PS Plus: Experts with a devastating verdict on retro games in the new subscription

The new PS Plus subscription is already available in Asia. After the initial disappointment of the fans, experts also make a hard judgment about the PS1 games.

San Mateo, California – The major rollout has begun, with the new PS Plus subscriptions gradually being unlocked worldwide. It’s still a while in this country, but PS Plus Extra and Premium have recently become available in some regions of the world. However, some fans noticed a few problems with the retro games for PS1, PS2 and PSP. Reason enough for the tech experts at Digital Foundry to take a closer look at the emulation of the old PlayStation games.

PS Plus: New, old games already available in Asia – fans report problems

Since when are the new games available? Seen for Germany, the new PS Plus subscription with the retro games and large game catalog has not yet started. In Asia, however, players can already take advantage of the upgrades to the new Extra and Premium levels. The additional subscriptions have been available since May 23, and with them come the first opinions and experience reports on the retro games from PS1, PS2 and PSP. So far, however, these have been anything but good.

What’s the problem with the games? The first players who tried the PS Plus PS1 games already complained that only the PAL versions of them were available. In contrast to the NTSC region versions, these run quite a bit slower and less cleanly. But that doesn’t seem to be the only hurdle that the retro games from PS Plus fail at. Now the experts at Digital Foundry have also dealt with the emulators used to run the games.

PS Plus: Digital Foundry checks emulation more closely – “not good enough”

What is the opinion of Digital Foundry? Basically raises DigitalFoundry positive that the emulator on PS4 and PS5 is equipped with more features than that of the PlayStation Classic. Options for high-resolution textures, multiple save states, and even rewind functions are all now present. But the problems come in the actual performance of the games. There, the experts noticed that the titles were probably not optimized for the PAL versions and that the time spans between individual frames fluctuate sharply. This causes the game to run even less cleanly at the already low frame rate.

According to Digital Foundry, the emulation via PS5 was particularly hard hit. There, the retro games should probably be played more slowly on PS Plus than in their original versions. This doesn’t just mean the frame rate, titles like Ape Escape should actually run in slow motion – and that in addition to the already dirty picture. The verdict is clear: In the eyes of the experts, the emulators are simply not good enough.

Is this a new issue? Not long ago, the Nintendo Switch took a similar hit when games from the N64 became available through the Nintendo Switch Online expansion pack. According to fans in online forums, there are still problems with titles like Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the case of PS Plus, Sony at least seems to be making a difference and has provided updates for some PS1 titles. While these aren’t a full solution yet, as frame blending blurs the image on the titles in question, the San Mateo company appears to be working on the emulator.

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