Native emulation of PlayStation 3 games on PlayStation 5 could become a reality in the future, as the possibility is reportedly being researched and prototyped.
Developer Implicit Conversions, the studio handling the PlayStation Classics ports on PlayStation 5, lists on its official website a roadmap that it is researching and prototyping the possibility of a PlayStation 3 emulator package for Syrup, the engine that powers the other PS Classics ports. The "Dreaming About" tag, however, suggests that native PS3 emulation could be years away.
As of now, the PlayStation 3 Classics games available on PlayStation 5 with a PS Plus Premium subscription are only playable via cloud gaming, but there's little doubt that the current generation system from Sony is more than capable of emulating PS3 games natively. A test conducted last month using an AMD BC-250, a mining card that features the PlayStation 5 silicon, confirmed how the PS5 hardware would have little trouble running emulated PS3 games, as tested games such as Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and Little Big Planet ran well and at a higher than native resolution, even with some hardware limitations, such as memory limitations caused by some driver issues.
As mentioned above, PlayStation 5 users can enjoy a selection of PlayStation 3 games via cloud gaming as part of the PS Plus Premium subscription. More information on this subscription can be found here.
