Speaking with PlayStation Nation earlier this month, Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida explained why they went through the extra effort to add Trophies and up-render PlayStation 2 games to 1080p on PlayStation 4 – and why they’re charging for them.
Using the first Gran Turismo on PlayStation 1 as an example, Shuhei mentioned how people were blown away when it was originally revealed, but now “when you see it in the original form, you go, ‘Is this the same game that we were so excited about?'”
He added:
So that’s one reason [why] we brought some of the PS2 games in this form, this time [on PS4]. When we released the PS2 Classics on PS3… for one, PS2 was not easy hardware to emulate, so we had to choose the games that probably didn’t take too much advantage of the PS2 hardware. So we were able to soft emulate on PS3.
Shuhei then said the new PS2 emulation on PS4 “brings it to 1080p with 60 frames-per-second. So it’s not like new PS4 games or remastered PS4 games, but it actually brings it up to the level that you can feel that maybe, ‘I can play this for as long as I want. Probably I can finish 20 hours, 40 hours RPG with this quality.”
Yoshida continued by saying the reason Sony is charging for these PS2 games on PS4 is due to all the work they’re putting into them:
We were also able to add Trophies; some people really care about Trophies. So we can provide that. And it takes some time for our staff and QA [quality assurance] and licensing and everything to bring back these games. So it takes us time and cost. So we felt that we should charge. We should release these as a new title almost.
As we learned recently, adding Trophies to the PlayStation 2 games on PlayStation 4 can take nearly three months for the Sony emulation team.
PaRappa the Rapper 2 launched last week, with Fantavision out this week. The near future will see The King of Fighters 2000 and Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits.
So far, the prices range from $9.99 – $14.99.
