PlayStation Classic (mini) is coming...............

[Hwlngmad]

It is just about the convenience and nostalgia of the unit. Obviously if you are a big time retro gamer, one (more than likely) has access to these games already and/or can find a way to get access to all of the games they want. However, a lot of buying public just wants something that they can just (literally) plug and play, even though there are much better gaming solutions to their itch than they realize if they really tried researching things more.

Here's the thing again, (in my view), folks are getting excited about needing to hack another of these mini retro consoles because they don't like the game selection, or it's not enough for them. Last I heard, these are all just some variant of a raspberry pi or cheaper running emulators with licensed games. Can you not do better with any number of other devices already? I just never understand the mindset that hacking these "official" retro devices is somehow superior to rolling your own. Ah well...mini rant over.

[Punisher5.0]

Well, yeah. They aren't a charity, and those who want to play those games have other ways to do so.

 

Spyro

Tomb Raider

Crash Bandicoot

Parasite Eve

Tomba

Twisted Metal 2

Street Fighter Alpha 3

Resident Evil 2

Silent Hill

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

 

A PS3, PSP, Vita, or PSTV with a bunch of the stuff you like would be a better system IMHO.

PSTV is $30 at Gamestop

PS3 is about $100 (this is the sweet spot, but you can get more or less)

Vita is $150

Yeah but you can play all these games elsewhere. Ive viewed these kind of devices as representing what they were. They obviously arent going to have all games but come on Crash was their mascot back in the day. Thats like not having a Mario or Sonic on a classic system.

[xenomorpher]

I'm surprised Metal Gear Solid is included. I wonder if they'll include the back case art since Campbell told you to look at it for the one codec frequency, though I doubt it since "the internet". I kinda wish they had something else besides Rainbow Six, like Silent Hill, Parasite Eve, or one of the Jet Moto games. Pretty solid lineup in my opinion since I grew up with most of those games. If the emulation is solid, I might consider it.

[Atariboy]

Looks like they had a bit of a challenge putting together a game list. Was anyone clamoring to revisit the PS1 port of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six for instance? It was a C- effort at best when it was new. I doubt old age has done it any favors.

 

The sensible part of me says if I want a Playstation Classic, I should spend half of what this costs to upgrade my PSTV's storage capacity and buy a few more PS1 classics downloads as they go on sale to create a list more like what many people were hoping for (With the added bonus of PS3 and PSP support, and Vita support if I ever buy a handheld Vita).

 

Many of the games I think fans could come to a consensus on being iconic PS1 releases are available on PSN today. For all the faults with that rerelease program, Sony still managed to deliver a great selection of big hits during the height of the PS3/PSP era, along with a solid group of lesser known classics (And a fair bit of shovelware). Most of the major omissions on PSN like the Gran Turismo titles were games that fans with some business logic understood to not hope for.

 

Yet I still find myself wanting this, even with a lackluster game list.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Atariboy

[Flojomojo]

I'm surprised Metal Gear Solid is included. I wonder if they'll include the back case art since Campbell told you to look at it for the one codec frequency, though I doubt it since "the internet".

 

If it's anything like the PSN releases (and why wouldn't it be?) they'll include the digital manual and a scan of the CD case, which has what you need. There's another spot where you have to switch controllers, which won't be a problem as this thing comes with two controllers.

 

Has anyone said if this unit will have support for save states like the other emulation-based mini consoles out there?

[atarilovesyou]

Yeah...not too thrilled with the titles, but it's a tall order because the system had so many iconic games through a six year span. There is no need for early stuff like Toshinden when you have Tekken 3...and the random titles like Mr Driller? Why? But you ain't gonna please everybody, right? I would have liked to see RE2 as well...no reason not to. Let's see if Sony can put out a Nintendo level quality mini system...the controllers will be important. I think they can do it. I wish that Sony put the really stellar games in though, even if it would cost a bit more in licensing. These minis are for the fans, so at least give an impression you care to include the best.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

A list of ANY 20 titles was never going to please everyone, there are some really good games for sure and it seems they did try for some variety, of course everyone had their own idea of the perfect list. FOR ME as I have heard from others, the attractiveness will come down to hack-ability and being adding to add ones own titles. Even for those not into such things I suspect it will still be a buy for many. Here is the official list video and an image to consider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88ACUOvfDEw

Edited October 29, 2018 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[Flojomojo]

A list of ANY 20 titles was never going to please everyone, there are some really good games for sure and it seems they did try for some variety, of course everyone had their own idea of the perfect list. FOR ME as I have heard from others, the attractiveness will come down to hack-ability and being adding to add ones own titles. Even for those not into such things I suspect it will still be a buy for many. Here is the official list video and an image to consider.

 

Yeah, all the diverse screenshots laid out like that make it seem a lot more desirable.

 

Here's my favorite comment from the GBAtemp thread you posted on the front page:

Hooray, another half-assed emulator for braindeds, who gonna say they buy because its legal, so they could enhance they low self-esteem

almost makes me want to preorder one now!

[digdugnate]

I'm surprised Metal Gear Solid is included. I wonder if they'll include the back case art since Campbell told you to look at it for the one codec frequency, though I doubt it since "the internet". I kinda wish they had something else besides Rainbow Six, like Silent Hill, Parasite Eve, or one of the Jet Moto games. Pretty solid lineup in my opinion since I grew up with most of those games. If the emulation is solid, I might consider it.

i'm trying to remember how the SNES Classic handled the 'frequency' thingy in Earthbound- I think they had you go to a webpage and it gave you the code.

[phoenixdownita]

How come no Crash Bandicoot ... I kind of liked the first one and I thought it was a sort of mascot for Sony.

It would be like a Nintendo product without any Mario or a Sega product without any Sonic .... oh well, they've gotta be using tons of cheap flash (think SD card) for this thing to even have the space to store 20 games CDs (yeah music can be compressed but Tekken 3 for example has it hidden in the data track and I believe others did it too) ... something like 8 or 16GB seems to be needed here.

[Flojomojo]

Final Fantasy VII is 3 discs of uncompressible video. If this is hackable, removing that game will free up lots of space, even if they fill it to the max.

[digdugnate]

i was thinking about that the other day regarding FF7 and the space taken on the discs- so like 3 gigs? i wonder if it'd be possible to recompress or use a more modern memory scheme for games similar to this.

[F34R]

I decided to cancel my order lol. I'm not really that interested and the price just doesn't do it for me as far as collecting goes.

[Flojomojo]

i was thinking about that the other day regarding FF7 and the space taken on the discs- so like 3 gigs? i wonder if it'd be possible to recompress or use a more modern memory scheme for games similar to this.

Less space than that, because a CD-ROM only holds 650MB. CD music is easily compressed, and the executable code is typically pretty small in these games. Video doesn't compress so well, though. That means you would be able to fit at least 3 (probably more) normal PS1 games into FF7's space.

 

Destruction Derby is less than 100MB even with music. I remember Vagrant Story can get down to less than 80MB. Ridge Racer (1) is only a few megabytes, the rest is music.

[F34R]

FF7

 

Disc 1 - 494MB

Disc 2 - 486MB

Disc 3 - 431MB

[Austin]

There are definitely some odd choices here. Twisted Metal 2 is the fan favorite, yet they went with the first one. Rainbow Six.. what?

 

Some other included titles were clearly important for the time, but have not held up well at all (Toshinden, I'm looking at you). Some others weren't even sleeper hits at the time, which makes me question their inclusion, such as Persona (sure, the series is popular now, but the first two games went unnoticed in the USA).

 

I'm also disappointed in the lack of any shoot 'em ups. Japan's getting a couple on theirs, so it's sad to not see even a single one here. Einhander is probably the most well known in North America, so I'm surprised it doesn't at least have that. The added variety would have been a welcome addition.

 

I understand this was likely harder to put together than what we found on Nintendo's boxes. It's arguable that most of the well-known and popular PS1 titles that still hold up well were third-party releases and so I bet licensing for this release was more than a pain for Sony. That said, I know they still have an extensive backlog that they own and they probably could have dipped farther into that to pad out the list with a greater amount of higher quality releases. Something like Wild Arms 2 or Legend of Dragoon in place of Persona, for instance, or Twisted Metal 2 in place of Rainbow Six. Who cares if there are multiple games in the same series on this thing? I'd rather have a box full of consistently high-quality releases that still play well today as opposed to a box padded out with poor conversions that few even cared about by the late '90s.

 

I'll probably pass on this but I will definitely keep an eye on it in case it gets hacked wide open. If the emulation is really solid, I could definitely see myself having a dedicated HDMI PS1 box. Until then, several of the included games are throwaway titles in my eyes (unlike the extremely solid lineup on the SNES Classic).

[Tanooki]

Sure there were some licensing blocks, the parts that are questionable though are the noteworthy games Sony published, or companies that did back this project published that are strangely absent. Namco - Klonoa. Capcom - Mega Man Legends, anything Street Fighter, Square-Enix - Einhander, Tomb Raider(own Eidos), Dragon Quest, Konami - something Castlevania, Suikoden. It's just bizarre some of the selection, it seems just neglectful, especially no shooters yet Japan with a couple and one being Konami's own Gradius.

 

I hope it's busted wide open in parallel to how hakchi works, so you can run a bypass. I can't see paying better than half the sticker price as it stands as it's just a lot of meh games mixed with a few solid choices which explains greatly why only 5 were listed originally. But this gets opened up, and clearly it has a considerable amount of base storage as it is, this could be made excellent.

[phoenixdownita]

The absence of Castlevania Symphony Of The Night is also disappointing.

 

I wonder if Sony thought 3rd party companies would rush to give their content for almost free and instead they actually wanted ... you know ... some real money.

99US$ is a little on the high side, we'll see when they tear it down to see what's it made of. Something tells me Sony is trying to squeeze too much out of this but time will tell.

[DragonGrafx-16]

I find the lack of shmups disturbing. And even more disturbing that the Japanese version has a few.

[Atariboy]

Let's hope it's hacked, then we can rectify that situation.

 

Sadly though, I don't share the enthusiasm most do with the possibility that adding games will be trivial. Just because the NES/SNES Classic Edition were, suddenly everyone thinks every plug and play with a USB port will be easily opened up within minutes of launch.

 

All Sony has to do to close the hole for 99% of us is just have this connection be there to provide power. Presumably Nintendo felt like there was a solid manufacturing or service need to have a fully connected usb connection, but that doesn't mean Sony will do likewise.

 

And if Sony does that, modding suddenly leaves the domain of being simple to something much more involved that most will never attempt.

[Newsdee]

I like it. Missing some of my favorites but includes quite a few too.

 

My one concern is that they probably won't emulate at a higher internal resolution, which many PC emulators can do nowadays. It reduces graphical artifacts and jagged lines since the 3D is drawn larger than the screen then reduced to fit.

[Atariboy]

Rendering at native resolution is how the initial reveal trailer appeared.

 

It's a shame, but not a surprise when one considers that the PS3 emulator did the same.

[AtariLeaf]

No Crash is odd but Sony doesn't own Crash like Nintendo owns Mario. Crash Racing at least would have helped. Am glad to see Intelligent Cube as that's a very underrated, and last time I checked, pricey, PS1 game. Having said that I'll pass on what is a $130 Cdn purchase. I would have liked a couple of the Road Rash games, Colony Wars is a favorite of mine, CTR of course. Having said that I'm not a huge PS1 fan and what games I do like I'll probably get original copies for my PS3. I'm assuming this will be hacked to play ISO's pretty soon after release but I think even the NES mini can play PS1 games too.

[Montrealer]

Rainbow Six.. what?

 

This.

 

I'd want the thing to be hackable just to remove this one. They could have used litterally any other game from the PS1's library instead of R6. Even NHL '97.

 

How about a shmup like people said? Or even, dare I say, a 2D fighter?

[cimerians]