Following Nintendo’s two successful attempts at selling miniaturized retro consoles, Sony has decided to take a swing as well with the PlayStation Classic. However, a recent price cut from $100 to $60 implies that the PlayStation Classic isn’t as classic as we had all hoped.
The PlayStation Classic has had some troubles compared to both of Nintendo’s classic consoles. First off, the 20 games selected for the PlayStation Classic weren’t very satisfying. Choosing only 20 PlayStation games to put on console is a difficult choice, but we missed out on some obvious classics, like Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, and Suikoden II. There’s also the fact that the American console was running European PAL versions of some games, which meant that some games ran slower and had more glitches. Other problematic features included the inability to use DualShock controllers (which had analog sticks as opposed to the original controllers) and the console being powered by the open-source PCSC emulator.
Fortunately, the price drop might be of particular note for retro hackers. As it turns out, it’s surprisingly easy to hack the PlayStation Classic. If you’re the kind of person who knows how to do some hacking, you could easily replace some of the less interesting games on the console for something more iconic, like Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. Maybe now that the PlayStation Classic isn’t the highest priced of the classic consoles (the NES Classic was $60 while the SNES Classic ran $80,) it’ll be worth buying.
The PlayStation Classic is available for $60 at anyplace it’s normally sold, like Best Buy, Amazon, or Walmart.