PlayStation 3 Can Struggle with Older Games

Sony's PlayStation 3 has only been on sale four days (in Japan), and already gamers are finding the system isn't out-of-the-box compatible with some older PlayStation games.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 went on sale in Japan last Saturday—moving almost 90,000 units in two days and leaving store shelves bare—and already reports are flooding in that Sony’s claims that the PS3 would be backward compatible with existing PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games aren’t entirely true.

Although Sony posted a Web page (Japanese) about the issue when the systems went on sale in Japan November 11, enabling users to enter the name of an older PlayStation game to check compatibility—the outcry quickly forced Sony Computer Entertainment spokesperson Satoshi Fukuoka to admit some of the tens of thousands of games available for previous PlayStation platforms didn’t play properly—or at all—on the new PS3.

Sony declined to give an estimate for the number of games with problems, but said it would test some 8,000 games for compatibility. Most problems appear to be related to sound playback, although some graphic glitches also occur. Problems reportedly occur in some popular titles, including Grand Turismo and Final Fantasy titles. the Japanese newspaper Sankei reports the problems impact about 200 games.

North American customers can expect an English-language edition of Sony’s game compatibility checker to go online when the PlayStation 3 launches in the North American market this Friday.

Sony says it will work to fix backward compatibility problems via downloadable software updates for the PS3 console.