A lot of gamers were disappointed when backwards compatibility was pulled from the PS3. When the PS3 initially launched it had a much smaller library than the Xbox 360 library, which had a one year head start, and backwards compatibility was a good way to ease people into buying a PS3. When you bought a PS3, you still had a lot of great PS2 titles that you could play, but once that was no longer an option, people found it hard to justify the $600 price tag. Now, the PS3 is almost three years into its life cycle, and has a very strong game library. In addition, the PS3 is $200 cheaper then it was at launch. Is backwards compatibility still needed when the PS3 has such a strong library?

As the PlayStation 3 enters its 3rd year in its lifecycle rumors are abound of a firmware update bringing back backwards compatability. But do we really need it at this point?

Don’t get me wrong, the more features the better…

The more available options, the better the perceived value of a product. So when Sony dropped the support of backwards compatibility early on in the PS3’s life, gamers were very upset, and rightfully so.

Backwards compatibility helps ease the transition into a new console. It helped the jump from the original PlayStation to the PS2, since you could still play your existing game library. And having PS2 support in launch PS3s was a major selling point. But the PS3 launch is LONG gone.

Trexman89 via playstationlifestyle.net »