Rumor: PS1&2 Games Downloaded to PS3?
One quickly spread rumor was that Sony was looking into putting up a service in which you could buy and download original Playstation games or even PS2 games. Gamespot has already anaylized the rumor (here: http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=24429625 ), but I have a differing opinion on it.
The main reason I don't see PS1 or PS2 games being downloaded to your PS3: the size of the games. Especially PS2 games, which commonly fill a 4.7 Gigabyte (GB) disk. It wasn't even uncommon for PS1 games to include multiple 700 Megabyte (MB) disks. Final Fantasy 7, which would probably be the most downloaded game in this case, used three disks, and both its PS1 successors used four. Even presuming the disks were 700MB each, Final Fantasy 7 would be 2.1GB.
Presuming that this would all be stored on a fairly standard hard drive, probably 40GB to 80GB, bandwidth would still be an issue. Broadband may be able to handle MB, but probably won't handle GB far from as well. It gets worse on the server's end. A standard This Week in Tech podcast is around 30MB to 50MB a show, and they still transfer Terabytes a week on their servers. Can you imagine if the servers had to handle something that was even just 700MB.
Now, I do think there is a probability of Sony going the way of X-Box Live Arcade. Games on there are far from the heafty CD based games found on the systems, in terms of memory. The games would be small budget, not emulated games. It also would be less reliant on the hard drive, since the PS3 will likely support memory sticks. Heck, a firmware upgrade would make it support PSP play.
Overall, 10% on PS1 and PS2 games being downloadable; 80% on a X-Box Live Arcade style service, regardless of hard drive inclusion.
The main reason I don't see PS1 or PS2 games being downloaded to your PS3: the size of the games. Especially PS2 games, which commonly fill a 4.7 Gigabyte (GB) disk. It wasn't even uncommon for PS1 games to include multiple 700 Megabyte (MB) disks. Final Fantasy 7, which would probably be the most downloaded game in this case, used three disks, and both its PS1 successors used four. Even presuming the disks were 700MB each, Final Fantasy 7 would be 2.1GB.
Presuming that this would all be stored on a fairly standard hard drive, probably 40GB to 80GB, bandwidth would still be an issue. Broadband may be able to handle MB, but probably won't handle GB far from as well. It gets worse on the server's end. A standard This Week in Tech podcast is around 30MB to 50MB a show, and they still transfer Terabytes a week on their servers. Can you imagine if the servers had to handle something that was even just 700MB.
Now, I do think there is a probability of Sony going the way of X-Box Live Arcade. Games on there are far from the heafty CD based games found on the systems, in terms of memory. The games would be small budget, not emulated games. It also would be less reliant on the hard drive, since the PS3 will likely support memory sticks. Heck, a firmware upgrade would make it support PSP play.
Overall, 10% on PS1 and PS2 games being downloadable; 80% on a X-Box Live Arcade style service, regardless of hard drive inclusion.
posted by SeanM at 9:34 PM
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