I know why, and I'll share it with you right now. Money.
If you could buy cheapo used PS2 games in your local store, they wouldn't be able to sell them to you for twice the price on PSN. Case closed, defence rests your honour.
Except they haven't sold PS2 games on PSN yet. (They've stated actually they won't.. but they also said GT5 would actually get released on Nov 2nd). They did God of War remade for PS3, but that's it so far.
So far, yes. But it was only a few months ago that they finally sorted out the PS2 software emulation (which was never officially announced). And if it wasn't about the money they'd just release that as DLC so you could then use PS2 discs.
But what they'll do instead is add the emulator as part of each downloadable game, so it won't work for anything else.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it makes sense as a business move. Why give stuff away when you can sell it? I'd do exactly the same thing. But that's how it works. In fact, aren't they just about to release Crazy Taxi on PSN? That was a PS2 game, right?
Crazy Taxi was multi-format. Definitely was released on PS2.
Not sure why anyone would want to play it on a PS3, though, much less why they'd want to pay whatever sum Sony think they can charge for the privilege. MS are just as bad, of course.
I'd perfer to rebuy my old games on the PSN. Most of my old ps games are all scrached up from poor storage abilities of a 13 year old me.
As for the planed obsolescence; my Blu-Ray drive craped out on me while playing demon soul's and wont play any PS3 games any more. But it still playes GT4 just fine. This failure reminds me of the old PS2. Just like the big PS3, the big ps2 failed just as the ps2 slim came out. My ps3 died in a similar way as well. The drives just will not buffer from the CD.
Hopefully GT5's install doenst require any buffering from the CD so I don't have to get a new one.
I think it depends how heavily you use them, and probably a bit on how much you move them around too.
I went through loads of Spectrums (a 48k +, 2x +2A's and a ZX81) because of a factory fault with the soldering of the power supply input. It wobbled and when the connection broke you lost power. And anyone who remembers loading from cassette will sympathise But they (apart from the ZX81) were used a LOT.
I've also been through the 360's repair once (for unreadable discs due to overheating) and a replacement (RROD a year later). Thankfully the new one seems to be fine. And it gets used a lot too. The PS3 doesn't get used nearly as much, so it's fine too.
The older PS3 models have laser alignment issues if you switch between BR and DVDs a lot. So I guess because the accuracy isn't quite to important for DVDs, a little misalign won't kill it the same as it will the Blu-ray. I understand it's a simple repair though.
There are 2 different pics there, one of Rome and one of the Monaco track, which is slightly different, so it isn't called Monaco. I believe it's slightly wider than the real track.