Comment by marshray | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marshray | Hacker News Reader

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A chain of command that's savvy enough to really want him despite that is one you'd actually want to be in, though.

Absolutely. But if they were the savvy type, would they have been pwned at nearly every security layer like that? If you haven't seen it, the video says it better than I can.

So probably if he were hired, it would be with mixed feelings of some of his uppers. At best, he probably "wouldn't fit in with the team" as they say. Someone like him would need to be either in charge of the whole freaking platform direction, or not there at all. (now there's an idea) Seriously, IMHO Sony's best move would be to fire the guy responsible for reneging on Linux and hire someone with a clue instead. Microsoft would have the guts do something like that.

It's ridiculous. I bought a PS3 (by coincidence) the other day. Guess what?! It doesn't play PS2 games! PS2 plays PS1 games (so I thought). Our Wii plays GameCube games. Xbox360 plays Xbox games. What is a PS3 if not a PlayStation? I didn't have my heart set on it anyway, but the kids tracked down some PS2 games they wanted. They specifically wanted the older PS2 versions because they didn't like the PS3 versions!

In fairness, Gran Turismo 5 and Little Big Planet are beautiful and fun games and they have only crashed a few times.

Older versions of the PS3 support PS2 games. They dropped support around the time the Slim came out.

This is true-the parent should also bear in mind that not every single Xbox game is supported on the 360. They gave up on trying to be backwards compatible about 2.5 years in, or so.

Thanks for the info. Clearly we have to read the fine print rather than relying on product names.

Congrats Sony, you thought you'd force your customers to repurchase their favorite games didn't you? Instead you made enemies of an upcoming generation of gamers.

If only they could have heard the tears of the small children on Christmas morning upon finding out that they would not, in fact, be able to use the dance pad and the older Dance Dance Revolution which had the actual anime songs that they had saved their allowance to buy and they would only be able to dance to Lady Gaga instead...

(that's only slightly an exaggeration)

The backwards-compatibility with PS2 games was facilitated by the presence of the PS2 CPU and GPU in the PS3 hardware. Newer revisions of the system eliminated first the CPU and then the GPU. I think it's fair to assume this was done for cost reasons -- it's not like they removed the functionality through software update.

If you really want to play PS2 games, buy a used PS2 on Craigslist for a fraction of the cost of a PS3. Heck, you can still get them new.

The backwards-compatibility with PS2 games was facilitated by the presence of the PS2 CPU and GPU in the PS3 hardware. Newer revisions of the system eliminated first the CPU and then the GPU.

Then they ought to stop selling it as a "PlayStation 3" once it no longer performs the functions of a "PlayStation 3". Call it a "Playstation 3--" or something.

Product model names invoke the very definition of what the product is and does, particularly when the name includes a number. They aren't just attractive words to be chosen by Marketing, even when it was the same company that made the initial definition of the feature set in the first place.

Like I said, it wasn't particularly frustrating or surprising to me to find this out after I bought it, but only because my expectations of a Sony product were so low to begin with. I would have been shocked if this had been Google though.

How about the "PlayStation 3 Slim"?

Backward compatibility of gaming systems, in my estimation, started with Sony. Nintendo and Sega certainly didn't have them on their systems, and Sony was the first to do it(again, AFAIK) with the Playstation 2. Gamecubes didn't play N64 games which didn't play SNES games which didn't play NES games, etc.. However, the PS2 accomplished that by having a PS1 core on the same board as the PS2 hardware-whenever a gamer inserted a PS1 disc, it would switch to the old core... which is why they ran perfectly but with no enhancements from the PS2 hardware.

Getting to the point, the PS3's with the PS2 core were dropped not long after release due to their high cost. I understand your frustration, but it's becoming increasingly important to do research and understand each system's capabilities before putting your dollars down... the 360 is no exception here either.

Backward compatibility of gaming systems started quite a bit earlier if you count Gameboys.

Also, the Game Gear played Master System games with a cartridge adaptor (not strictly "backwards compatibility" but cool nonetheless)

But if they were the savvy type, would they have been pwned at nearly every security layer like that?

True. If I were him, I'd try working at Apple. Also, "they" are not monolithic. It's quite possible that the parties they beat would not be in his chain of command. One would have to do some diligent research before taking that job. It might well be worth it, however.

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