Playstation Models Question

[Casati]

I already have a PS1, and am deciding between a PS2 or PS3 console. Does the PS3 play all PS1 & 2 games, and is there any reason to also get the PS2 if I'm getting the PS3?

[Niku-Sama]

if your buying a new ps3 it wont play any ps2 games and will play ps1 games.

your kind of hitting the generational thing at an odd time with PS4 have come out a year ago and it wont play any of the previous systems games.

unless theres something you really want to play on PS3 at this point i'd recommend skipping it until you can get the systems cheap
PS2's can be found for super cheap. I feel they have hit their rock bottom in terms of price. I've gotten a few lately around $5 - $8 for a bare system, your old PS1 cords will work with it and theres a decent amount of good games for it so that should be worth picking up

[mailman187666]

You could always get the early model PS3 that plays PS1+2 games. I forget what model exactly it is, just it was the launch model.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

The early phat ps3's would be the way to go as they're full hardware backwards compatible with both ps2 and ps1 BUT at this point, unless you're handy with electronics or are willing to pay someone who does, phat ps3's are ticking time bombs

I've spent over $200 on top of original hardware cost to reball my PS3 with lead solder, replace the thermal paste, replace the stock 15 blade fans with 19 blade runs, replace original power supply with cooler running more energy efficient psu and swap out original 5000 rpm 60 gig hard drive with a 250 gig ssd all in an effort to preserve the life of my PS3

Edit: if you do go for phat PS3 to play ps2 and ps1 games as well you should know that only the launch 60 and 20 gig ps3's have full hardware backwards compatibility with ps2 games as they have the same graphics synthesizer chip and emotion engine cpu as the ps2 for near full compatibilty. Later the emotion engine was removed on the 80 gig and possibly the 40 gig PS3 for half hardware half software via emotion engine emulation backwards compatibility which doesn't have full compatibility with all ps2 games and is more prone to glitches and slowdown on certain games