It depends
http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-2-PSOne/Can-you-play-ps2-games-on-ps3/td-p/708229

Also, there is way to play it on non backwards compatible ps3 as long as it's not slimline
http://www.ps3news.com/forums/ps3-hacks-jailbreak/how-play-ps2-games-non-backwards-compatible-ps3-117709.html

Ok, thanks for the clarification guys. When my son still lived at home, he had a PS2 with several games, and, apparently, the PS2 could play PS1 games because I see a couple of them on the shelf too.

Even though he's been out and on his own for many years now I still buy him stuff as gifts (my family rains gifts down on me, so I have to give back) and I purchased him the PS3 about 3 years ago IIRC.

The reason the topic came up was last time he visited here I asked him if he wanted to take all those PS games on the shelf home with him, and that's when he told me his was NOT backward compatible.

So I guess they're basically worthless?? Just throw them away??? Take them to a Game Spot maybe??? I dunno.

Well if you have a powerful enough computer you can play them on PC using an emulator (both PS1 and PS2 games)

If you have one of (or even better both) Wipeout games for ps2, and you're willing to send them via snailmail to Serbia, I guess we can trade for something digital you want to play. ;)

Even if you don't it's a shame to throw perfectly good games away.

Same, lol I pretty much bought a second-hand PSP just so I could play the Monster Hunter Trilogy again.

Nintendo seems to have been.

MS is weird, they're actually the innovator in a lot of this stuff, Halo basically launched western consoles, not that they came up with Halo, but they knew what they were seeing when they saw it and acquired it, exclusively, damn the cost.

Then they do stupid shit like keep the 100 friend limit, which is some insane industry default by now, even though there's no longer any good reason for it.

Still, MS seems to get what gamers want in a lot of ways, even when gamers say they want the opposite, MS spots that and provides the "right" thing instead. Though the right thing sometimes benefits MS exclusively and is bad for gamers, usually it's good. People can bag on Live and Gold subs all they want, the fact remains it's the winning online platform of last gen by a mile and I bet it beats the shit out of Battle.net and Steamworks in sheer users too.

They do need to clean up their userbase. They do need to demand apps from Netflix and the like that aren't dramatically worse than shitty SmartTV apps (seriously, wtf, the Netflix app now is demonstrably worse than the one they launched with!).

They could actually "win" next gen simply by being the easiest console on which to watch free porn (which they currently are).

Sony tends to copy really well, though sometimes they miss the reason the thing they're copying did well in the first place and fuck it up. I don't look at Sony as big innovators, but if MS releases a strong next gen, I expect Sony will too, provided they can green light the development, given their finances.

Whatever happens I predict pretty good consoles next generation, simply because whatever they say to gamers, EA, MS, and the rest do serious market research. For example, they know used games actually prop them up and they don't actually want to strangle that market, they'd rather own it themselves, or move part of the pie to their own balance sheets.
I read that early on the PS3 had eaten their entire mountain of cash from the PS2 (the most successful console in history by a wide margin). I don't think Sony has those kinds of reserves anymore. They could still do it, but they'd be betting the company or going into a strategic partnership, such as they did with Sony-Erricson.

I wouldn't say kiddy, they just don't focus on things I like about games (mature story, exploration, choice and consequence, immersive graphics and design). Which is fine.

Everyone plays games for different reasons, one of my favorite critics is Jeff Gertsmann who plays games for almost entirely different reasons than I do but I still respect his opinion. This is why I dislike the "gamer" generalization, people are wildly varied in what they like in games and why they play them. You can't say Nintendo games should be played by "gamers" because a lot of us, like me, couldn't care less about what they focus on.

Though I admit Metroid is sort of an exception and I actually liked Prime, but the Prime sequels were shit.

IMO Prime 2 was the strongest of the sequals. Also did you play Super Metroid for the SNES, its basically Metroid Prime in 2D side-scrolling, or I should say Metroid Prime is Super Metroid but in first person perspective.

Super Metroid is one of my favorite games, I was a big SNES kid. The things I liked about those games are just done better elsewhere today, in my opinion.

I just remember Prime 2 being more annoying to play because of the dark world mechanic.

Which you bring up in just about every thread that mentions Nintendo. </butthurt>

If the rumours are true they are pretty much the same system, both have quad (some say hexa)core AMD x86 units (2 threads per core) both have AMD 8770ish graphics... some rumours point to them having split chip design costs and that the main difference is in memory amounts (I'm hearing 8 or 12GB) and the OS...

I'm really too excited about next-gen as effort getting the money to buy it and then the price for a newly released console games are really high :(

Suck it down!

:P