Backwards Compatability Issues Plaguing The PS3 (Update)

It appears as though even more bad news is flowing from Sony land. Apart from not being able to play Guitar Hero or Guitar Hero II due to issues with controller compatibility, it appears as though PSX and PS2 games are also not living up to their high standards of 99-100% backwards compatibility.

Over at C|Net Japan, they’ve got 196 previous gen games not working on the PS3, with problems ranging from no sound to the games being unplayable. Also, for all you Final Fantasy XI fans, apparently there are some problems with the way the drive partitions, so it won’t work right.

Sony’s statement is “Our goal is for 100% compatibility of PS and PS2 games on the PS3.  We have discovered that about 200 of the more than 8,000 titles available worldwide from the older catalogs are having compatibility issues.  These range from dropped audio, to freeze ups, to controller functionality.  We are evaluating every title and will work to provide compatibility fixes through the PS3’s regular firmware updates.”

Sony also said it is looking into the complications with Guitar Hero and Final Fantasy XI, and will put out more information about that later.

[Update: Sony’s response added]

Sony of Japan has set up a website for gamers to submit errors that they’ve come across. If for some reason you have a Japanese PS3, you can go test out your library and report any problems here.

There have been reports that Sony will be fixing the problems one by one, just like Microsoft is doing with the 360. If this is the case, Sony will have to crank out patches at a much faster rate than Microsoft has been, simply because there’s so much more that needs to be dealt with. There’s a total of 16,083 games released throughout the world for the Playstation and Playstation 2, so there will be a lot of checking to be done.