A lot of old games have become unplayable on modern hardware and operating systems. I wrote an article about how making games open source will keep them playable far into the future.

I also discuss how making games open source could be beneficial to developers and companies.

Feedback and constructive criticism are most welcome, and in keeping with the open source spirit, I will give you credit if I make any edits based on your feedback.

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[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

It’s an interesting article and I’m also starting to think more and more about game preservation.

I don’t understand why a company like Sony wouldn’t provide you a way to play ps1-3 games on your ps5. I would even be ready to pay for it.

There might be some technical problems I’m not seeing, but people can do it on older pc’s..

I guess the whole video game industry has to think about preserving its own history.

I don’t know if open sourcing games would help, but something needs to be done.

Even playing a game like Sim City 2000 on pc is proving challenging now on Windows. I would want to play it on Linux but I can’t imagine how difficult that would be as the game isn’t even listed in Proton DB. And the VM solution would probably not work as Steam wouldn’t support something like Windows XP…

[–] nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

SimCity 2000 isn't on ProtonDB because they only list Steam games. It's on Lutris though with multiple automatic install scripts for different versions, so it should be fairly easy to get running.

In general I've had way less trouble getting ancient Windows games to run on modern Linux than on modern Windows.

[–] miss_brainfarts@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 months ago

Hell, Lutris can even set up the original 1989 Sim City for you. Seeing that game on modern display sizes and resolutions is quite something

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 months ago

Ok Thanks for the info. I might check it out 👍

[–] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

PS3 in particular has very weird hardware. There aren't any good PS3 emulators for PC. Basically the only way to play PS3 games is on an actual PS3.

[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What do you mean? RPCS3 is an excellent emulator. It's not completely hardware accurate, almost no 3D emulator is, but it's still pretty good.

[–] nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 9 points 4 months ago

RPCS3 is indeed excellent, but if you look at their compatibility list about a third of all games aren't in a playable state. The big exclusive titles people usually set up an emulator for will work for the most part, but outside of that it quickly becomes a lot sketchier.

[–] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Out of all the games I tried to play, only one of them worked.

[–] witx@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That's because these consoles and source code are not always compatible. To make them it would cost them time, money and the compromise to maintain them.

I would rather these companies to be forced to open source their older hardware and source code, so the community could do something with them and not have all the hardware laid to waste. Or at least support the development of emulators

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I don’t understand why a company like Sony wouldn’t provide you a way to play ps1-3 games on your ps5. I would even be ready to pay for it.

They want you to buy new games. Not to play your old games.

PS5 doesn’t support CD, so popping in PS1 games (and a few early PS2 games) won’t work even if PS5 had a proper PS1 emulator. It’s only a matter of time until DVD support will be dropped for future consoles as well.

Re-releasing old games digitally is also difficult. More from a legal aspect. They need the permission of the holder of the IP. If they want to release Crash Bandicoot again, they need permission from Microsoft, who’s the current IP holder.

It’s also extra problematic if the game uses licensed music, which became common in the PS1 era. Then they need permission from all the involved artists. The Tony Hawk games are problematic in this regard for example.

New releases of Sonic 3 doesn’t include some of the original tracks. Possibly due to the potential involvement of Michael Jackson.