The rumor mill in the game industry is always churning out its share of delectable tidbits for the ears of gamers. Interestingly enough, many of them have come true; from the rumor of the PS3’s original launch date being pushed back to an available HD DVD player for the Xbox 360–which, by the way, was hotly denied by Microsoft at the time.
A new rumor has surfaced regarding Sony’s intention to upscale the PS3’s signal to kick up the resolution of PS1 and PS2 games to 720p or 1080i in a firmware update scheduled for this summer. This extremely tantalizing bit of information came way by RumorReporter and described, in detail, what insiders told Bruce Kelly, the reporter of the article. In the story, Kelly states:
"My source tells me that Sony’s playing around with HD enhancements for certain games. As some of you know, the PS3 has a built-in scaler. So, in the future (presumably the summer), there’ll be another firmware update. This update will feature HD playback potential for a handful of PS2/PSOne games. That’s how the HD upscaling’s going to work, at least in the beginning.
"Sony’s ultimate goal is to get all PlayStation titles upscaled–effectively, efficiently, and consistently working. They’re really banking on the next-gen era here, with Blu-Ray and HD upscaling of existing titles. The 100%-free firmware should enable upscaling for specific games with each firmware, and starting up each game will pop up an option for you to upscale it…"
RumorReporter believes that Phil Harrison will include details of this new feature at his keynote address during GDC, which is being held from March 5-9 in San Francisco. With the convention coming just around the corner, this rumor will be quickly confirmed or dismissed.
If this rumor pans out, it will definitely make the PS3 a much more attractive purchase to potential buyers. As for the rest of the PS3 community, it will give them another reason to help validate their decision to purchase a PS3–if, of course, the firmware update story proves to be true.
