A lot of console gamers were hyped when Sony announced the Playstation Classic. However, it appears that Sony has not developed its own emulator and instead it is using the open source PCSX emulator that most PC gamers have been using all these years.

What ultimately this means is that the overall emulation may not be that “authentic” as some gamers may have expected. We’ve seen this happening in SNES classic and to be honest I was expecting Sony to put some more effort to it.

The PlayStation Classic uses an open source emulator, PCSX. Lesser educated people might see this as a cause of frustration, but here's the reality: it's an acknowledgement that an "amateur" emulator can be just as valid as an "official" one (and they're usually better!). pic.twitter.com/zJztoiYiwT — Frank Cifaldi ate all your snacks (@frankcifaldi) November 8, 2018

No but they don't have to be, Sony adhered to the license requirements to use it, including providing source code on their website. — Frank Cifaldi ate all your snacks (@frankcifaldi) November 8, 2018

On the other hand, this shows why emulators are essential even for big companies as they can actually use them in order to sell custom consoles. This also proves that emulators are not only being used by pirates (as some have suggested in the past few years). And this is why emulating all systems, even modern-day consoles, is important.

Ironically, Sony had tried in the past to sue a team developing an emulator for the first Playstation console (yes, we’re talking about Bleem).

19 years ago, Sony unsuccessfully tried to sue a PlayStation emulator out of existence (and when they lost, they purchased the emulator and shut it down). Now they're happily using open source emulation for their own products. How far we've come! — Frank Cifaldi ate all your snacks (@frankcifaldi) November 8, 2018

There is a reason we’re reporting this new story and that’s because we’ve been covering emulators for a long time. Not only that, but some people may have thought that the Playstation Classic would be playing games via hardware and not via emulation. Well, that’s not the case.

So yeah, before complaining you console gamers about PC gamers pirating the console games via emulators, know that the mini console you are about to buy is actually using the very same emulator you have criticised.