4 ms·

If you have original PS2 discs, can you play PS2 games on your PS4?

0xcde4c3db 11y ago
I looked for that in the article, but it seems the issue was deliberately avoided. I doubt it will be allowed. My memory on this is fuzzy, and I can't cite authoritative sources for obvious reasons, but I'm pretty sure there are multiple companies that know how to press PS2 discs with the obligatory "copy protection" [1] signatures. I assume the market wasn't flooded with these ~10 years ago because anyone with a DVD burner could be selling the latest games on the street for chipped consoles before a pressing operation was even finished cutting a glass master. [1]: Scare quotes because these mechanisms don't directly have anything to do with copying. They're designed to distinguish between licensed and unlicensed discs, regardless of the content. Copying the content of a PS2 disc is trivial, as these things go.
- rasz_pl 11y ago
  not to mention they will want to sell you same games twice
  - danieldk 11y ago
    Interestingly enough, the XBox One now supports XBox 360 games using original discs. Currently, there are about 100 compatible games. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/backward-compatibility http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/backward-compatibility
    - robin_reala 11y ago
      It… sort of does. It doesn’t actually use the original disk as anything but a piracy dongle; the game you play is downloaded from their servers and run directly from the hard drive.
      - danieldk 11y ago
        Indeed, but that means you do not have to repurchase it, which was the point ;).
- balls187 11y ago
  Thanks for the reply and analysis. I still have my 1st run PS3 which has the PS2 hardware built in and has ~100% backward compatibility with PS2 games. However, I ideally prefer to use just my PS4 and not have a 2nd system to manage.
rasz_pl 11y ago
you can on your PC
- grecy 11y ago
  What PS2 emulator for PC plays even 50% of games well?
  - gadrev 11y ago
    pcsx2 works pretty well for all games I've tried so far. Which is admittedly a small number.
  - ryuuchin 11y ago
    I don't know if it'll play 50% of games well but pcsx2 has a compatibility list[1] which lists the playability of a lot of games. [1] http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html

I looked for that in the article, but it seems the issue was deliberately avoided. I doubt it will be allowed. My memory on this is fuzzy, and I can't cite authoritative sources for obvious reasons, but I'm pretty sure there are multiple companies that know how to press PS2 discs with the obligatory "copy protection" [1] signatures. I assume the market wasn't flooded with these ~10 years ago because anyone with a DVD burner could be selling the latest games on the street for chipped consoles before a pressing operation was even finished cutting a glass master. [1]: Scare quotes because these mechanisms don't directly have anything to do with copying. They're designed to distinguish between licensed and unlicensed discs, regardless of the content. Copying the content of a PS2 disc is trivial, as these things go.

rasz_pl 11y ago
not to mention they will want to sell you same games twice
- danieldk 11y ago
  Interestingly enough, the XBox One now supports XBox 360 games using original discs. Currently, there are about 100 compatible games. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/backward-compatibility http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/backward-compatibility
  - robin_reala 11y ago
    It… sort of does. It doesn’t actually use the original disk as anything but a piracy dongle; the game you play is downloaded from their servers and run directly from the hard drive.
    - danieldk 11y ago
      Indeed, but that means you do not have to repurchase it, which was the point ;).
balls187 11y ago
Thanks for the reply and analysis. I still have my 1st run PS3 which has the PS2 hardware built in and has ~100% backward compatibility with PS2 games. However, I ideally prefer to use just my PS4 and not have a 2nd system to manage.

rasz_pl 11y ago

you can on your PC

grecy 11y ago
What PS2 emulator for PC plays even 50% of games well?
- gadrev 11y ago
  pcsx2 works pretty well for all games I've tried so far. Which is admittedly a small number.
- ryuuchin 11y ago
  I don't know if it'll play 50% of games well but pcsx2 has a compatibility list[1] which lists the playability of a lot of games. [1] http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html