MP3, etc. Much smaller storage/download time.

And with FF7 you only need access to one disk at a time. You can pull it off your mem stick, store it on your computers hdd etc.

[gnznroses]

only game i think required analog sticks was ape escape.

[Luis]

Yes, I debated the whole FFVII issue with someone else long ago. I think we agreed only one disc at a time would be required. Also, each disc shouldn't require as much space in the memory stick since FMV sequences could be compressed further using new video codecs and so. The content of the game could be compressed when downloaded and saved on the memory stick, and decompressed on the fly when playing it, thus reducing its size even further.

A drastic solution would be releasing a UMD version of FFVII or other multiple disc PS1 game.

[dementia]

Yes, I debated the whole FFVII issue with someone else long ago. I think we agreed only one disc at a time would be required. Also, each disc shouldn't require as much space in the memory stick since FMV sequences could be compressed further using new video codecs and so. The content of the game could be compressed when downloaded and saved on the memory stick, and decompressed on the fly when playing it, thus reducing its size even further.

A drastic solution would be releasing a UMD version of FFVII or other multiple disc PS1 game.

Also, most PS1 games would be much smaller if you compressed the audio. Many N64 games never went over 64MBs of space because of sound restraints. Uncompressed raw audio takes up a LOT of disk space, and if they were replaced by some form of compressed audio like MP3 or Atrac3 formats, it would highly benefit overall storage without noticeable loss of sound quality.

[Luis]

Also, most PS1 games would be much smaller if you compressed the audio. Many N64 games never went over 64MBs of space because of sound restraints. Uncompressed raw audio takes up a LOT of disk space, and if they were replaced by some form of compressed audio like MP3 or Atrac3 formats, it would highly benefit overall storage without noticeable loss of sound quality.Yes, I agree in the case of PCM audio and so, but in the particular case of FFVII I think most if not all the music was MIDI or the equivalent. MIDI files are very small and can be compressed losslessly, just like the rest of the game content.

[Loc]

Two words: Episodic Content. They can just split the files up and repackage them into episodes as they see fit for the larger games.

[TimmyJ]

Just because a game was originally 3 disks worth of data on the PS1 doesn't mean that it will be the same size on the adapted (I assume) PSP version.

The entire FF7 world is available to us at all times regardless of the disk, this would have taken up a large amount of disk space, when you consider that this will effectively be a single "disk" the game size can instantly be cut down considerably.

As already pointed out, compressing the video and audio formats is also likely to help.

Compression methods themselves have signficantly improved over the years anyway (as every anti-Blu-Ray so-and-so keep saying).