Sony has made available the complete list of PS2 and PSOne titles that are backwardly compatible with the upcoming PS3, revealing that 1,782 of the 2,451 European published titles will work out of the box. That figure represents 73 per cent of the total PS2 catalogue.

As is reported on unofficial Sony blog Threespeech, the figure is well in excess of the 1,200 number previously hinted at. It was also confirmed that as previously reported, users will have to download the latest firmware patch to make sure their machines are able to run the listed software.

However, included in this number are numerous titles that Sony claims will run with ‘minor’ or ‘noticeable’ issues. Big games amongst this category include Metal Gear Solid 3, Final Fantasy XII, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the recent versions of Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer and EA’s FIFA series.

“Our engineers have been working overtime, and have succeeded in delivering a significant number of playable PS2 titles for the European launch,” SCEE president David Reeves stated.

“We will be adding additional titles to this list in future firmware upgrades, but as we have made clear before, in the future our resources will be increasingly focused on developing new services and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, rather than on delivering PS2 backwards compatibility.”

The complete list of backwardly compatible titles can be found here.