Yep…I know this, and you should know this…but lately I’ve been hearing from people making the claim that the PS3 Slim and other models that had the PS2 Backwards Compatibility removed from them when they were announced are magically getting this feature added back in via a software update on the system.

So it’s at this idea that I call BS.

When the PS3 was originally announced and launched, it came in 2 flavors: 60GB (CECHA01 with wireless) and 20GB (CECHB01 without wireless). Both of these models included the “Emotion Engine” and other components from the PS2 built into it for true hardware backwards compatibility with most of the existing PS2 library. Basically it meant that the PS2 was inside the PS3.

Later down the line Sony released the 80GB (CECHE01) model with a small change…some of the PS2 hardware was removed and replaced with “software” compatibility. This still allowed for most PS2 games to be playable, but there were a few titles that wouldn’t run without the missing components.

After the 80GB model, Sony announced the first price drop and the upcoming release of the 40GB (CECHG01) PS3. This model was the first to remove all PS2 components as well as the software compatibility with the PS2 as well. From here we had a few more systems come out all the way up to the 120GB (CECH-2101A) and 250GB (CECH-2101B) models. The first 40GB model was still shaped like the original mold, but had removed the memory card readers as well as 2 of the 4 original USB ports that were located on the front of the system. The second version of the 40GB (CECHH01) was the first in the “slim” line of Playstation 3′s that Sony has continued to release.

Now after this line was started, Sony themselves stated that backwards compatibility would not be coming back, as they wanted the PS2 and PS3 markets to stay seperated for the growth of the new system.

Now, even thought I said earlier that backwards compatibility HAS NOT come back on the PS3 in any way, there were a few updates that could lead to this being a confusing issue. The first of which is the update that came out for the older model PS3′s (20, 60, and first model 80GB) that allows the PS3 to play PS2 games that required use of the Hard Drive attachment on the original model PS2 (Final Fantasy XI being the main one). Everybody could download this optional feature, but it would only really work or change anything on the original models.

The second bit of confusion is the release of the God of War Collection for PS3. This collection contains God of War and God of War II, both of which were originally only on the PS2. But these games were not simply “ported” over and running on some new software compatibility…they are in fact redone to run on PS3 code exclusively as a native PS3 game. Now nothing stops developers from doing this to other PS2 games that they have in their libraries, but it doesn’t count as true backwards compatibility (otherwise we could say the PS2 and Xbox were playing original NES games via the Mega Man collections).

And the last bit of confusion I could find is the one instance of “partial backwards compatibility” that exists in the Sing Star series for the Playstation 2 and 3. The latest edition of the series that was released last year for the Playstation 3 allowed you to insert any copy of the PS2 editions of Sing Star and have them recognized and used for the new game…but this was only limited to the game reading the music tracks and playing them. The game itself (menus, graphics, etc.) are never used. So basically it’s just reading music from a DVD for the sake of gameplay much like Lips can let you sing to music from an iPod or Zune.

So there you have it and I finally have that off of my chest. I just got tired of hearing this being touted around to people, even by employees of some gamestores to customers looking to buy the PS3 because they themselves believed the rumors. Feel free to point them to this page, directly from Sony on the matter of their systems, if they keep it up:

Zen aka Jeremy Powers