My PS2 has finally died, and I am looking to hunt down a PS3 60GB for the hardware backwards compatibility. I've located a few for ~250$. Since I've never really used a PS3, I have a few questions. First, the one I am looking at the most says it comes with the 2.7 firmware. If I upgrade the firmware, will that completely remove hardware backwards compatibility for PS1 and PS2 games? According to Wikipedia all firmwares can play PS1 games, but emulation for PS2 games seems to be a bit less clear.
Second, can I replace the internal hard disk with a custom one (something like a 1tb hitachi travelstar)? I've found reports that the hard disks are user upgradable on wikipedia.
I'm just trying to figure out the current "state of the union."
Best Answer
The firmware should only be especially relevant if you have the 80GB model that implemented software emulation (which was comparatively poor at first, although I believe newer firmwares improved it some). The earlier 20GB and 60GB models actually have the CPU and GPU of a PS2 onboard, so it's practically working natively, and that'd be the best approach. The newer firmwares do not disable this functionality.
All PS3 systems can play PS1 games on all firmwares (it's all software emulation, which is trivial for a system with the PS3's horsepower), so this shouldn't be a concern.
Note that Sony actually keeps a database on what works properly. The support isn't 100% across the board for any variant of the systems - there are a few games that are buggy.
The hard drives are upgradeable relatively easily, and there's built in backup and restore functionality.