PS4 will get PS2 emulation, Sony confirms

It’s not just Xbox One owners that will be able to play older games – Sony has plans for its own backwards compatibility.

Both the PS4 and Xbox One launched without the ability to play older games, though a recent update has seen the latter console gain support for Xbox 360 titles – a selling point Microsoft has been quick to highlight.

However, Sony is already set to bring one of the greatest games libraries of all time – that of the PlayStation 2 – to its new console.

We are working on utilising PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation,” the platform holder confirmed to Wired.

We have nothing further to comment at this point in time.”

In fact, this week may have marked the first PS2 games to come to the machine, albeit quietly.

The digital re-releases of Star Wars: Racer Revenge,Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter andStar Wars: Bounty Hunter included with the Darth Vader PS4 console bundle were found by Digital Foundry to potentially be emulated versions of the original PS2 games running on the PS4 hardware.

Whether future PS2 releases will be similar re-releases via the PlayStation Store or the console will instead gain the ability to read original PlayStation 2 discs remains to be seen. But it might mean you can stop asking for that God Hand remaster already.