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

[DragonGrafx-16]

I'm one I guess, just by the fact I didn't bother to touch a playstation until 2001. They pissed me off with their arrogance and tactics in the 90s so they were off limits, got a Turbo Duo. But to be fair, the only Sony thing I still use anymore is a PSOne/LCD combo device on my desk so I'm good with the games. I don't know all of the 1000s of titles, though much of them are garbage filler by proxy, but I do know plenty of the good to excellent by name/picture association at the least and the PSC top20 mostly is average, good games, but good average ones not of the memorable type I'd buy it for which is a shame. Some of them even had better PC versions like Demolition Derby which I'd kill on there 20 years ago. I really wanted to like the thing when I saw the 5 game list as it was pretty promising, but the other 15 was the kiss of death at $100.

 

I know there are so many games it's hard to capture 20 to really grab you with what you could think is the best, but what they did grab is a hard pill for most to honestly call the best even if you exclude things with blocking licensing issues. Wipeout comes up but do all 3 use licensed tracks? What about Tomb Raider or Soul Reaver as they're both controlled by Square-Enix that bought Eidos and they're out. The list can easily be compounded with more games like Ace Combat from Namco or Soul Edge too. I get why Crash and Spyro are out, Activision blew them off, but getting 20 wouldn't be hard that's far more representative of what people would stuff into a top20 list than that it has.

As I said above the original Wipeout used all original music (it's amazing BTW). XL/2097 was the first to use licensed music.

[Lost Dragon]

The licensed music is a regional issue.

 

From Wikipedia :

 

Additional music featured in the PAL version of the PlayStation game include tracks from Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital (also appearing on Wipeout: The Music), while the Saturn version includes three additional tracks by Rob Lord and Mark Bandola. Orbital's "Wipeout (P.E.T.R.O.L.)" was at least partially written before Burcombe met the musicians, and Leftfield's "Afro Ride" and The Chemical brothers' "Chemical Beats" are remixes of songs the artists had already recorded. The 1995 North American release, as well as the 1997 "Greatest Hits" reissue, only feature tracks by CoLD SToRAGE.

[Greg2600]

You know, I didn't even consider music licensing on titles like Tomb Raider or Spyro or etc. Whether that was a $ problem or not.

[5200Fanatic]

Sure, its a cash grab, but I ordered one.

[atarilovesyou]

Just not entuusiastic for this anymore, but it has sparked some desire for me to round out my PS1 collection. Lots of great games for it...and yes, some heavy hitters made this mini. Just not enough to make it worthwhile, personally. To do that would have required two Dualshocks along with Resident Evil 2 and both Gran Turismo games. Tomb Raider...Parappa or UmJammer. Einhander. Wipeout. Driver. Tenchu. But for a neat little colectible, maybe...at a discounted price. And I was a bit surprised to see both Nintendo minis in stock at local Walmarts. Done right, these minis can really get me motivated to buy.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Honestly the Sega Mini (not manufactured by Atgames ) will likely have far better play value than this.

[ijor]

https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/1060701347710820352

I want to expand on this now that it's kind of blowing up. There's been this decades-long myth that emulators a company makes and sells you are somehow better. Now we have acknowledgement from THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE PLAYSTATION that a free emulator is good enough to be official.

This is really so important in so many ways! Perhaps the most important is the legal aspect. There was (is) some grey area about emulation. Now that the world top console manufacturer uses a public open source emulator, it might be interpreted as some kind of blessing. Of course that it doesn't have a full strict legal value. But Sony would find itself in a very unconformable position if it would decide to sue an emulator developer unless it blatantly infringes some copyright.

 

https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/1060703358292439040

The collective knowledge of the emulation community is going to exceed "internal" knowledge almost every time. Working at Sony doesn't give you secret access to perfect knowledge of a now-ancient system. To me this is a really obvious move that every company should be making.

Having reverse engineered a few classic systems, I beg to differ. An insider might have access to internal undisclosed information that could be invaluable. But in some cases that information was lost, although probably not in this case. And a company like Sony could easily hire a couple of gurus from the emulation community. I think the main reason Sony decided to use a public open source emulator, is simply time to market. Sony surely could have produced their own version, even on silicon. But it would have take Sony way much more time.

[Tanooki]

Honestly the Sega Mini (not manufactured by Atgames ) will likely have far better play value than this.

In all fairness given the limits of what the reviews are so far on the PSC, the atgames current 2017/2018 model using Genesis GX likely still is better for play value, the game list surely is, and it will take added carts to add to that unlike the PSC with it's locked list of much mediocrity. At least now we know why they listed only 5 up front as the other 15 well, yeah.

[derFunkenstein]

https://twitter.com/MarkMan23/status/1067122274795429895

 

The text of the tweet:

 

As I was able to confirm (simply by eyeballing early videos), Tekken 3 on the PlayStation Classic is the unplayable PAL version I was hoping to start enjoying that game again, too since it was never re-released (only the arcade version was included in T5).

 

And he seems to have the credentials to know what he's talking about (screen capped from his bio). From the ensuing discussion, it seems that the PAL version of Tekken 3 did not run at full speed. Why Sony would put that on the US version of the PlayStation Classic is confusing to say the least.

Edited November 26, 2018 by derFunkenstein

[Flojomojo]

PAL is 50Hz, NTSC is 60Hz. It would be easier to emulate the European one, but we would immediately notice the slowdown. Boo.

[godslabrat]

Sony, seriously, you can tell us... you gave this to AtGames to make, didn't you?

[Hydro Thunder]

So with that news about Tekken 3, that brings the number of games I am looking forward to on the PS Classic to...

*counting on fingers, taking out abacus...*

 

0

 

 

 

Is there a way to cancel the pre-order I never made in the first place? Just some way to show my additional displeasure with these developments...

[Mulletino]

I'm looking forward to lots of people realising those controllers are not as comfy as they remember them to be.

 

(The DS4 is a huge upgrade)

[Austin]

The original PS1 pad (no analogs) is still my go-to controller for most PS1 games. It's light and thin.

[phoenixdownita]

I grew up playing the PAL version of Battle Arena Toshinden and I was not pleased, it is impossible to land the 3 strikes in Duke's combo because the game was slowed down haphazardly and didn't compensate for the 50Hz vs 60Hz appropriately, the third strike of his combo is always a miss or can be parried, also his "stomp on the shit" on the ground attack couldn't be chained, not so in the JP/US versions instead.

At the time me and most of my friends enjoyed JP versions (or US version sometimes) via the beauty of PAL60 + Scart cable.

 

So yeah I can understand the less than stellar situation .... to be fair games whose PAL version is better are from the Winning 11 series (because Goal Storm [uS version] was made too easy to suit the US flavor for higher scoring games) and even then the Japanese version was still better (in a weird sort of way due to the off the top antics here and there).

 

What were they thinking? There are games that are PAL only or better in the PAL release than in the US release, but they are very few and none of them afaik in the official list.

[AtariLeaf]

Sony, seriously, you can tell us... you gave this to AtGames to make, didn't you?

 

Funny you mention this. Just before I read your post I watched a youtuber make this exact comparison. Geez Sony you better wake up, this is not a comparison you want.

[digdugnate]

im slow on the uptake- from what i read, the US release of the games are going to be PAL? if this is the case, what the heck, Sony. lol

[derFunkenstein]

im slow on the uptake- from what i read, the US release of the games are going to be PAL? if this is the case, what the heck, Sony. lol

Yeah, it's apparently a lot of games.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/playstation-classic-review-a-far-from-classic-experience/

 

PLAYSTATION CLASSIC GAME SELECTION (US)

Battle Arena Toshinden*​

Cool Boarders 2*​

Destruction Derby*​

Final Fantasy VII​

Grand Theft Auto*​

Intelligent Qube​

Jumping Flash!*​

Metal Gear Solid​

Mr. Driller​

Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee*​

Rayman​

Resident Evil Director's Cut*​

Revelations: Persona​

R4 Ridge Racer Type 4​

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo​

Syphon Filter​

Tekken 3*​

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six*​

Twisted Metal​

Wild Arms​

* - Emulated from 50Hz PAL version

Almost half of all the games on the system are based on PAL releases.

[NE146]

I hear the PS Classic uses Bleem?

[JBerel]

That wouldn't be legal, and it supports piracy.

 

You can't sell a videogame if it requires an illegal copy of Bleem to run in it.

[deepthaw]

Digital Foundry confirms the awfulness of the PAL stuff.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-playstation-classic-emulation-first-look

 

Tekken 3 does indeed run at 83.3 per cent of its intended speed, but more than that is the fact that a 50Hz gameplay is dropped into the Classic's 60Hz output, giving obvious judder. Looking at raw video captures, every sixth frame is a duplicate - there isn't even the rudimentary frame-blending used in PAL PS2 Classics running on PlayStation 4. In fact, Tekken 3 also includes regular 50ms frame-time spikes - two dropped frames in succession, something that shouldn't happen.

[youxia]

While I still refuse to join in on the fun and jump on the Merry Ol' Hatin' Bandwagon in this case there is one thing that undeniably bothers me. Now, I can understand (unlike most folks on the net, it seems) that when it comes to 3D-gen emulation you can only pick one: either cheap or very good performance. You can't have both. And in some cases (N64/Saturn etc) you will still get significant glitches even on a monster PC.

 

So, it'd be no surprise that Sony went with cheap since otherwise nobody bar few hardcore fans would buy it. This will result in manadatory perofrmance problems, something that would be normally accepted - people put up with it all the time in regards to other formats and devices - if not for the fact this is the retro console world and so Sony will always incur the wrath of those Sega/Ninty fans with long memories. Such is life

 

The big real problem here though is the fact that Sony already had near-100% exact, amazing propertiary emualtor running on a PSP. And PSP hada 333Mhz CPU. So why on earth has it not been used here? I'm really interested in a true answer to that, seeing as once you get past the knee-jerk fanboy dismissals, it's obvious that Sony has a very good track record regarding hardware products of any sort and there is absolutely no reason for them to release an inferior product and suffer bad reviews and backlash if this could be avoided.

 

So most likely there is some sort of real-world explanation. Wonder what it is.

[Tanooki]

I kind of wondered the same. The PSP even had that output jack with the component cable option for it to your CRT or HD TVs and it works fantastic. You'd think in the decade since that came around and looking at what they did for the Vita in the PS TV device, something cheap could have been done to finagle that thing down into a small board for a PSC (pstv like) device. Instead, ghetto parts, and ghetto emulation rounded out with a primarily mediocre game set no one was chomping at the bit to get for a price tag higher than both the Nintendo devices all over the market. If they're looking to compete, they failed. Truth is, I was wondering how long until someone started drawing atgames comparisons.

[JBerel]

[xenomorpher]

$99 is not cheap. For that price, the emulation should be perfect or indistinguishable to the average person. This sucks because I wanted this to be good.