Sony has filed a patent for "legacy" games that had multiple discs, suggesting more multi-disc titles could very well be making their way to the Premium tier of the company's PlayStation Plus subscription service at some point down the line. Since last year, Sony has split its PlayStation Plus service into three distinct tiers, with the Premium tier giving subscribers access to a slew of classic games on top of all the titles included in the Essential and Extra tiers.
PS Plus Premium lets PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 gamers access a variety of titles that were originally released for the PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS3 systems. There are many great PS1 games readily available to play through PS Plus Premium, with new titles added to the lineup on a regular basis. Now it seems Sony is trying to open the door to bring even more classic PS1 games to the service.
A new Sony patent published on March 30 describes a way for users to engage with multi-disc "legacy" games. Before games went digital and use large Blu-ray discs, it was sometimes necessary to publish them on multiple discs. This was true of some of the biggest PS1 games back in the day. Many of those titles have yet to make their way to PS Plus Premium, but the patent could potentially open the door for them to come to the Premium tier. Basically, the patent describes a way to emulate disc swapping in a digital sense.
Many multi-disc PS1 games were previously available on PlayStation 3 as PS1 Classics, but have yet to make their way to PS Plus Premium. This includes the PS1 versions of classic Final Fantasy titles (though new versions of those games are available on PS Plus), Parasite Eve and its sequel, and the original Resident Evil 2. A big PS1 game that had multiple discs was Metal Gear Solid, and it too has not launched on PS Plus Premium just yet.
At the time of this writing, one multi-disc game is technically available to play on PS Plus Premium in the form of Syphon Filter 2. Syphon Filter 2's missions were split between two discs back in the day. When players reach the point where they would normally have to swap discs in the PS Plus Premium version of Syphon Filter 2, they are asked if they'd like to save their game, but there's no mention of swapping discs.
There are many multi-disc PS1 games that would be a great fit for the PS Plus Premium service, so hopefully this patent means more are on the way. However, fans should keep their expectations in check for now, as nothing official has been announced by Sony.
