Sony’s recent deep dive into the PS5 hasn’t been received as well as they would have been hoping. While it was perfectly fine as a GDC talk – which is what it was, at the end of the day, given that this was the first real rollout of information on the console for the larger public as well, expectations were set pretty high- and were not met very well.
From unflattering comparisons with the Xbox Series X to the very nature of the presentation itself, there’s been plenty of criticism that has been levelled at Sony in the last few days, but one aspect in particular that has caught headlines is the PS5’s backward compatibility. During the presentation, lead system architect Mark Cerny said that at launch, the console would be able to play “most” of the PS4’s 100 most-played games, leading most to believe that only a limited number of the current-gen console’s games would be playable on the next-gen one at its release.
However, Sony have since then provided an update on the matter on the PlayStation Blog, and it seems the “top 100” figure used by Cerny was just a sample size.
“With all of the amazing games in PS4’s catalog, we’ve devoted significant efforts to enable our fans to play their favorites on PS5,” Sony wrote. “We believe that the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5.
“We’re expecting backward compatible titles will run at a boosted frequency on PS5 so that they can benefit from higher or more stable frame rates and potentially higher resolutions. We’re currently evaluating games on a title-by-title basis to spot any issues that need adjustment from the original software developers.”
According to Sony, hundreds of PS4 games have already been tested for backward compatibility on the PS5, and thousands more will be in the lead up to the console’s launch.
“In his presentation, Mark Cerny provided a snapshot into the Top 100 most-played PS4 titles, demonstrating how well our backward compatibility efforts are going,” they wrote. “We have already tested hundreds of titles and are preparing to test thousands more as we move toward launch. We will provide updates on backward compatibility, along with much more PS5 news, in the months ahead.”
The PS5 is scheduled for a Holiday 2020 release, but uncertainties emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic might complicate that. Thus far, however, Sony are not expecting any delays.