PS3 graphics aren't that different from modern day graphics, just lower fidelity and the hardware was a bit quirky but other than that they didn't have any particular aesthetic; I don't think the PS2 had either. The PS1 did though, the weird texture shimmering that was reproduced in for example the Bloodborne demake [0] and subsequent Bloodborne Kart, which had to be rebranded to Nightmare Kart for copyright reasons. But that one's made in Unreal Engine 4, with a forum thread [1] saying the effect can be reproduced across multiple engines like UE4, Unity and Godot, using a shader.

[0] https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx

[1] https://itch.io/t/1999076/what-game-engine-did-you-use

The web is already a game runtime that works on Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS with decent graphics. I've ported a couple of games. Here's Quake 3 including multiplayer https://thelongestyard.link/ and Cave Story https://thelongestyard.link/cave-story/. There are full-fledged web-native games too such as https://gooberdash.winterpixel.io/ (2D Fall Guys) and https://krunker.io/ or https://venge.io/ (multiplayer FPS)

> PS3-level graphics

> retro aesthetics

You are really making me feel old.

That said PS1/PS2 style is pretty popular and a fantasy console in that area would be indeed great.

I just hope you mistyped because PS3 is mostly modern graphics for me. Most of the games still look good if you upscale the textures a bit.

I'm making a wasm runtime called Taca that has approximately low-end modern capabilities that can run in either web or a separate native player. https://github.com/contextfreeinfo/taca (I also made the intro video for WASM-4.)