It was an exciting day yesterday as Sony finally pulled back the curtain on the PS5’s launch date and price, something we’ve been waiting on. Like all big announcements, there came much positive news and excitement. But, as is also often the case, mixed in with it was some sour news, too, such as Sony more or less making it official they will hike up prices of their first party next gen titles. Well, hate to be a bummer, but there’s also some less than thrilling news about backwards compatibility as well.
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan confirmed that the PS5 would be backwards compatible with the vast majority of the PS4 library, but in talking to Famitsu, when asked about PS1-PS3 titles, he confirmed what many assumed: the PS5 will not be compatible with any titles from those previous generations (thanks to Siliconera for transcribing and translating).
“We keep in mind the engineering specialized for the PS5, as we produced the device,” Ryan said. “In the midst of that, the PS4 already has 100 million players; we thought they ought to want to play PS4 titles on the PlayStation 5 as well indeed, so we included compatibility with the PS4. While implementing that, we also focused our efforts on taking in the high-speed SSD and the new controller DualSense at the same time. So, unfortunately, we couldn’t reach the implementation of such compatibilities.”
Unlike Microsoft, who have made backwards compatibility a huge feature for their systems, Sony has largely stayed quiet about it for their new system, so it’s really no surprise to get this news. But for those hoping for more legacy software support, unfortunately, you are out of luck. The PS5 will launch November 12th in some regions, and on November 19 everywhere else.
