So the PS3 Slim was just recently announced with much fanfare. Two of the main reasons someone wouldn’t want to buy a PS3 have been remedied. Number one, the cost of the machine has gone down. This is important because the PS3 is only now reaching the price point that Microsoft and Nintendo have sat at for three or four years. Secondly, it’s slimmer. It’s not much smaller, but it is welcome, for sure.

Now let me tell you the reason I still won’t be buying a PS3: Backward compatibility. I’ve seen blog postings about how “who plays old games anymore?” and things like that. I play old games. They’re often better than the new ones. I know there’s a few great PS3 exclusives, and I’d love to take advantage of that. Those who bought launch 20GB and 60GB consoles were treated to full backwards compatibility, and the later 40GB model was also compatible, at least partially. So it was there, and Sony decided to take it out.

Comparing the big three consoles (as fanboys often do) shows us that the Wii has full GameCube compatibility. This is mainly because it’s just a higher clocked version, but the point still stands. It’s there. The Xbox 360 has a level of BC, and Microsoft hasn’t taken it out to reduce costs.

Let’s be frank here, the PS3 is arguably the most powerful console of this generation. The PS2 is the least powerful console of the previous generation, Dreamcast excluded. How is it that a less powerful system (Xbox 360) can emulate the most powerful system of the previous generation, but the latest version of the most powerful console can’t emulate in software its older brother’s vastly inferior hardware? Something here doesn’t fit.

The argument of “who plays old games anymore?” doesn’t fly. Obviously the people who are complaining about it do. There’s a gigantic library of PS2 games, both old and new, that newcomers to Sony’s brand would love to play. The Persona series is a great example of games that were produced in the PS3’s lifespan that many PS3 players won’t be able to play, because they bought new hardware instead of old hardware. They shouldn’t be punished like that, mostly because the Persona series rocks and nobody should be unable to play it.

Playing games on PS2 vs. the PS3 has certain disadvantages: Lower resolution and wired controllers. The maximum resolution offered on the PS2 was 480p. Not even all games supported it. On the PS3, games can be upscaled to 720p or 1080p. This doesn’t make the textures or anything look better, but definitely gets rid of a lot of the jaggies that a PS2 game being played on an HDTV is often plagued by.

The bottom line is, the PS3 used to have BC. The Wii and Xbox 360 have it, and in order to be competitive, Sony needs to step up on that level. We know the system is powerful enough to do it, so they need to do it. Right now, BC is the main reason I’m not getting a slim PS3. Now, when the choice between buying the new hardware comes down to whether or not it can play the old hardware’s games, what does that say about Sony’s current software lineup? It’s not substantially different enough from the backward compatible Xbox 360. Microsoft has this checkmark checked, and Sony doesn’t. Guess who gets my cash?