An image has cropped up that suggests PlayStation 2 games may be offered for download to the PlayStation 3.

The picture shows Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which was exclusively released on the PS2, on the PlayStation Store.

It comes from a forum poster on N4G. The poster, NiTiZ, says he was speaking via MSN to a friend who works at Sony London to find out when in-game XMB will be rolled out for the PS3, "but more interesting was his info on a new Playstation 2 Store that'll also be announced at E3 too! Basically Sonys (sic) answer to Xbox Originals."

Apparently this means that PS2 titles will start appearing on the service later on in the summer, with Europe being the first to get the new offerings.

While NiTiZ says that the PS2 store would be Sony's answer to Xbox Originals, Sony's shift towards the 40GB, non-backwards compatible PS3 before the announcement of Xbox Originals suggests that this has been on the cards since before then.

SPOnG asked a Sony Europe rep whether PS2 titles will be offered through PSN but was met with an unsurprising "No comment".

Does the prospect of PS2 titles on the PSN excite you, or make you hacked off that you can't get a backwards compatible PS3? Let us know in the Forum.

^{Source: N4G}