This PS3 emulator for PC can now play games straight from physical discs

Published Sep 7, 2026, 2:36 PM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Summary RPCS3 can now play PS3 games directly from physical discs across Windows, macOS, and Linux through a new plug-and-play feature. The feature supports several Blu-ray drives from LG, Samsung, Asus, Sony, and Lite-On. This is a huge move for physical game preservation. As far as PC PlayStation 3 emulation goes, RPCS3 has quickly emerged as the best platform out there — sometimes, it feels like RPCS3 is announcing new features and updates almost daily. The latest in a string of new features is the ability to play PS3 games directly from physical discs through new "plug-and-play" functionality. According to a recent Twitter post from the RPCS3's official account, physical PS3 discs will only work with specific Blu-ray disc drives, though a wide variety of manufacturers are supported, including LG, Samsung, Asus, Sony, LITE-ON, HP, Plextor, Benq, and more. This is a big win for game preservation. Package installation time for PS3 discs has also been optimized RPCS3 says that if your specific drive isn't listed, you can still give it a try. If you insert a PS3 game disc and can browse the files, it should be compatible. Plug-and-play works across Windows, macOS, and Linux. It also doesn't rely on servers to function. It's important to note that you'll still need the disc's decryption key in order for the game to run, according to RPCS3. If you're an emulation enthusiast who also collects physical PS3 discs, this is a big deal, but it's also important to anyone who cares about physical game preservation in general. The timing of the feature's launch is pretty perfect, given Sony is preparing to ditch physical discs in 2028. Microsoft recently launched a new Disc-to-Digital feature that allows users to use a physical Xbox One or Xbox Series X disc to claim a digital version of the game. RPCS3 has also announced that package installation times for PS3 game discs have been optimized across supported operating systems. You can download the open-source PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 from its website. RPCS3 offers roughly a 70 percent playable rate for games, which is pretty good given how historically bad PlayStation 3 emulation has been. In other emulation-related news, a few months ago, a firmware mod called OmniDrive launched, allowing MediaTek MT1959-based optical disc Blu-ray drives to rip Wii, GameCube, and Xbox games.