In one of the most unsurprising announcements ever Sony has revealed that it has been faffing around with the spec of the PS3 to be released in Europe. Whilst everyone expected Sony to continually modify how it manufactures the PS3 (in order to try and make some money) we didn’t expect to lose some backwards compatibility as a result.

a new combination of hardware and software emulation will enable the PS3 to be compatible with a broad range of original PlayStation titles, and a limited range of PS2 titles.

How limited is limited? Limited to just old PS2 games or just shiny new ones like Bully or God of War 2 (which I quite fancy playing)? At least Sony is providing a website to check which PS2 games you can play on your PS3 (from the 23rd March 07).

Personally I’m not really fussed about backwards compatibility, especially for PSOne games – games I’ve played to death and rarely want to play ever again. But if you are going to include it then you either provide full backwards compatibility or you don’t. The worst thing you can do is go for a half-assed solution which it seems Sony has plumped for. Rubbish.

Don’t forget that the XBOX 360’s backwards compatibility was fairly shocking at first. Admittedly it has improved over time, but it’s still not complete. Also do you know how many XBOX games I’ve played so far on the 360. None, and I probably never will.

I’m sure this isn’t the last “Sony screws Europe” announcement between now and the PS3 launch on the 23rd March 07. However, if Sony take other things out of the PS3, like maybe a cell processor or 2 then I will reconsider my pre-order.