Sony seems to have killed off gamers’ hopes that they will ever get PlayStation 3 emulation on PlayStation 5.
PlayStation’s Vice President of Global Services Nick Maguire was interviewed by Stephen Totilo about their PlayStation Plus service. We already reported on his comments about Sony’s refusal to use the Day One model that Microsoft uses for their games on Game Pass. But he also commented about adding more PlayStation 3 games on the service.
Maguire said this:
Through streaming, we’ll still continue to look at those ones.” He added: “We haven’t ruled them out. The opportunities are there. But there are a lot of PS3 games already streaming.
As Totilo himself mentions, it isn’t possible for the PlayStation 5, and of course the PlayStation 4, to play PlayStation 3 games in any way. But Maguire’s statement at this time is an indication that they haven’t made any changes or attempted to do more on this account. While Maguire didn’t address it directly, he seems to be debunking rumors that Sony is investigating PlayStation 3 emulation.
We last reported that Implicit Conversions said that they were interested in a PlayStation 3 emulator last January of this year. Implicit Conversions is the company that is working on PlayStation Classics releases on PlayStation Plus, using their Syrup game engine. If Maguire’s comment says anything, it’s that that was more of a dream than an actual project Sony was spending money on.
Maguire was also asked about games being removed from the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog. Rather infamously, Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2, both first-party PlayStation 3 games, were removed from the catalog just last April.
This was what Maguire said about games being removed from Game Catalog in general:
We’ve got 80 collections of games across the catalog. So we want to keep it fresh and bring in new games. Sometimes that means taking a few games out at the same time to keep the proposition interesting and help people find new games as well.
It’s easy to understand the financial incentive behind these decisions, but of course, it’s even easier to see how this isn’t enough to make Sony fans happy. If you think about it, it’s remarkable that PlayStation Plus is as successful as it is, given the comparatively lesser value it provides to Game Pass, and some would argue even Nintendo Switch Online.
But of course, the main appeal of PlayStation Plus is you need to pay to play online, and PlayStation 5 remains the lead platform for many third-party online multiplayer games. Microsoft and Nintendo need to compete vs. Sony’s market dominance, and Sony doesn’t have to try as hard.
What all of this means, really, is even if Sony manages to get a PlayStation 3 game added to PlayStation Plus this year, they don’t have good reason to try as hard as Sony fans want to. Perhaps it will take another console generation, or even two, before Sony can even offer proper PlayStation 3 emulation, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll still be interested then.
