Back during Mark Cerny’s Road to PS5 talk, the Lead System architect caused concern for some current PS4 owners, as he seemingly announced that only 100 PS4 games would be playable on PS5 through backwards compatibility. While PlayStation representatives later tried to clarify the situation, it only led to further confusion. PlayStation’s President has now provided a definitive answer on the PS4 backwards compatibility situation.
In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Sony Interactive Entertainement’s President and CEO Jim Ryan reportedly confirmed that ‘of the thousands of games tested for PS4 backwards compatibility, “99 percent” can be played on the next console’ – essentially confirming full and complete backwards compatibility with the PS4.
Of course, in many ways this still falls short of Microsoft’s backwards compatibility solution, which sees titles from as far back as the original Xbox playable on the Series S and X, with many of the titles even seeing a number of enhancements such as resolution boosts. While PlayStation has yet to confirm backwards compatibility with the PS3 and earlier, there have been a number of patents suggesting that Sony may be working on a solution.
It is worth noting that backwards compatibility on Xbox was only introduced part way through the current generation, meaning that even if PlayStation fails to bring backwards compatibility with PS3, PS2 and PS One titles, it is entirely possible that they may still add the feature at a later date. Time will tell.
KitGuru says: how important do you think backwards compatibility is? Would you like to see backwards compatibility with all previous PlayStation consoles? Do you think it’ll happen, and if so, when? Let us know down below.