Finally: RPCS3 PS3 emulator achieves long-awaited milestone after another PS3 exclusive becomes "Playable"

More than a decade after the project first debuted, Sony PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 has achieved a major milestone. After patching a classic Sega game recently, the RPCS3 team has now fully fixed Yakuza: Dead Souls and added it to the PS3 emulator’s “Playable” list. With Yakuza: Dead Souls added to the “Playable” list, RPCS3 is now able to play more than 80% of the indexed PS3 library. 

This is a major development, as emulating the Sony PS3 properly is a feat of software engineering. The PS3 used IBM’s Cell processor, which made developing game for the PS3 and, later, emulating it on PCs with good performance extremely difficult. So, RPCS3 finally breaching 80% playability is a huge accomplishment.

Moving on to Yakuza: Dead Souls, the RPCS3 team announced on X that developer Yahfz managed to fix stability issues in the game. Moreover, users can also run the game at 60 FPS thanks to a 60 FPS patch that is now available for the game. Yakuza: Dead Souls reportedly didn’t perform well on the PS3 when the game first launched, which is one of the reasons why many gamers rate the title as among the worst Yakuza games ever made.

We have to mention here that, despite emulating a console that was released all the way back in 2006, RPCS3 does require a fairly fast CPU to give good performance in games. The official RPCS3 system requirements mention a Ryzen 5 5600 to emulate games on par with a PS3 or better. Naturally, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is among the best gaming CPUs on the market, performs at a much higher level.

That said, you may still face some issues in Yakuza: Dead Souls, as the RPCS3 team mentioned that a graphics bug that makes underground areas appear red affects some specific GPUs. So, join the RPCS3 Discord to get further help from the team.

Fawad Murtaza - Senior Tech Writer - 1759 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021

I am Fawad, a fellow tech nerd. As a tech junkie, my relationship with technology goes back to my childhood years. Getting my first Intel Pentium 4 PC was the start of journey that would eventually bring me to Notebookcheck. Finally, I have been writing for tech media since 2018. From small no-name projects to industry leaders, I have worked with a number of tech publications.