So far, playing the games PS3 on PS5 meant going through the cloud PlayStation Plus Premiumwith a limited catalog and quality dependent on your connection. However, a new flaw opens the door to what many dreamed of: running thousands of PS3 games locally on PS5, without subscription, via emulation.
Since the project was publicly posted online PS5-Linux sign TheFlow (Andy Nguyen), modders show a PS5 transformed into a real gaming PC under Linuxcapable of launching the RPCS3 emulator. Result: videos of Killzone 3 Or Grand Theft Auto IV which run directly on PS5. It remains to be seen under what conditions this promise of “free PS3 games without PS Plus” really holds up.
PS5 and free PS3 games without PS Plus: what does the Linux breakthrough really allow?
Officially, Sony limits PS3 backwards compatibility on PS5 to streaming via PlayStation Plus Premium. Unofficially, PS5-Linux exploits a hypervisor flaw to start a complete Linux system, without erasing the original OS: we speak of soft-mod, the exploit having to be restarted after each reboot.
However, the solution only concerns some of the consoles: only “Fat” PS5s with firmware roughly between 3.00 and 4.51. If your machine was updated recently, it’s already too late. We remain in an area reserved for tinkerers capable of accepting a potential loss of guarantee and assuming the risks linked to jailbreaking, particularly in terms of online access to the PSN.
RPCS3 on PS5: thousands of playable PS3 games, but not all
RPCS3 is a free and open source PS3 emulator, already well established on PC. According to the project’s public statistics, more than 70% of the PS3 catalog is classified “Playable” (finishable without major bugs), around 26% “Ingame” (the game runs but with problems), the rest does not start correctly.
Ported to Linux PS5, RPCS3 directly benefits from the console’s Zen 2 APU and RDNA 2 GPU, close to a modern gaming PC. Content creators showed Killzone 3 And Grand Theft Auto IV run on PS5 with very correct fluidity for titles never offered natively on the machine. This does not mean that the entire catalog runs perfectly: each game requires its own settings, some remain unstable or too heavy to maintain a comfortable frame rate.
In practice, the Linux + RPCS3 chain turns out to be solid for those who know how to configure it, but to speak of a “100% reliable” solution for all games would be an exaggeration.
Do you need to transform your PS5 into a Linux PC to benefit from PS3 backwards compatibility?
On paper, yes: a PS5 Fat with the right firmware, a well-configured Linux, RPCS3 and legal copies of your PS3 games are enough to make thousands of titles playable for free, without PS Plus. In reality, this requires a second dedicated console, technical skills and the acceptance of legal and material risks. Downloading images from games you don’t own remains illegal.
For the majority of French players, it will be simpler to keep a real PS3, to use RPCS3 on a gaming PC, or to settle for the Premium cloud despite its limitations. This breakthrough proves one thing above all : the PS5 has plenty of power for true local PS3 backwards compatibility, if one day Sony finally decides to authorize it.