Sony: No more backward compatibility for the PS3

Bad news for PlayStation 2 veterans: Looks like last year's 80GB PS3 will be the last of its kind to play your old PS2 games.

According to Engadget, Sony gaming exec Jack Trenton told a roundtable of reporters that moving ahead, no upcoming PlayStation 3 consoles would feature backward compatibility with the PS2.

"I would like to have had it in there, but Sony's collective strategy deemed we could afford to lose it," Trenton said. "We've now gone down that road, and we're not going back."

Backward compatibility with PS2 games was one of the PS3's bigger selling points when it first hit stores back in late 2006; indeed, the original 60GB and 20GB models boasted hardware-based backward compatibility (courtesy of the "Emotion" graphics synthesizer) with all PS2 titles.

Later PS3 models, including refreshed 60GB consoles and the 80GB version released last year, dumped the Emotion chip, although you could still play selected PS2 games with the help of downloadable software patches.

Then came the $399, 40GB PS3, which was the first PlayStation 3 without any PS2 backward compatibility at all, and Sony says that its 80GB replacement (due this September) won't play PS2 titles, either. PSOne games will still work, though.

So, I'm curious: Is PS2 backward compatibility still a factor for anyone shopping for a PS3? Any PlayStation 3 owners worried that their PS2 collections will be useless if they ever need to replace their consoles? Or are you happy sticking with PS3 games?

Related:
SCEA CEO Jack Tretton dishes: DRM is in, backwards compatibility is out, and video UMD lives on [Engadget]