Backwards compatibility between console generations is a rightful concern among gaming fans. Investing money into a ton of games over five-to-seven years, only to have them unplayable on a brand new console, can be frustrating. Xbox kicked out this trend entirely for Xbox One with an ambitious backwards compatibility that supported newer and older games from previous generations. Now PlayStation is following suit, kind of. The PS5 is getting backwards compatibility, though the limits of which are fairly vague.
Recently Ubisoft posted on their support page with some information about the PS5‘s backwards compatibility. Sony in particular had also taken their stance on backwards compatibility with PS5, confirming that a majority selection of PS4 games will be available to play for PS5 at launch. However, Ubisoft stated definitively that the PS5 would not have backwards compatibility with PS3/PS2/PS1 titles, which may not necessarily be the case. Further backwards compatibility could come to PS5, but it will definitely be a long time until it does.
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Prior to the discovery of Ubisoft’s support page, Sony had already made it abundantly clear that PlayStation would take an incremental approach to backwards compatibility. At launch, PS5 will reportedly be able to play a majority of the PS4’s backlog natively. This is likely due to many games requiring additional optimizations to run properly on the new console hardware. It’s unclear how far this “overwhelming majority” extends into the PS4’s library of several thousand games, but at least there’s some form of backwards compatibility in PS5.
That being said, supporting PS4 games will be the main focus of PS5’s backwards compatibility, because of its inherent software making PS4 ports easier to manage. Part of the system’s processing firmware is dedicated to running what would be considered “legacy” content from the PS4, so backwards compatibility with PS4 shouldn’t be too much of an issue. The main problem here is the capability to play anything older than last-generation games requires a lot more resources compared to what will ship with the PS5 at launch.
Ubisoft has subsequently delisted the information pertaining to PS3/PS2/PS1 backwards compatibility, likely due to this support site page garnering some media attention. This isn’t an official confirmation, but there’d be no reason to request this site be changed unless there was further plans for backwards compatibility in the future. Either that or Ubisoft took the extra information down from that particular page as it was seemingly unneeded information for now. Whatever the justification, it stands to reason that additional backwards compatibility support for PS5 could be possible.
That being said, if plans for further backwards compatibility are in the works, it’s going to take a lot longer than fans may expect. Xbox One’s backwards compatibility, and by extension Xbox Series X’s backwards compatibility, is a genuine technical marvel. Playing Xbox 360 games on Xbox One takes a lot more leg work than people may expect. Running Xbox 360 or even original Xbox games requires a highly robust emulation process that works in tandem with the Xbox One’s processor. If the PS5 has something similar planned for backwards compatibility, it’d theoretically be a few years before its implemented, considering what we know about the console already.
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There were some rumors that PS5 would utilize cloud computing to achieve backwards compatibility, which makes a lot of sense. Based on the Road to PS5 deep dive event Sony hosted earlier this year, we know that the PS5 only has native software capable of emulating PS4/PS4 Pro games. Any backwards compatibility beyond that would require custom emulation programming that could theoretically be patched into PS5, or through cloud computing via servers like on PlayStation Now. The likelihood of a patched-in emulator published for PS5 is probably slim, considering the feasibility is slim and the likelihood for piracy and/or hacking unsupported games is high.
Delisting that information from Ubisoft’s support page does seem to be a big hint that cloud computing for emulation could be on the way, but for now this is likely technology that’s still in development. Backwards compatibility on Xbox was in development for years before it was announced, so it’s likely a similar case with PlayStation. Not to mention the highly customized software and firmware in consoles like the PS3 that were notoriously difficult to optimize games on compared to Xbox 360. Expanded backwards compatibility could eventually make its way to PS5, but considering we haven’t heard about it at all yet, it’s likely a technology that’s a few years away at least.
The PS5 launches in holiday 2020.
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