Back in the day, they wanted to sue the makers of an emulator, and now, they will use open-source emulation in their retro console that is about to hit the shelves in a few weeks.

Sony bit the mini console bait, although they have done so after Nintendo, SNK, and SEGA – the PlayStation Classic, which will have 720p output maximum, will arrive with the following twenty games to the West (as the Japanese line-up will be vastly different!):

• Battle Arena Toshinden
• Cool Boarders 2
• Destruction Derby
• Final Fantasy VII
• Grand Theft Auto
• Intelligent Qube
• Jumping Flash!
• Metal Gear Solid
• Mr. Driller
• Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
• Rayman
• Resident Evil Director’s Cut
• Revelations: Persona
• Ridge Racer Type 4
• Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
• Syphon Filter
• Tekken 3
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
• Twisted Metal
• Wild Arms

Sony was also unable to make the PlayStation Classic support the widescreen format. It’s obviously due to the choice of the emulator, as the ePSXe 2.0 is easily capable of displaying games that way. If Sony would have coded software on their own instead of being lazy by putting an emulator on the machine, then they could have made the twenty games on Classic run natively in widescreen.

We know which emulator did Sony pick: Kotaku figured out that the Japanese mini console uses PCSX ReARMed. It’s a „fork” (when someone takes the source code and begins further development) of PCSX-Reloaded, which had its development starting in 2000. Frank Cifaldi, the founder of Video Game History Foundation, wrote the following on Twitter: „The PlayStation Classic uses an open source emulator, PCSX. Lesser educated people might see this as a cause of frustration, but here’s the reality: it’s an acknowledgement that an „amateur” emulator can be just as valid as an „official” one (and they’re usually better!).”

Cifaldi also brought up that previously, Sony tried to sue to makers of Bleem. The case ran from 1999 until 2002, and Sony lost the case, although due to the legal fees, Bleem’s team has also gone out of business. Bleem was a PS1 emulator on PC. On SEGA Dreamcast, we could have done so with the Bleemcast, but only three games got a boot disc release, namely Tekken 3, Gran Turismo 2, and Metal Gear Solid.

The main point is: two decades ago, Sony tried to sue an emulator maker despite the PlayStation reaching its end of life, and now, they take that console generation’s not-so-successful games (because we could easily list twenty better games… why just twenty to begin with?) and re-release them via emulation, for money. The joke? The PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation Vita can run the PS1 games just as good as the PS Classic, which is out in early December. Have a look at its user interface…

Source: DualShockers, Kotaku

The PlayStation Classic uses an open source emulator, PCSX. Lesser educated people might see this as a cause of frustration, but here’s the reality: it’s an acknowledgement that an “amateur” emulator can be just as valid as an “official” one (and they’re usually better!). pic.twitter.com/zJztoiYiwT

— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi) November 8, 2018