For a while now I have been meaning to buy a PS3. When it first came out, I heard discouraging rumors about backwards compatibility issues, which immediately steered me away from buying one. Now it has been quite a while since then, but I haven't really kept up with the progress Sony has (or maybe hasn't) made on this issue. A glance at the Wikipedia article told me that the 40GB models don't have backwards compatibility at all, so I clearly do not want one of those. When I looked at the columns for the 60GB and 80GB models, though, I was confused. I am aware of the difference in concept of hardware and software emulation, but I'd like to know if anyone can give me a rundown of what this means in simple terms of quality of gameplay. It appears from the other references that the hardware process provides for better play, but then another part of the article said that Sony has fixed the issues with software emulation in successive fixes. Can someone elaborate a bit on this? Also, since there is emulation of the PS2, I assume this means I can still play my PSX games as well, right? Since the 60GB appears to be no longer in production, if it turns out to be the better choice, I'll just have to buy one off ebay.

A second issue: a big reason I chose the PS3 is for its Blu-ray function, however I am having a serious issue with the fact that there seems to be no good RPGs coming out for the PS3, whereas I continuously see what could be appealing RPGs for the 360. I am aware that Eternal Sonata is coming sometime this year for the PS3, but as it is already out for the XBOX, I would not be missing much there. As Dynasty Warriors 6 is for the XBOX as well, I really am not seeing anything game-wise drawing me to the PS3, so if I may ask, can someone (or multiple people) give me a simple rundown of the comparative advantages of the XBOX or the PS3 over the other in terms of the console itself and not just the games available. Also, recommendations of good RPGs for the PS3 either slated for release or already available would be very helpful.

All of this will be very beneficial to either my buying of a PS3 or ultimately selecting something else. Please don't recommend the Wii as it is a great system, but is not appealing to me.

metal......gear solid 4. also final fantasy xiii. other than that i'm not much help

I am mostly into RPGs, I rarely play games outside of that general genre, since I am not a very avid gamer to begin with. I have the cash on hand to buy a separate blu-ray player in addition to either console anyway, so the blu-ray thing is not a huge draw to the PS3 for me, now that I think about it, but it would be nice to not have to switch to another compnent. I am mostly concerned about the availibility of good RPGs or maybe a few hack and slash kind of games and/or performance/quality differences between the two systems.

I am interested in the same things Jeff is, with the added incentive that my wife wants the PS3 for Singstar and Rock Band (so backwards compatibility is a must for PS2 Singstar games).

The thing is, when it comes down to it, nothing on the PS3 reallt appeals to me.  If I were to rate my desire out of 10 for the next gen consoles, a Wii is an 8, the Xbox 360 is a 7 and the PS3 is 2, tops.

If someone could give me the lowdown on why a PS3 is awesome, that'd be much appreciated.  (And I don't give a rats ass about MGS4).

I have a Playstation 3 60 gig, gt great backwards capabilities, but is still lacking in the games department, it's getting a lot better but were still waiting on more. If I were you, I'd get a 360, it's got a lot more Rpgs coming out for it then the Playstation 3, plus it already has some great games..

Lost Odyssey just came out recently(Or Soon I don't know)
Eternal Sonata(As you said)
Two Worlds (If your interested)
Mass Effect
Phantasy Star Universe
Blue Dragon

..Plus theirs some upcoming Rpgs such as, The Last Remnant(Also on PS3), Fable 2, Infinite Undiscovery(By Tri-Ace!), and more, oh and if you haven't played any of the original Xbox Rpgs then their available for download as well.. I think.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard much about RPGs for the PS3. :(

But I know that at least these two are currently out:
Oblivion
Enchanted Arms

And these are coming out in the future:
Disgaea 3
Eternal Sonata
Fallout 3
FF13
FF Versus 13
Free Realms
The Last Remnant
Star Ocean 4
Steambot Chronicles 2
Valkyrie of the Battlefield
White Knight Chronicles

I wish there was more.

Why are all of FF's latest protagonists girly-men?

Also, Last Remnant looks awesome.  The rest of the "future" games I never really heard of.

And these are coming out in the future:
Disgaea 3
Eternal Sonata
Fallout 3
FF13
FF Versus 13
Free Realms
The Last Remnant
Star Ocean 4
Steambot Chronicles 2
Valkyrie of the Battlefield
White Knight Chronicles

I wish there was more.

Are some of those future releases also making way to the 360 or are they PS3 exclusives (except, like, Eternal Sonata)?

These 2 are both PS3 and 360:
Fallout 3
The Last Remnant

Also, the wikipedia page for Star Ocean 4 says the platform is still to be determined, but I think it's also going to go multi-plat.

The rest of them are PS3 exclusive.

Heh, well then that's a pretty big line up of PS3 Exlcusive RPGs. I might pick one up when the price gets dropped for those, also for the  backwards compatability and threquels like God of War 3 and Kingdom Hearts 3(?).

Yeah, KH3 and some "Tales of" games are what I'm really looking forward to, but so far, no word on either. :(

The backwards compatibility issue was why I bought my playstation 3 early. They removed the hardware emulation out of the PS3 to lower the price so now the backwards compatibility is limited to software emulation and I heard that's what tends to have issues with some games. With my PS3 that I bought last year I've played alot of PS1 and PS2 games and they've all worked perfectly (FFs, Vagrant Story, Shinobi, Street Fighter Anniversary, etc). But yea, I only have 2 PS3 games and I pretty much only use it to play DVDs, PS/2 games cuz theres nothing out thats worth getting. Theres Call of Duty 4 and all those crazy online multiplayer games but I'd rather get them for 360 because of how easy xboxlive is to use, until home comes out its usually better to get multiplayer multiplatform games on the 360. That is my possibly unbiased I have all 3 systems opinion.

So can anyone answer my questions on backwards compatibility? It would appear that there are definitely some good PS3 RPGs in the works, now I just need to tango with the system itself.

Well, from my understanding, the 60 gig currently has the best backwards compatibility. It's the one with the hardware emulation. the 80 gig has some trouble right now, but ultimately it's suppose to have better backwards compatibility than the 60 gig, because since it's software they're able to put out updates for it and fix issues with different titles. They've actually already done this a couple of times, releasing firmware updates that did nothing else except fix playback problems with certain PS2 games.

You can go here and find out what games work on which system.

-edit-
Oh yeah, and you can definitely still play PS1 games. Even the 40 gig supports PS1 titles. It's because of all this remote play stuff they're doing. You can put a PS1 disc into your PS3, and then stream it to your PSP. It's pretty awesome stuff. Read more about it here.

Also, I have a 60 gig model and I've yet to have any trouble playing any PS2 or PS1 games.

Indigo Prophecy "freezes" in the middle of a cutscene right in the middle of the game. IT IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING. I even bought another copy because I thought the disc was bad. And my PS2 is broken. Apparently, the game went completely insane just after the part I was at, but I need closure.

I have a 60 gig. Initially I had problems with some of my Megaten games freezing randomly, but after a firmware upgrade all of my games ran great.

eternal sonata is a worthless piece of crap anyway. i bought it and have come to regret my decision.

I have a 60GB PS3 and the only PS2 or PS1 game I've had issues with was Chrono Cross.

Unfortunately, the glitch makes and game completely unplayable after a certain point (ghost ship) and from my investigations online EVERYONE who plays CC on PS3 has this problem (the game freezes up requiring a hard reset when you use a an element (or the enemy uses an element) and it happens EVERY SINGLE TIME!)


So I'm upset about that but everything else works great!