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PlayStation Emulation Patent Revives Hopes Of Retro Support On PS5

Ewan Moore

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PlayStation Emulation Patent Revives Hopes Of Retro Support On PS5

Featured Image Credit: Sony

A newly resurfaced Sony patent seems to suggest that the company could be examining ways to bring older titles to the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.

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Earlier this week it was reported that Sony will be shutting down the digital storefronts for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable in just a few months. The upshot of this is that certain titles only available on these storefronts will become impossible to purchase, raising serious questions about preserving these titles. Sony has yet to officially comment on the closure of these stores, or what/how it plans to approach saving many of these older games - if indeed it intends to.

In the midst of these discussions, Reddit (thanks, PushSquare) dug up a patent that seems reveals plans for Trophy support in emulated titles.

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"A Trophy trigger is detected during emulation of the game by comparing a memory value of the emulated game to a predetermined value and assigning the one or more Trophies to the user based on the detected Trophy trigger," an extract from the patent explains.

This isn't actually the first time we've seen a document like this floating around. A similar patent was published nearly ten years ago, but this new one comes with a much more recent application date of January 30, 2020, and was officially published just a few days ago on March 18. The publication of the patent so close to the news of the PS3 store closure certainly raises some eyebrows, no? PushSquare also points out that a similar method to the above patent was used for a few of the PlayStation 2 games that were ported to PS4.

PlayStation 5 / Credit: Sony
PlayStation 5 / Credit: Sony
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It's no secret that PlayStation fans are desperate to see more substantial support for retro games on PlayStation 5, and this could well be the first step we've been waiting for. Some Reddit users have posited that the games removed from the doomed storefronts could somehow be merged with the PlayStation Now streaming service, which would certainly be one way to make it a little more like the far superior Xbox Game Pass.

Sadly, this is just as likely to be Sony shuffling around some old paperwork. It certainly wouldn't be the first patent to surface that didn't come to anything, so let's not get our hopes up too high just yet.

Topics: News, PlayStation

Ewan Moore
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