PlayStation 5: Capable Of Running PS3 Games Locally, But Sony Does Not Care?! [VIDEO]

Hot news News PlayStation PlayStation News 05/07/2026

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There is now real evidence that yes, the console released in 2020 can emulate games from two generations earlier.

It is now possible to run Linux on PlayStation 5 using an older system update, opening the door to several interesting applications, including turning Sony’s current-generation console into a true emulation machine. That is exactly what one user has done, proving that the system has all the necessary conditions to run PlayStation 3 games locally with a small amount of intervention. This further highlights Sony’s lack of interest in providing the kind of backward compatibility that users would like to see.

Shortly after developer Andrew Nguyen published his Linux loader online, Twitter user Retropierdolnik shared a video showing PlayStation 5 running the PS3 game MotorStorm: Pacific Rift through the RPCS3 emulator. Based on the footage, the game runs quite smoothly, which is somewhat expected from a system powered by an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and an RDNA 2 GPU, but it is still impressive given that this is not something that can normally be done on the system.

This is not the first time PlayStation 5 hardware has run PS3 games smoothly. Back in 2024, a test using an AMD BC-250 card, which contains the PlayStation 5 chip, confirmed that the system has little trouble running emulated PS3 games even at resolutions higher than native. Seeing all of this makes Sony’s inaction on native PlayStation 3 game support even harder to understand. At the moment, PS3 games can only be played from the cloud, which does not always provide a perfect experience, and the silence around the issue suggests that the native emulation reportedly researched and prototyped by Implicit Conversions has not led anywhere.

As for PlayStation 6, it is unlikely that native PlayStation 3 games will be offered on it, but perhaps there is still some hope that the next-generation platform will provide native access to titles released across all PlayStation systems, since it is said to have more than enough power to deliver an excellent experience in every area.

RPCS3 na PlayStation 5 to najlepsze co ostatnio spotkało ten sprzęt. Motorstorm Pacific Rift działa jak złoto. Tylko na PS5 3.XX -4.XX z Linuxem na pokładzie. #PS5linux #RPCS3 pic.twitter.com/JMsuVMPWvG

– Retropierdolnik (@retropierdolnik) May 2, 2026

Source: WCCFTech

Angyal Anikó

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