I see.
Sucks they cant use the licenses from PS3/Vita. From what I remember the Vita had an over night library, sharing all the PS3’s library of PS1/PS2/PSP games. Suikoden 2 even came out after PS4.
Yes, it sucks. It's weird because all PSP games ran and were available in the Vita store, in the same way all PS4 ran in PS5 via BC and are available in the store.
I assume the reason of why all PSP, Vita and PS3 aren't available in PS4 and PS5 stores (at least the PSP ones) goes beyond the tech limits that don't allow Vita and PS3 games being emulated.
I assume it's because the games were signed to be included in these platforms and they should be signed again to include them in the PS4 & PS5 stores. But then you could say why don't they put at least all the Sony games?
Maybe in PS6 they achieve some kind of 1:1 BC emulation of PS3 and Vita as they did in PS5 with PS4, and somewhat legally in terms of licenses they can say it's the same platform so they merge both stores or something like that. I have no idea.
How much does licensing cost? Does it cost Sony alot to license there own games from before like GT1,2, GT3, GT4, Discworld, Ask the lad 2, 3, God of War 1/2. They co published alot of games on the PS1.
I went to buy Grandia on PS5 as soon as I heard it was there, but it was free because I use to own it on PS3 ( I think so anyway ). Happened with Ridge Racer Type 4 too
The licensing cost depends. If you sign with Ferrari to include all their cars isn't the same than to sign only for a couple cars. And it isn't the same to sign for 5 years than to sign for 10 years than to sign forever. And also isn't the same to sign to have exclusivity than to allow also appear in other games, or in other platforms.
And the prices aren't the same to sign let's say to sign Ferrari than to sign Skoda regarding brands.
As an example, the OutRun 2 license with Ferrari was temporal, and they had to remove the game from all stores when it expired. If they want to release it again, Sega would have to negotiate with them and pay them.
Same goes with artists for songs, or athletes in case of sports games.
There's also product placement licenses for clothing brands in sports games, or stuff like wheels, brakes and so one in case of car games with tuning customization using real brands.
Regarding licenses, sometimes also happens that in games made around the early 90s and before, sometimes the IP didn't belong to the company, but instead some of the main creators had a part -or totality- of it. That means that everytime the publisher does something with that brand it has to be approved by them and they get paid. As an example, that's the case with Prince of Persia and Jordan Mechner: every time Ubi does something about PoP he has to approve it and basically to get paid.
Sometimes all this gets even more tricky: sometimes the rights of something like an IP, or the rights of a song to someone who is dead and they can't find who got them or if someone has them. Sometimes they belong to companies that went bankrupt and the rights weren't sold to anyone. Or maybe that person or company isn't interested in games anymore and don't want to sign it.
As an example, Capcom's Cadillacs & Dinosaurs arcade game: they can't include it in compilations because even if the owner of the Cadillacs & Dinosaurs IP is ok with it, the people from the Cadillac brand blocked it.
In addition to this, in the past it was very common that some publisher had the publishing rights of a game/IP for some countries, while a second publisher had them for other countries, and a third one of other countries etc. So now they have to agree. And sometimes they don't exist, where merged or acquired and the other company doesn't know if they have to rights or don't want to sign, etc.
The legal / licenses stuff sucks, specially for very old games.
This is great and all but where's the Ps3 emulator?
According to an Insomniac senior engine programmer who worked in the main Sony engine for PS3, and also to the main programmer of the main PS3 emulator for PC, due to technical limits PS4 and PS5 can't emulate PS3 properly to run all games with commercial quality (original performance, no bugs). In some areas PS5 is way superior, but PS3 was a beast in other ones and is superior to PS3, making it impossible to emualate.
The PS3 emulator for PC has many hacks and tricks in many times specifics per game. In PC has many performance issues and bugs that couldn't be accepted for a commercial use.
In any case it would require a ton of work, and very likely Sony wouldn't want to spend it to sell only about 1000 or 2000 copies of each classic game.
Maybe in PS6, who knows.
Sony probably thought it was not worth due the sales but now they are probably thinking in add to a subscription model.
PS1, PS2, PSP classics already are available in the PS+ Premium subscription. In addition to be available to be bought separatedly in the store.
You what? Is this true?
I thought we had to wait whilst they build new emulators.
If it's the same emulator they should have added so many more PS1/PS2 games since like 2014-odd
We don't know if there is a new emulator or not. What we know is that some time ago SIE, after releasing the PSP classics on PS5, they had an open job position to emulators. But who knows, maybe it was to put PS1/PSP classics on mobile phones, PC or PS6. Or maybe to update, tweak and fix the existing emulators.