[Rumor] Is Sony sneakily removing PS4 backwards compatibility from PS5?
A growing number of people have been reporting that the PS5 official “launch” page on Playstation Iceland has been sneakily updated to remove a statement that the PS5 will “Play a back catalog of supported PS4™ games with system update.”.
We were able to confirm at the time of writing that the page indeed used to make a mention on PS4 backwards compatibility, and this statement has been removed.
Sony had announced earlier this year that the PS5 would be backwards compatible “for some titles”, giving the precision that all PS4 titles need to go through some extensive QA before being marked as compatible with the PS5.
It’s actually unclear if the statement was removed because PS4 backwards compatibility is not going to happen after all (it would not be the first time Sony make promise on backward compatibility that they cannot keep, for example with the PS Vita), or because they did not want to scare people about the “system update” part. The hidden meaning here being that PS5 would not have PS4 backwards compatibility at launch, something very reminiscent of what we saw with the PS Vita and PSP backward compatibility.
Sony are rumored to release more information about the PS5 next week though, so hopefully we’ll know soon enough about the status of PS4 games compatibility with the PS5.
“it would not be the first time Sony make promise on backward compatibility that they cannot keep”
Remember OtherOS….
I’m more in the camp of the people that think that PS4 bw compat WILL be enabled and working but since it’s software based (low level emulation), only a set of games will be fully supported. More or less like the Xbox 360 compat: they gradually tested and supported more games as they went along and now almost every game is compatible.
How can it be software based? How can it be emulation? is the same architecture x86-64 by the same company, is not like the Xbox that used a pentium and nvidia while the xbox one uses amd. The only issue would be if sony were to not use FreeBSD as the OS but even then. The only issue would be if for some reason the games interacted directly with the PS4 Hardware instead of by libraries, and they were doing something that for some reason is not supported in the PS5 HW (which again, is same architecture), which AFAIK they dont.
The only reason to not be fully supported is by having a blacklist/whitelist of software playable
Emulation will have to be done for the new syscalls and new graphics API. Of course some work will have to be done on that.
No it dont MS have shown what sony are saying to be BS as they using similar tech and have shown that the new xbox will work with all last gen xbox games
Dont care I have 2 ps4s.
Saying it “will have to be done” is a huge, HUGE oversight. Sony, having developed a new OS layer on top of FreeBSD and a new graphics API, can just gate an entire compatibility mode through a system flag that would be called upon booting a PS4 game. It’s not a big deal when moving across x86 platforms and there’s a very slim chance to have a whole new graphics API instead of direct Gnm/Gnmx updates.
AFAIK The chip has a legacy mode that is fully compatible with PS4’s one and Mark Cerny explained it (instructions, clocks etc). At most you need a secure container for the ps4 kernel, so no exploit of the old system would affect the new one and the technology is already mature enough.
Now… whether the PS5 will support PS4 or they will force you to buy the old console/PSNow as well or a second copy of the game for PS5 – this is business decision, nothing to do with what can and cannot be done.
No backwards compatibility, no buy. I’m tired of their ***. I can make do with pc and switch.
Meanwhile Switch has zero backwards compatability
Switcjh sucks
agreed
Switch is great, only bad when you can’t afford one.
A *** console will always be too expensive.
Wrong. If you are fan of God of War.. No PC for it. I don’t care about PS4 to PS5. I will be fine. No complaint but I really hope that there are backwards compatibility, thought.
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If the ps4 and ps5 are both x86 based then why would emulation be needed for backwards compat?
If they change the underlying OS it will require at least translations to the new APIs. Simillar with Windows and Linux, they both run on x86 but they can’t run each others’ software without implementing a compatibility layer(WINE) or running an instance of the other OS(WSL)
No they aren’t, they just hate the thought of having to do it.
I’ve never understood an individuals way of thinking when it comes to “no backwards compatibility, no buy.” I buy a new console because I want to play the new console’s games. Backwards compatibility, to me, has always just been a bonus. Not a deal breaker.
Most likely that backwards compatibility is going against them securing the system from exploitation.
It leaves some doors open.
Remember WiiU anyone
Yeah, they’re learning from other people’s mistakes. But have they still learned from their own? XD
Nope, cause nobody bought one.
If so, theyll be punished by couple groupes for that.
They probably just removed that sentence for clarity. It draws too much focus away from the fact that it’s a new console that will play new games.
if the next ps will not backwards compatibility then my next console will be XBOX
I agree that its questionable why they removed that sentence from their website, but they’re clearly not removing backward compability as a whole from the PS5 😛 Why would they do that after speaking on how important that it is?
I hope this is sarcasm, since they’ve done it before.
I think they are seeing the console war being too easy to win. This is never a good thing for the consumer. However, given how often Microsoft goes full Nazi, it is not a surprise that Sony strategist already expect it to be an easy fight again.
They even dared to put a microphone on the controller. They would not dare to do that last gen.
No, its not not sarcasm. Why would it be sarcasm? Cant you please just drop that attitude and ask me instead what i mean if you disagree with me?
Sony has not announced BC (backward compability) for any of their system before, then removed it before it launched. The closest thing where this have happened is that only the earlier PS3 models had PS2 BC. This was removed from the later released PS3 models, but all PS3 models already sold with PS2 BC, those systems still have PS2 BC.
There is also a big difference with this situation however. The reason for why PS2 BC was removed from the later PS3 models is because Sony used actual PS2 hardware in the PS3 to achieve PS2 BC. This meant that the production costs were higher due to the extra hardware. The PS3 was already expensive, and it sold relatively poorly, so Sony needed to cut the production costs to get the price down. Thats why they removed the PS2 BC.
When it comes to the PS5 however, there is no dedictated/specialized PS4 hardware in the PS5 to achieve PS4 BC. This is a big difference compared to what we saw with the PS3. Mark Cerney (he who designed the PS5) also talked about this in his “Road to PS5” presentation. Here he talked a bit about PS4 BC in the PS5 and how it would work. He also mentioned that BC is an important thing for the PS5. So it would make little sense for why Sony would remove PS4 BC from the PS5 at this point in time, in my opinion. So no, i’m not being sarcastic 😛
The only thing that remains to be seen is how many PS4 titles that will work on the PS5. It seems that Sony need to test every single PS4 game to make sure that it works fine on the PS5, and this will require some work. But PS4 BC will be without a doubt be on the PS5.
This message might basically arrive two times. Seems that the message require approval for some reason.
No, its not sarcasm. Why would it be that? Removing announced backward compability from a Playstation system before launch has never happened before. I wrote a more detailed replied too, but it seems that a moderator have to approve it first.
Let’s hope nothing changes.