Nintendo has been making a lot of money from their line of retro consoles, where they bundle a replica system with several prominent games, which they can play on modern television sets. It seems that Sony might be following Nintendo into the retro console market, with a system based on the original PlayStation.

The head of Sony Interactive Entertainment was asked about the possibility of a retro console for the PlayStation during a recent interview, which has been translated by the Twitter user called BlackKite.

When asked about a possible PlayStation retro console, John Kodera said that there was nothing they could discuss at that time, but that the company was considering ways to use their old assets and that there had been internal discussions within the company about how they could be used.

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Via: USGamer

Sony has always been keen on re-releasing their older games on the PlayStation Store, with the PlayStation Portable having built-in support for running original PlayStation games. They seemed to step back from selling their older games during the PlayStation 4 era, as only a handful of PlayStation 4 games were reworked for the system. A couple of the Final Fantasy games also saw a re-release on the PlayStation 4, but these were based on the updated PC ports of the games.

It wouldn't be difficult for a PlayStation Classic device to exist, considering the fact that people have had the games running on emulators for years, with even weak PCs being able to comfortably run the original PlayStation games.

The main issue with Sony creating a retro console for their first system is that they would need to bring in several third-party developers, as they were the ones who made the best titles during the 32-bit era.

via:bennet.org/blog/metal-gear-solid-retrospective/

The reason Sony would need to get permission from the third-party developers is due to the fact that only a handful of games were developed in-house by Sony during this era. The most likely games to appear on a PlayStation classic would be Twisted Metal, the Crash Bandicoot games, PaRappa the Rapper, MediEvil, Spyro the Dragon, and the Gran Turismo games, as there wouldn't be any major issues with licensing these games for the system.

If the PlayStation retro console is going to be a success, then Sony will need to bring Capcom, Konami, Namco, and Square Enix on board, as all of the best games on the system came from those developers. The people who will buy a PlayStation system will expect to see entries from the Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Soul Blade, and Tekken series, as these were the titles that defined the system.

The original PlayStation had some of the best video games ever made, but it remains to be seen if Sony will be able to gather them all for a theoretical PlayStation Classic system.