Implicit Conversions

[Digital-MooseMan]

Turns out that emulation for Classics is done by Implicit Conversions.

 

This should clear up some confusion about what Sony Interactive Entertainment is actually responsible for.

[Milktastrophe]

They have a screenshot of Final Fantasy Tactics on their site. I hope we get FFT. Please let us get FFT. I want to double plat the best Final Fantasy.

[Don_Chipotle]

21 hours ago, Digital-MooseMan said:

Turns out that emulation for Classics is done by Implicit Conversions.

 

This should clear up some confusion about what Sony Interactive Entertainment is actually responsible for.

 

That being said, i think we are far, far away from sony coming out with a ps2 mini, or even a second ps mini.

 

Also, if the deluxe tier is more expensive because of retro/old school games, why not place maybe more teams at development? Nothing wrong with Implicit work, but many people have a problem with quantity of titles not being enough.

[DaivRules]

8 minutes ago, Don_Chipotle said:

but many people have a problem with quantity of titles not being enough.

Many of those many people don't understand the amount of roadblocks hit when trying to contact, let alone coordinate, a (possibly extinct) developer, a (possibly extinct) publisher, and ip rights holders, and all of their respective lawyers and accountants, to even begin the discussion of trying to emulate older titles on newer systems, not to mention any piece of each games decision-making-pipeline that just outright refuse to consider it.

I'm sure Sony would love to take more people's money for essentially just coordinating others to do the work, but it's not as easy as is often implied.

It's also really easy for people to get all emotional and refuse to accept some games that they think would absolutely sell like ice cream sandwiches on a hot day just outside a fat camp, but every piece mentioned above needs to make enough of a cut to financially make it worthwhile, and they generally have expected minimum profit margins.

It'd be cool to see even 10% of the PS1/PS2 catalog emulated on newer systems, but it's been so long for so many of these titles, it's just not practically possible given the current circumstances.

[Don_Chipotle]

1 minute ago, DaivRules said:

Many of those many people don't understand the amount of roadblocks hit when trying to contact, let alone coordinate, a (possibly extinct) developer, a (possibly extinct) publisher, and ip rights holders, and all of their respective lawyers and accountants, to even begin the discussion of trying to emulate older titles on newer systems, not to mention any piece of each games decision-making-pipeline that just outright refuse to consider it.

I'm sure Sony would love to take more people's money for essentially just coordinating others to do the work, but it's not as easy as is often implied.

It's also really easy for people to get all emotional and refuse to accept some games that they think would absolutely sell like ice cream sandwiches on a hot day just outside a fat camp, but every piece mentioned above needs to make enough of a cut to financially make it worthwhile, and they generally have expected minimum profit margins.

It'd be cool to see even 10% of the PS1/PS2 catalog emulated on newer systems, but it's been so long for so many of these titles, it's just not practically possible given the current circumstances.

 

Also add games with license music, or problems with developers as you said, not existing anymore.

 

I mean look at medievil 2, its stuck , not remake, or even a port with trophies, and thats a shame, but yeah, i agree and just makes me sad that maybe a game you really loved as kid or teen sold bad and thats why it totally died

[andshrew]

Good find.

 

New people to direct "Resident Evil NTSC patch wen" requests to. 😆

[Hitman_Spinksy1]

I think the issues are that some studios have died since then and others are too greedy to allow their games to be emulated. There are plenty of games from that era with their studios still around like GTA but can you really imagine Rockstar giving that up to Sony when they could just remaster it and make more money. Then there are sales like Activision which make some games impossible. 

 

I think Sony have a bank of games ready to go but I don't see an increase on the amount we will get every month due to them probably negotiating deals with other developers. 

 

People would be more pissed off if we got 4 games one month then none the next compared to if we got 2 games one month then 2 the next because that's just how people work. 

[jgm4789]

And then you get situations where rights are all over the place such as the smackdown games where some of the wrestlers were constantly switching from wcw to wwf and vice versa(and the fact the the league would never rerelease a game with chris beniot in it which was almost all of them on ps1 and most on ps2) and youd have to renegotiate with every wrestler in the roster. Or the activision era spiderman games which microsoft would now partially own. Even something like lunar 1 and 2 would have roadblocks because former working designs ceo victor Ireland owns the localization and sega actually tried to get lunar 1 and 2 on the sega genesis classic 2 in the us but couldn't negotiate a deal(so if lunar does come expect the psp version as that is probably easier to relicense the localization for)

[andshrew]

Reading through their web site and I came across this blog post which gives a little insight into their history:-

 

https://www.implicitconversions.com/2023/08/01/implicit-conversions-the-origin-story/

• Jake Stine, the companies CTO and co-founder, got into emulation development through contributions to the open source PCSX2 PlayStation 2 emulation project.
• It seems they became an integral developer on this project, under the alias of Air, before eventually retiring from it in 2011.
• He had been headhunted by Sony, who he joined in 2011 to work on somewhat secretive emulation projects.
• One of the projects he worked on was the PS2 on PS4 emulator.
• He continued to work at Sony until 2019, when he left to start Implicit Conversions.
• At some point in 2021 the company was contracted by Sony to help manage their classic games.

It would be interesting to know what the dynamic is between Sony and Implicit Conversions. Is the entire management of these classic releases out sourced to them, or does Sony do the deals for what games they want on the service and then Implicit Conversions handle the technical work of packaging up the game for release.

 

It's a little unclear if the emulator used in the PS1 and PSP classics is something entirely created by Implicit Conversions, or whether they are working with an emulator previously developed by the Sony in-house R&D team (of which the CTO was previous a member of). I think there is only one example of a game outside of the PS+ program being released utilising this emulator in VALKYRIE PROFILE: LENNETH, and while they do list this on their profile of released games they receive no credit that I can see on Square Enix web sites (although that is also true of all their PS+ PS1/PSP releases too, where they seem to receive no public credit for their work).

 

It would be also interesting to know what level of autonomy they may have in developing emulation features. Are they developing only what Sony asks, or would they be free to implement features like PGXP seen in emulators like DuckStation (which attempts to fix the jumpy 3D geometry seen in PS1 games) if that were something they deemed worthwhile.

Edited December 30, 2023 by andshrew

[jgm4789]

If you consider the fact that the most recent ps2 to ps4 game released in 2019. Him leaving could be one of the factors why the ps2 releases stopped all of a sudden as i remember quite a few rockstar games were leaked but never materialized(like gta liberty city stories and max payne 2).

[Cashaddi]

Already sent an email to them asking for trophy support and patches enabling NTSC region switching. Here it is if you are curious or want to copy it:

 

 

Spoiler

PS4/PS5 REsident Evil: Dircxtor's Cut NTSC Patch + Trophies?

 

Hello,

 

Great work you are doing! I really appreciate the effort to bring back retro games to modern systems. One of my main concerns is trophy support - it's just fun to have an online gaming diary that you can show others and it's also one of the ways by which this official emulation manages to distinguish itself from and imprive on other emulators. It's really a shame then that not every game on the service has trophy support. Do you think you could sway Sony in these matters? Even if it's not a huge interest for lots of people there is still a substantial amount of trophy hunters for whom it DOES make a difference and would thus result in more purchases.

 

Also, could you please make sure that ALL games have NTSC region switching? Having to worry about bad PAL conversions is a thing of the past now and I really appreciate that. With these retro titles this issue rears its ugly head again. One of the most beloved titles (Resident Evil) is lacking this feature however. Can you patch this game to allow region switching?

 

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read this and kind regards,

 

Address is:

 

[email protected]

Edited January 2 by Cashaddi

[VeldinX]

Really good find! It’s interesting to know more about what goes on “behind the scenes”. We knew on PS4 it was an in-house team that dealt with the classics but it has obviously moved over to being outsourced to this team. I wonder where @jefXfree fits into this? Working for IC or Sony? Interesting. 
 

On 12/30/2023 at 4:06 PM, Hitman_Spinksy1 said:

can you really imagine Rockstar giving that up to Sony when they could just remaster it and make more money.

Thing is though, they did just that with the PS2 classics for PS4. Shame they aren’t on board with the new classics for PS5. 

[VeldinX]

New article about these guys dropped today: Meet The Company Bringing Classic Games To Switch, PS5 And Xbox "By Mistake".

 

Interesting part: “Currently, the team are working with Sony to bring PlayStation 1 and 2 titles to PS5.”

 

I wonder if this means PS2 games will finally be emulated again, or if they mistakenly mentioned PS2 instead of PSP?

 

Edit: Unfortunately it was a mistake. Will we ever see PS2 games again? Only the best selling console ever with one of the strongest software lineups in gaming history… meh, probably not worth the effort then. 🤦‍♂️

 

Edited March 11 by VeldinX