PS3 Emulator Now Supports Online Multiplayer For the First Time Ever
After a yearlong community effort, PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 can duplicate online support via a custom server called RPCN. Compared to past generations, emulation of both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games have been slow going. It's only in the last couple of years that eager gaming fans have seen any progress at all, and many games that players might want to "backup" have issues that make the PC renditions less than ideal. Of the two, the PlayStation 3 is further along, with almost sixty percent of its library now able to run on a powerful PC.
Of course, one of the fundamental issues going forward when it comes to emulating the PlayStation 3 generation and beyond is the rise of online play. Many games released starting in that generation rely on communication with servers outside the control of the end-user. This makes emulating the complete experience a hard task, and it has already led to many games going the way of the dinosaur before their time. Games on the original Xbox Live lost their online support years ago, and many PS3 games relied on servers owned by developers and publishers that have long since unplugged everything. This doesn't even go into MMOs and other online-only games that are completely erased because of this issue.
While the upgrades to RPCS3 won't revive Hellgate: London, they can provide nostalgic players and historians a taste of the online functionality of older titles. Created by developer GalCiv, the server solution creates a private instance of PSN for the emulator to connect to, telling the game to move forward into a game's online capabilities. The release is only a few days old, so there will be a limited number of games that are fully supported at this time. Ever-popular Soulsborne progenitor Demon's Souls and less notable but still fun Bomberman Ultra are the two games currently up and running.
Using RPCS3's online functionality also currently requires a preview build because that side of the program is so new. The team behind the program are hoping that their community can come together to test other games to expand the list of compatible titles, as the vast PS3 library is too big to test for a single team. The team also hopes that fans of certain games will be able to run separate instances of RPCN to facilitate the new network, especially considering the niche within a niche that will erupt from these new developments.
The PlayStation 3 was never known as an online-first console, mostly due to how long PSN took to match up to Xbox 360's robust Xbox Live service. Still, whether through ports or forgotten PSN originals, there are plenty of games that only appeared on PS3 that could benefit from this kind of preservationist work. As gaming enters a primarily digital future, programs like this run by fans are the only way that certain games will be preserved beyond their profitability to their publisher, and it's vital that this work continues for that reason. Developers and historians alike must be able to sample the past and learn from it so gamers everywhere can reap the rewards of an educated industry.
Source: RPCS3