Sony threw quite a few people for a loop when it announced that previously-believed next-gen titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Horizon: Forbidden West would be cross-gen titles. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan even talked about supporting the PS4 into 2022. As if echoing those statements, SIE vice president Hideaki Nishino recently stated that the cross-gen trend will continue for about three years.
Speaking to AV Watch (rough translation by WCCF Tech), Nishino explained the process behind developing for both consoles. “It may not be easy to develop PS5-specific development from Day 1. For the time being, development for PS4 is also necessary. It’s not a PlayStation unless you prepare a system that developers can [exploit] over several years, so I think there is great potential in the future.
“In terms of compatibility, it is important to get PS4 titles on PS5, but I have insisted that forward compatibility (supplying the same titles to PS5 as PS4) is important. The current assumption is that the transition from PS4 to PS5 will take about three years. In the meantime, how can I keep buying games on PS4? Can the purchased games be played on PS5? That is important. We ask developers to develop on the premise of ‘cross generation’ of PS4 and PS5.”
It’s worth noting that not every PS5 title will be cross-gen until 2023 but we’ll definitely see the trend continuing up till that point. This is still a fairly interesting stance from Sony – several months ago, it spoke about believing in “generations” instead of leaning into cross-gen support. Perhaps Microsoft’s philosophy of support across multiple generations was a motivator.
Regardless, first-party titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Sackboy: A Big Adventure along with third-party titles like The Pathless and Bugsnax will be available on PS4 and PS5 on November 12th. Stay tuned for more details on all of these titles in the coming weeks.
