True backwards compatibility for physical disc games ended with the PlayStation 4. Although Sony eventually re-released some older titles digitally, you can’t insert a PS2 or PS3 disc into your PS4 to play existing games. This restriction applied to the PlayStation 5. PS4 discs are compatible, but for anything older you need a digital, technically emulated copy, and Sony is very slow in releasing them. Even today, the classic games section on PSN is incredibly limited, restricted to some of the most popular titles but also a fraction of the true catalog of the three legacy consoles, from PlayStation 1 to PlayStation 3. That’s about to change. Well, sort of. A new port of the PCSX2 emulator – coded in ambiance with Claude – has been released for jailbroken PS5s, aptly renamed PS5SX2.
With it, you can take your old PS2 discs, insert them into the PS5’s disc tray, and the system will then transfer a digital copy of them to the SSD for emulation. There is one caveat, however, which presents a strict limitation. The PS5’s physical disc drive can play Blu-Rays and DVDs, but cannot play CDs. So only PS2 games pressed to DVD are compatible. Many older PS2 titles, with their cool blue faces and all, are actually CD-ROMs, so they won’t work, nor will PS1 games – which are also on CD-ROMs.
Of course, that doesn’t completely dampen the excitement about PS5SX2 version 2.01, capable of natively dumping, launching, and playing old PS2 titles you still have on your shelf. The PS5SX2 also introduces support for RetroAchievements, online play for select games via an emulated network card, HD texture packs, and a ton of other improvements. This is similar to how the Xbox Series X can now play limited PlayStation 5 games thanks to a community-made emulator.
A PS3 disc emulator is also in the works
PS5SX2 lead coder Swordpdf (@sword_pdf) also briefly announced on X and Discord that a PS3 emulator was coming; PS5SX3. As with the PS2 version, you will be able to insert your PS3 game discs and transfer them to the PS5 hard drive to play. When this eventually becomes available, the PS5 will have almost full backwards compatibility with older discs. No, it doesn’t necessarily feel like something impossible is being done here, but it certainly sends a message to Sony.
Swordpdf also seems to think that they will one day be able to do the same thing with PS1 discs. If this is the case, especially since PS1 discs are all CDs, would that mean PS2 support would also expand to include the currently out-of-reach blueprint copies? Presumably, PS5SX3 would also bring many improvements like other emulators. At the very least, upgrading to the PS5’s more powerful hardware would be a nice bargain. You could finally reuse that old PS3 console that’s been collecting dust.
Keep in mind that this isn’t something you can run without jailbreaking your PS5, which requires keeping it on an older version of the official firmware to achieve this. Since many newer games require firmware updates beyond what can be jailbroken, like “Marvel’s Wolverine,” this could put this possibility out of reach if you’ve already upgraded. While not related, now is a good time to point out, if you didn’t know, that you can also keep some of those old PS2 and PS3 titles you own using specialized Blu-Ray players.
Gn tech
