Well, it has Playstation in the title, so...

A whole boatload of sources (and then some) picked up on a quote from Japanese paper Ashai Shimbun saying that the Playstation 3 will indeed play all Playstation 1 and 2 games. In their articles, some members the media called the revelation "not shocking by any means," (EvilAvatar) " and said it was assumed by "everyone and their mother." (GamerFeed) My question, then, is this.



Why didn't anybody ask about this before?



Before today, it was very easy to assume that Sony's new system would play PSOne games. It seemed like a total no-brainer, an absolute lock considering the success of backwards-compatibility on the PS2. But one if there's one thing a good journalist should know, it's this:



Nothing is ever an absolute lock!



I'm amazed that, in all this time since the PS3 buzz started (E3 2002 by my rough recollection) that no one else bothered to ask anyone at Sony about backwards compatibility for the PS3. In the months and months of hype and interviews and pre-previews, it didn't occur to anyone to confirm this most basic of assumptions. Doesn't anybody in the industry know that you never assume anything that can be confirmed with a simple question?



It may be that someone did ask about this before, and simply got a "no comment," but I find this unlikely. If the question had been asked, but not answered sufficiently, I would think that the rest of the media would pick up the scent and continue to ask the question until someone finally broke the silence. Then again, this might be giving the video game media too much credit. But I highly doubt Sony was remaining tight lippedo n the matter until today, when it decided to reveal its grand plans to a reporter who happened to ask. Regardless, the fact that a Japanese newspaper broke this story instead of a video game magazine or web site shows that the video game journalism industry needs to focus on its fundamentals.



Stories I'm currently following: The PS3/Nvidia controversy and the fake interview with Gabe Newell. Inform yourselves with those links until I'm able to report the full story.