After Cerny’s PS5 presentation was released, many PlayStation fans began asking why no mention was made of backward compatibility for earlier PlayStation consoles. It led to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier sharing some information on Twitter. Schreier says that he’s followed up on the rumor and asked “a few folks in the know” whether it was true. While none of Schreier’s sources “could guarantee” it wasn’t true, “they did all laugh at the idea.” In other words, the rumor is being considered rubbish by those who would likely know if it were true.
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That means that, barring some extremely well-kept secret, the PS5 will not have backward compatibility with the PS3, PS2, and PS1 despite recent rumors. And that’s unlikely to change in the future for the PS5 console generation, if it hasn’t already been decided on.
As Cerny explained in his presentation, the problem comes down to how different the previous PlayStation console generations are from the current ones. The PS4 is similar in the most important ways to the PS5, making it simple to have a game run on the console. Many will even have improved performance. To get the PS3 running, at the very least, would require additional hardware inside of the PS5. That’s apparently an expenditure Sony isn’t interested in investing in, for any number of likely very good reasons.
The PS2 and the PS1 likely wouldn’t require additional hardware in the PS5, though that would be simpler and more effective. They could be virtualized, instead. That comes with its own array of problems, though.
Earlier today Sony expanded on what was said about the PS5’s backward compatibility. Sony confirmed that it expects the “overwhelming majority” of PS4 games to be available on PS4. As excellent as it would be to have the full library of past PlayStation platforms available, just having the PS4’s library is a big deal and a step above PlayStation’s previous efforts. That should be lauded.
The PS5 is planned for release during holiday 2020.
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