When PlayStation rolled out the new PS+ tiered subscriptions earlier this year, one of the major points of contention was the decision to release its line of PS1 classic titles in the format most relevant to the region players would access them in.
For countries like Australia where these games were originally released in the PAL format, that meant being saddled with inferior 50Hz versions of the game that introduce frame pacing and judder issues on modern displays on top of physically running nearly 20% slower. Naturally, fans weren’t happy, which PlayStation was surprisingly quick to address. A statement went out the same day that the rollout of the new service had finished globally, promising players that “a majority” of classic games would start receiving optional NTSC/60Hz modes.
That rollout has finally begun today, though it’s a small start that doesn’t seem to be retroactive at all. Instead, a brand-new Classics title that dropped yesterday as part of the service’s monthly update has come shipped with the option; Syphon Filter 2. Capture shared by VGC shows a new “Change Region” setting in the emulation menu when playing Syphon Filter 2 that allows switching between the PAL and NTSC regions.
We’ve confirmed it for ourselves as well, and the extra good news is that the game defaults to the superior option right away so those of us who might be less savvy won’t be saddled with the slower version:
A good start so far then, but one that hopefully will extend not just to games coming in the future but the ones already on the service that would benefit greatly from playing in their intended frame rates (looking at you, Ape Escape).
