It is being reported that Sony has filed a patent for Emotion Engine emulation using the Cell Processor. Umm, ok, I thought this technology was already out there. It turns out that this story, originally reported by Siliconera, is considerably out of date as EE emulation has been around since 2007. It is possible that Sony only recently filed a patent for it but there's nothing new to see here.

Here's a brief rundown of the PS3's foray with backwards compatibility. The original 60gb and 20gb PS3s were essentially two systems in one. They featured the PS2's Emotion Engine processor and Graphics Synthesizer GPU alongside the PS3's Cell and "Reality Synthesizer" GPU. The problem was putting these four chips into one system drove up the cost of the PS3 so the Emotion Engine was cut out of the system all together for the original 80gb unit. Playstation 2 games were software emulated using the Cell but the graphics processor proved more difficult to emulate, which is why the GS was retained. Backwards compatibility was reduces somewhat, down to 80% from the near 100% compatibility of the previous models. To further reduce costs, PS2 backwards compatibility was cut from the new 40gb models all together. That irked a lot of PS2 fans. It is possible to use two consoles of course but the allure of an all in one system is strong. Full software emulation is the holy grail for those who don't have the older backwards compatible systems. However, the difficulty emulating the GPU is what has held this back.

Source: Siliconera