Sony had previously announced that the PlayStation Classic, set to launch on December 3rd for $99.99, would come prepackaged with twenty classic games from the PSX era. In a recent blog post over on the PlayStation Blog, it was revealed that nine of the twenty games will be running at 50Hz due to them being based on the PAL version, which means that they will be limited to running at just 25 frames per second.
The revelation about the PAL versions were made clear on the blog when the list of games were rolled out and an asterisk was put beside some of them, denoting that they would be based on the PAL release and not the NTSC version. The difference between the two is that the NTSC versions typically ran at 60Hz while the PAL versions ran at 50Hz. This means that the former could run on displays at up to 60fps while the latter would drop frames to match the refresh of the display, which would cause slowdown for certain games since they would only be running at anywhere between 25fps and 50fps. Take note of which games are going to be using the PAL version. In the list below.
- Battle Arena Toshinden*
- Cool Boarders 2*
- Destruction Derby*
- Final Fantasy VII
- Grand Theft Auto*
- Intelligent Qube
- Jumping Flash!*
- Metal Gear Solid
- Mr. Driller
- Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee*
- Rayman
- Resident Evil Director’s Cut*
- Revelations: Persona
- R4 Ridge Racer Type 4
- Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
- Syphon Filter
- Tekken 3*
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six*
- Twisted Metal
- Wild Arms
*Denotes a title based on the PAL version
So yeah, certain games that need to run at 60fps, such as Tekken 3, will be running at a fraction of the speed. According to brand adviser for Tekken, Mark Julio, this move will likely hurt Tekken 3‘s reputation more than help it, depending on how the emulator runs the PAL version.
I am more upset that generations of nostalgic gamers will look back and think Tekken 3 sucked – or that new gamers will think it’s poop. Either way, it’s hard for a Tekken fan to stomach this. https://t.co/N1tQ9Zxusn
— Mark Julio (マークマン) (@MarkMan23) November 26, 2018
In the original NTSC version of Tekken 3 the game did run at full 60 frames per second, which was only possible on display units running at 60 hertz. You can actually see a slight comparison between Tekken 2 running on the NTSC version versus the PAL version, and how there’s slowdown and a sense of sluggishness courtesy of YouTuber daveismymiddlename.
If Sony is sticking with outputting at 50 hertz, then it means that Tekken 3 and Battle Arena Toshinden and every other PAL-region version added to the list will almost run in slow motion given that the engine runtime for those games are attached to the frame-rate.
Luckily, plenty of gamers are actually pissed off enough to actually tell Sony to shove it, as displayed over on the unboxing video.
This is one of those rare situations where Sony fanboys are not pleased with the company’s product. In addition to missing key games that helped make the PSX a household brand name – such as Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Wipeout, Ape Escape and the Gran Turismo series – the additional limitation of PAL versions of certain games has really pissed off the core PlayStation fanbase. It seems unlikely that the PlayStation Classic will sell anywhere near as much as the NES Classic Edition or SNES Classic Edition, unless a whole bunch of casual gamers go out and pick up a copy because they don’t know any better.
(Thanks for the news tip Lionhart16)
