Sony’s Improved PlayStation Plus The service is starting to slowly launch globally, giving users a different number of downloadable and streamable games – as long as they subscribe at the right price. As the first concerted effort Sony has made to showcase its classic back catalog in the current generation of consoles, the new PS Plus scheme makes a lot of sense. However, it may not end up being the best introduction for Classic game.
Initial reports on social media first appeared by Chronicles of video games seems to show that some PlayStation 1 games offered on the service are PAL versions of the game with slower performance, as evidenced by lower frame rates and opening titles that credit Sony Computer Entertainment Europe .
In the pre-high definition era, regional video formats standardized TV performance parameters. In Europe, that format is called PAL and has a refresh rate of 50hz and a frame rate of 25 fps. In North America, this format is NTSC and has a higher refresh rate of 60hz and a standard frame rate of 30fps. There are other differentiating factors between the two formats, but these are the most relevant today – on the sharp, modern screens, refresh rates and lower frame rates of a PAL game there will be some minor points when compared with the NTSC version, making the NTSC version preferable in most cases.
Because the revamped PlayStation Now is just getting started – the service is only live for subscribers in the Asia region and won’t be coming to North America until June 13, almost three weeks from now – it’s not yet clear if this will be the case in all regions, or if the option to play NTSC versions of available PS1 games will be added at a later date. Much could change in the next few weeks.
However, there is a precedent for this. Back when Sony joined the mini console craze with PlayStation ClassicThe company also makes tough decisions to emulate PAL versions of some console games – something that does not displease the skeptics of the company’s investment in its latter category. The coming weeks will likely show how much Sony is interested in doing good with those who care about its classic offerings.
Polygon has reached out to Sony for confirmation and will update this story pending a response.
