Sony is continuing the 20th anniversary celebrations of its PlayStation console by bringing eight historical fan favorite games to its latest PlayStation 4 console. The Japanese giant has discussed in depth about the 20th anniversary of PlayStation and the foundations that the console’s success has been built on. To pay homage to the success that the PS2 was, Sony has announced that as of today consumers with a PlayStation 4 will be able to purchase, download, and play eight fan-favorite PlayStation 2 games directly on the latest console.
The “PS2 Games on PS4” announcement comes in almost two weeks after the company confirmed that it was working on bringing PS2 games to the PS4. Today’s announcement comes equipped with a video-based trailer as well as an accompanying set of text that waxes lyrical about the history of the PlayStation 2.
For owners of the PlayStation 4, a number of the most popular games that were initially made available for the revolutionary PlayStation 2 are now available to purchase directly from the PlayStation Store and can be run on the PS4 console. The eight games that are available in the first instance as announced by Sony are as follows:
- Dark Cloud – $14.99
- Grand Theft Auto III – $14.99
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – $14.99
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – $14.99
- Rogue Galaxy – $14.99
- The Mark of Kri – $14.99
- Twisted Metal: Black – $9.99
- War of the Monsters – $9.99
The PlayStation team is also keen to stress that these games aren’t just simple ports of old PlayStation 2 content made available for the PS4. Development work has been put into the eight available titles to bring them up to speed with the modern day gamer. Trophy support has been added into each game with the help of the original development teams to ensure that it doesn’t detract from the core values of the title. There’s also the fact that each title is up-rendered to 1080p for gorgeous visuals.
Sony clearly understands that the PlayStation 2 may have been the second-generation console in PlayStation range, but it’s the console that really catapulted the brand to where it sits today. The PS2 is still the best-selling console of all time, largely thanks to the fact that it really transcended what people thought was possible at that time from a device of that type. Support for the DVD format for games and movies, an integrated powerful graphics processor, and specialized chipsets for particle effects and gaming physics may not seem that out of the ordinary by today’s standards, but back in the day when the console was launched, it was considered revolutionary.
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