Backwards compatibility on all PS3s?

Recently, reverse engineers and hackers have been able to extract the file used for PSN distributed Playstation 2 classics titles. Contrary to popular belief, these games are not reprogrammed ports of the games to the Playstation 3, but are complete emulations of the unmodified original game. Smart people have been able to implement this to allow the Sony designed emulator to run an extensive library of Playstation 2 games.

Yes, the Playstation 3 can run Playstation 2 games. Any Playstation 3, including units released after 2007.

Granted, there isn’t 100% compatibility. It has about the same hit rate as the Xbox 360 has when running original Xbox titles. The community has started testing games one by one to form a compatibility list. As of writing the are only a handful of completely incompatible games, and some of these games don’t work just because a required peripheral - like the Buzz! Infrared controllers - just aren’t recognised by the system. But games like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Gran Turismo and Persona 4 all run in a completely playable form. While not fully tested, so far this emulation method has better compatibility than the original backwards compatible Playstation 3’s that were released in European territories.

Why isn’t this opened up for systems to play Playstation 2 discs? The only way to get Playstation 2 games to run on a newer PS3 is to re-buy them from the Playstation Network. A thread on NeoGaf shows people calling this anti-consumer, saying that Sony is without shame. This emulation technology runs completely unmodified Playstation 2 disc images. From a technical perspective there is no reason why a firmware update couldn’t be made to allow all Playstation 3 systems to run Playstation 2 discs.

_ What are your thoughts on this? Do you think its perfectly fair for this technology to be restricted to PSN re-releases? Would you like to see it opened up to be able to run Playstation 2 discs? Leave your comments and thoughts below! Special thanks to the people of NeoGaf and PSHomebrew for uncovering this revelation._