After making its intentions public to [eliminate physical games by 2028], Sony and PlayStation have drawn the ire of part of their community, and in recent weeks, the backlash has reached a new level.

A group of homebrew enthusiasts has breached the PS5’s security to get the console running physical PlayStation 2 games through an emulator.

The community is now doing something Sony never bothered to offer in terms of backward compatibility, and the development has gone viral on social media.

The PS5 jailbreak scene gets physical PS2 games running on the current console

Players angry with Sony and PlayStation are celebrating the latest breakthrough from the jailbreak and homebrew community, which has turned its attention to PS5 following the Japanese company’s recent announcements.

The developers behind PS5SX2 announced that it is now possible to run physical PS2 games on PS5 through emulation and the manipulation of exploits. These allow the console to recognize games from Sony’s second system using an external disc drive. The PS2 remains the best-selling console of all time.

One enthusiast behind the project, known as Sword on X, demonstrated how it works and highlighted the progress made by the jailbreak scene, which is using code and AI capabilities to do virtually whatever it wants with Sony’s current console.

Players celebrate the latest PS5 exploit and question why Sony never offered proper backward compatibility

While some players celebrated the latest PS5SX2 update and see it as a symbolic victory for physical media, others are questioning PlayStation’s decisions regarding backward compatibility.

In its day, the PS2 could play original PlayStation games. Early PS3 models supported games from both consoles, until a later revision was limited to playing titles from the original PlayStation.

From that point on, Sony argued that the PS3’s complex architecture made backward compatibility on PS4 and PS5 extremely difficult, while showing little interest in finding a solution for its first two consoles.

Instead, and largely in response to player backlash, the Japanese company opted to add classic games from its older consoles to the PlayStation Store. However, those games come at a cost, and this approach offers no real solution for people who already own the original discs.

In that regard, the community regrets that PlayStation did not follow Xbox’s lead, as Xbox consoles continue to offer backward compatibility with games from multiple generations.