Last week Sony announced that the PlayStation 3 consoles sold at the European and Australasian launches would feature a different hardware specification than the models previously released in Japan and the US.

　　It later confirmed that this difference would be the removal of the Emotion Engine--the name given to the PlayStation 2 chipset--and that it would be concentrating on next-gen games for the console. This announcement led to intense speculation about the level of backward compatibility available on the new model PS3s, and Sony's admission that it would be "limited" gave rise to concerns that a wide range of PS2 games wouldn't therefore be playable on the new console.

　　Sony Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison has now given out numbers--he told semiofficial blog Three Speech that more than 1,000 PS2 games will be playable on the new models at launch, with further updates over time adding more to the list.

　　He told the blog, "Our thinking involves being able to bring the latest hardware specification of the PS3 to Europe, although that does mean an initial slight reduction in the number of PS2 components. But it's important to put that into context: there will still be thousands of PlayStation and PS2 titles playable on the PS3 at launch. It's very easy to over-react."

　　The full list of compatible games will go live on a Web site on the same day as the PS3 launch, and Harrison refused to be drawn on which titles this would be likely to include. However, he did confirm that the company would be concentrating on "big" titles.

　　Harrison also confirmed that cost was one of the main reasons for the removal of the Emotion Engine. He laughed off comments that the engine "can't possibly cost you more than a few pence to manufacture" by saying "if only that was the case."

　　Harrison did not mention whether the US and Japanese models would now also be manufactured without the Emotion Engine.