It has been more than five years since the PS5 was released in late 2020. Now, with the help of the old version of the system software, players can already run the Linux system on the PS5 console, which opens the way for various interesting applications, including turning the console into a full-featured emulator device. Some players have achieved this operation, confirming that the PS5 hardware is fully capable of running PS3 games natively, and requires almost no additional complex adaptations. This also further highlights that Sony has no intention of launching backward compatibility.
Soon after developer Andrew Nguyen released the Linux bootloader online, Twitter user Retropierdolnik shared a video: Through the RPCS3 emulator, PS5 successfully ran the PS3 game "Motorstorm: Pacific Rift". Judging from the actual test screen, the game runs very smoothly. The PS5 is equipped with a powerful Zen2 eight-core processor and an RDNA2 architecture graphics card. It is reasonable to achieve this effect, but considering that the official has not opened the relevant permissions, the cracking results are still impressive.
This is not the first time someone has verified that PS5 hardware can run PS3 games smoothly. As early as 2024, testing of the AMD BC-250 mining card equipped with the same chip as the PS5 has confirmed that this level of hardware can run PS3 emulator games without any pressure, and can even play smoothly at higher than native resolutions.
Under various current circumstances, Sony’s practice of not supporting PS5 to natively run PS3 games has become increasingly puzzling. Currently, players can only play old PS3 games through cloud gaming, but the cloud gaming experience is often not perfect. Sony has remained silent on the matter, which means that the native analog adaptation project that was previously rumored to be developed and prototyped by Implicit Conversions has come to nothing.
With the upcoming release of the PS6 console, there is basically no hope that this generation of PS5 will add the ability to natively run PS3 games. However, the outside world still has a glimmer of hope: it is rumored that the next-generation console has sufficient performance reserves and may be natively compatible with all generations of PlayStation games, bringing players a complete retro gaming experience.