Patent spotted: Emotion Engine emulation for cell processors

Emotion Engine - Image 1For those who don’t know, the Emotion Engine is the chip that Sony designed which acts as the PS2 CPU. The non-backwards compatible PS3s do not have one of these, hence, no PS2 games. According to the patent spotted, Sony is readying the code and the technology to use the Emotion Engine once again.

For those who don’t know, the Emotion Engine is the chip that Sony designed which acts as the PS2 CPU. The non-backwards compatible PS3s do not have one of these, hence, no PS2 games. According to the patent spotted, Sony is readying the code and the technology to use the Emotion Engine once again.

There’s a lot of techie devspeak for the news, but in a nutshell, Sony has found a way to translate instructions from the Emotion Engine into pieces that can be referenced.

Sony patents Emotion Engine emulation - Image 1Sony patents Emotion Engine emulation - Image 2Sony patents Emotion Engine emulation - Image 3

From Siliconera:

Figure 2 from the patent is a schematic drawing of how the system works. Figure 3A is a drawing of the PlayStation 2’s chipset. Figure 3B is the emotion engine. Figure 4 is where the whole story gets interesting! It’s “an example of a host system based on a cell processor that may be configured to emulate the target system.” The target is figure 3B, the Emotion Engine.

Could we be seeing the comeback of the backwards compatible PS3? On the PS3 Slim perhaps? Devs, share your thoughts.


On PS3 and backwards compatible:

Via Siliconera

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