Sony Announces the Playstation Classic (Mini Playstation1)

[FaSMaN]

Sony just recently announced its own version of the Nes/Snes Mini, a mini version of the PlayStation 1.

It is expected to retail for $99 , comes with two controllers, and includes 20 games.
Confirmed games so far: Final Fantasy VII, Tekken 3, and Ridge Racer Type 4.

The device is set to release in the USA on the 3rd of December, no word yet from Ster Kinekor on the South African release date.

 

[Ancalagon]

Why a PS1 and not a PS2?

The PS2 can play all of the PS1 games, and it would also be dirt cheap to manufacture.

 

[Beyond.Celsus]

There will be a limit to how many games can be put on the console. If it is like the NES mini it means pre-loaded games, not discs

PS2 would mean you need to ad PS1 and PS2 games limiting both.
PS1 games only means you can get more of them on the console.

Might get this depending on the games. PS1 was the best when it came to JRPG's

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

Why a PS1 and not a PS2?

The PS2 can play all of the PS1 games, and it would also be dirt cheap to manufacture.

Because then they can't sell a PS2 mini next year....

 

[Ninja'd]

Can't be PS1 classic without Symphony of the Night.

 

[FaSMaN]

Why a PS1 and not a PS2?

The PS2 can play all of the PS1 games, and it would also be dirt cheap to manufacture.

The hardware needed to emulate the system is the problem, all of the mini console use ARM based hardware and simply put this just isnt fast enough to emulate a PS2 , PCSX2 is one of the few fully functional PS2 emulators and its recommended specs is a Core i5 2.8Ghz.

I think the limit at the moment will be 5th console generation (PSone, N64, Saturn), anything after that requires way too much processing power.

The alternative is to use the same hardware as the original system, but the manufacturing costs will probably be extremely high seeing as they will have to create a custom Soc seeing as they stopped manufacturing the original more than a decade ago, they will also have to alter it enough to work from HDMI and local Nand storage as opposed to Composite and Optical media, its a huge undertaking, and for the limited quantities of "mini" systems they will be producing , not financially viable.

 

[Polymathic]

I don't see this making nearly enough money as the NES and SNES classic has made. The problem is Sony diluted their brand with remasters

 

[Sepeng]

Throw in Metel Gear Solid and Gran Turismo and I'm sold.

 

[Lupus]

Why?? I mean my PS3 can play PS1 games, why not maybe just release the games again?

 

[cerebus]

No chance they're adding some AA support to these games? The IQ on PS1 games is atrocious.

 

[animehero]

Will give this a skip

 

[ArtyLoop]

The hardware needed to emulate the system is the problem, all of the mini console use ARM based hardware and simply put this just isnt fast enough to emulate a PS2 , PCSX2 is one of the few fully functional PS2 emulators and its recommended specs is a Core i5 2.8Ghz.

So let's see:
PS1: MIPS CPU (stock R3000 design apparently)
PS2: "Emotion Engine" MIPS based (not 100% MIPS compatible due to Sony proprietary instructions)
PSP: MIPS R4000

I have found that the graphics card is key. I've been able to emulate GameCube and Wii on budget CPU, as long as I could throw in a beefy GFX card.

 

[parravis]

So it's the PS1 with 20 games, you can't add more games yourself and they're missing great games like Resident Evil 2 or Ape Escape. To top it off, they're too cheap to even add an AC adapter, meaning that the device is not usable straight out of the box. And it's priced the highest off all the mini consoles.

I'll give this one a skip. Nice attempt, Sony, but no thanks.

 

[FaSMaN]

So let's see:
PS1: MIPS CPU (stock R3000 design apparently)
PS2: "Emotion Engine" MIPS based (not 100% MIPS compatible due to Sony proprietary instructions)
PSP: MIPS R4000

I have found that the graphics card is key. I've been able to emulate GameCube and Wii on budget CPU, as long as I could throw in a beefy GFX card.

Thats really chicken and eggs comparison , a desktop CPU is far more powerful compared to whats currently offered in mobile and embedded ARM processors.

What you can do is look at performance instead of what Sony named the processes, the closest we can get is Instruction per second (Measured in MIPS, not to be confused with the CPUs name this stands for Millions of instructions per second)

PS1 (MIPS R3000A): 30 MIPS
PS2 (MIPS R5900 Emotion Engine): 6 000 MIPS
PSP: ??? but will be a lot less than the PS2

As you can see the complexity jumping from the PS1 to the PS2 is huge, its not GPU bound but rather CPU bound.

Bare in mind that measuring a cpu just in MIPS is fairly inaccurate, but I could not find specs that can directly compare the two.

 

[Ancalagon]

Thats really chicken and eggs comparison , a desktop CPU is far more powerful compared to whats currently offered in mobile and embedded ARM processors.

What you can do is look at performance instead of what Sony named the processes, the closest we can get is Instruction per second (Measured in MIPS, not to be confused with the CPUs name this stands for Millions of instructions per second)

PS1 (MIPS R3000A): 30 MIPS
PS2 (MIPS R5900 Emotion Engine): 6 000 MIPS
PSP: ??? but will be a lot less than the PS2

As you can see the complexity jumping from the PS1 to the PS2 is huge, its not GPU bound but rather CPU bound.

Bare in mind that measuring a cpu just in MIPS is fairly inaccurate, but I could not find specs that can directly compare the two.

Someone on the Internet pointed out that Sony previously released the Playstation TV, which is basically a PS Vita but for the TV.

It uses ARM CPU cores, but can run PS1 and PS2 games - obviously it would need emulation for that. Either emulation or they recompiled the code to run on ARM - not likely but not impossible.

Incidentally the Playstation TV also cost $99 but was far more capable. Didn't come with built in games.

 

[FaSMaN]

Sort of the ps vita TV is actually just a psvita that's stripped down, and no it doesn't play PS2 games , it had a few that was ported over for it but isn't fast enough to play PS2 games emulated.

 

[Lupus]

The problem is people have rose tinted glasses when they think back to the games on the PS one, they think wow the graphics were really good and the games were fun. But that was twenty years ago, we've come leaps and bounds over those games, even from games of last gen to now seem like they can be archaic. I mean even the Gears of War remake, yes it looked all pretty and shiny but they kept the mechanics of the original gears of war, which by then had been improved dramatically with the other three released since.
FFVII looks horrible now, doesn't play all that well and yes in 1997 it was super cool, but in 2018 it's like wtf is this? Resident Evil even in the 90s was super cheesy, but we loved it because it was a decent survival horror of the time, the remakes though are far better, Silent Hill awesome game for it's time, now the fog oh my the fog. Crash Bandicoot, you can get the Nsane Trilogy with updated graphics, Tomb Raider, rather look at the Anniversary edition for cheap on previous gen consoles and and and.
At least with the NES and Super NES the games were never meant to look hyper realistic and they had some great tight gaming, even though it's also different to the modern era. Like if my son is playing the original doom, he finds it odd that he has to find health packs, or that he doesn't have to reload.

 

[genetic]

The problem is people have rose tinted glasses when they think back to the games on the PS one, they think wow the graphics were really good and the games were fun. But that was twenty years ago

The PlayStation was released 24 years ago. We had Pentium 1's back then. There was no such thing as 3D acceleration in games.

The only reason someone would by this is for nostalgia, and even then, I'd rather have the original PlayStation.

 

[Lupus]

The PlayStation was released 24 years ago. We had Pentium 1's back then. There was no such thing as 3D acceleration in games.

The only reason someone would by this is for nostalgia, and even then, I'd rather have the original PlayStation.

Agreed, but i would be played for a few minutes and then turned off.

 

[Binary_Bark]