PS3 Will Play Most PS2 Games

But there are a few rules you'll need to follow to get the best performance.

Good news for soon-to-be PlayStation 3 owners who are planning to pick up God of War II in April. Sony has confirmed that Kratos's latest and more than 1,800 other PS2 games will work on the PS3.

Yes, God of War II will work

The news comes as part of Sony's announcement that the new version 1.60 firmware is ready for the system.

The firmware update includes backwards compatibility software for around 70 per cent of all European PS2 games, according to quasi-official Sony blog ThreeSpeech. This is less than the 98 per cent compatibility of North American and Japanese systems but distinctly better than the 50-or-so per cent people were expecting.

Sony has put live a support site where PS3 owners new and prospective will be able to confirm the compatibility of their PSone and PS2 games with the system. The company recommends that people playing PS2 games on their PS3s not use unnecessary USB peripherals, skip full-motion video scenes where possible and avoid using 60 Hz mode on games that support it.

The workaround is the end result of Sony's shift to a reduced number of components in the European model of the PS3, which lacks some of the PS2 chips found in systems sold in the US and Japan. In the absence of full hardware compatibility, the company has turned to software emulation to do the job.

Also coming in the 1.60 firmware update is software that will allow PS3s to take part in the Folding@home biomedical research project, support for up to six simultaneous background content downloads, and a new onscreen keyboard.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo