PlayStation emulator is a middle finger to Sony's disc-free policy that lets you play PS3 games without a PS3

You likely have a specific console in mind when asked what the 'best' of all time is, and while many have a soft spot for the Nintendo 64, the PlayStation 2 still reigns supreme as the best-selling console of all time.

Spare a thought for the underrated PlayStation 3, which currently ranks ninth with just 87.4 million units sold. Still, keeping us warm from its 2006 release until its eventual discontinuation in 2017, the PS3 delivered certified bangers, including Demon's Souls, God of War III, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

Away from exclusives, many of us played GTA VI, Batman: Arkham City, and Red Dead Redemption as some of the best games of all time.

While Sony has long since put the PS3 out to pasture, it could be time to dust off your discs and find a new reason to play.

We’re still in the midst of backlash against the PlayStation business model, with the gaming giant announcing that it'll stop producing physical discs in January 2028.

There have been boycotts, Change.org petitions, and even the threat of legal action, but sticking to its guns, Sony is taking us into a digital-only future before long.

Seemingly in defiance of this, the RPCS3 emulator will let you play your old collection of PS3 games as long as you've got a disc.

In a September 6 post on X, RPCS3 cheered your ability to play games from "20 years ago without relying on any servers." This seems like a not-so-thinly veiled takedown of modern gaming, where digital releases only exist until licenses expire. It's no secret that beloved games like 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine and 2013's Deadpool are completely lost to time unless you have a disc, while Sony's move to a disc-free future has gamers rightly concerned.

This is where the RPCS3 emulator comes onto the scene, recently announcing another major step toward preserving your entire PS3 collection.

The latest update is a "plug & play" solution, allowing gamers to run games directly from their original Blu-ray discs. For retro gamers who are still holding onto their physical collections, this is a huge leap.

RPCS3 praises developers "digant73" and "Megamouse" for the breakthrough, adding crucial changes to the emulator's codebase and extending on-disc play support to internal and external drives, Windows, Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.

Although it was previously available on Windows, it's now been rolled out to all supported operating systems. Better yet, install times for on-disc packages have also been optimized.

Gamers were overjoyed with the news, with one writing: "Every RPCS3 tweet is like 'hey guys we just cured cancer and we're also making good progress on ending world hunger'. Actual emulation wizards."

Another added: "It's paradoxical that in the very same year Sony announces the end of the physical format, RPCS3 restores its value. Today more than ever, I'm glad to have games like Drakengard 3 in physical form. It's the ultimate response to the industry's planned obsolescence, a guarantee of eternity."

A third said: "It's totally wild when you think about it 😳 Emulation is the future, you can play more with your physical PlayStation games on PC than on PlayStation..."

Even though PC and laptops with Blu-ray drives are becoming increasingly rare, they're relatively easy to track down if you know where to look in 2026.

It's unclear whether the update was in the works ahead of Sony's controversial announcement or was in response, but either way, physical purists are clawing back a win.