Sony’s PlayStation 5 received a number of new details today, including confirmed PlayStation VR support, specs, and much more. However, one other interesting bit came up when Wired spoke to lead system architect Mark Cerny about backwards compatibility. Cerny said that the transition from PlayStation 4 to next-gen would be “gentle”, and that several games would launch on both platforms.

Which makes sense, considering the PS4 had a number of cross-gen games in its first year. However, when asked about how Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding will fit in, Cerny apparently just smiled and said nothing. A spokesperson reiterated that the action-adventure (we presume) title would be coming to PS4, but that’s pretty much it.

You could theorize several different things from this exchange. Death Stranding could release for PS4 first and then eventually come to PS5. Alternatively, it could release for both platforms at the same time and serve as a launch title for the PS5 (which would put its release date somewhere in 2020, if Sony’s next-gen console is indeed out then). Of course, there’s also the possibility of Death Stranding releasing for both consoles some time after the PS5’s launch.

Much of this is conjecture at this point, and there isn’t a whole lot to discern from Cerny’s response either. As for Death Stranding, it will be discussed by director Hideo Kojima and actor Norman Reedus at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival.

Hot on the heels of the patent they filed last month suggesting at backward compatibility, Sony have filed another patent, published yesterday, that indicates they are exploring the feature for PS5. The patent, which is credited to Sony’s Mark Cerny, like the previous one, describes the “simulation of legacy bus operation for backward compatibility”.

Essentially, this is talking about a new system emulating the “bus” or channel for data transfer, of an older system. Basically, it lets them simulate how data is transferred from one part of an older system to another, which is important to have full emulation of an older system. The methodology Sony is patenting also allows for “enhanced simulation”, which theoretically could lead to older games running better on new hardware with no effort needed by the developers.

In conjunction with the other rumor, it makes it clear Sony is looking at backward compatibility for PS5—which is smart of them, since it will allow them to retain their dominance, potentially.

The PS5 and Xbox Scarlett are going to be launching soon enough, and the one question a lot of people have about them is that of backward compatibility. Given Microsoft’s commitment to the feature, it’s not a stretch to assume they will continue to implement it going forward, but what about Sony? And to what degree?

It seems like we are getting some indications that they will look at having the feature in some capacity. According to a patent filed at the Japan Patent Office (via Twinfinite), it seems like Sony’s Mark Cerny has devised a new implementation for backward compatibility that would work on a universal system level. Essentially, it would let the system (never referenced as PS5, but we can pretty much guess) check what software is running; if it is native software, nothing further is done, but if it is “legacy” software, the CPU spoofs its ID to make the software think it is running on the system it was developed for.

Of course, this is only one step in the process (you would need to have proper emulation or hardware compatibility to actually run the game), but this suggests, much like previously filed patents by Sony, that they are at least looking at the feature. Now the question is, what consoles would the PS5 be compatible with? PS4 is an easy guess, since by all accounts, PS5 will continue using x86-64, just like the PS4 did, but what about the older consoles? PS1? PS2? Dare I hope… PS3?

We’ll find out eventually, I hope. Right now all we can do is speculate.

Have you ever wondered exactly much effort goes into optimizing a game for the PlayStation 4 Pro? For that matter, is it possible that a developer could offer some benefit to the PS4 Pro version of a game that isn’t on other platforms? Granted, this varies from developer to developer but it was still interesting to speak to World of Tanks technical director Chris McCue for his thoughts on these questions.

We know that the PS4 Pro offers a higher resolution for PS4 titles but what other improvements were seen, especially when it comes to World of Tanks? McCue noted that, “Although the primary visual improvement for the PS4 Pro was the resolution increase, we made additional changes to improve shadow quality, ambient occlusion, and level of detail. In addition, for those players who have a PS4 Pro without a 4K television, we use the extra GPU power to improve our antialiasing at 1080p.”

McCue did confirm that there’s no direct comparison between the PC and PS4 Pro versions. “World of Tanks PC is developed independently from World of Tanks console, so there’s no direct comparison between the two. When comparing the PS4 Pro version to the base PS4, though, we’ve kept the differences strictly to the visual improvements described above because it’s important to us to maintain a consistent user experience. There are no new features that only exist on the PS4 Pro.”

PS4 Pro lead engineer Mark Cerny stated quite a while back that the overall effort to convert a PS4 title to PS4 Pro was roughly 0.2 to 0.3 percent of overall effort. Of course, since that depends on the developer and the resources available, we asked McCue if more work was needed than that.

He replied that, “It’s nearly impossible to measure some piece of work as a percentage of the overall effort of developing an entire game, so I don’t think we can speak to the accuracy of those numbers. The level of effort required was what we would consider reasonable for a new hardware platform, though.”

At the end of the day, the PS4 Pro is still a fairly powerful console but it’s obviously not the next big leap for the brand. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter even predicted that it will become the base PS4 model in the next few years with the PlayStation 5 bringing true native 4K to the forefront. What are your thoughts on the PS4 Pro and the amount of effort to optimize PS4 titles for it? Let us know in the comments below.

Though the PS4 Pro doesn’t have any exclusives (yet), it’s a given that optimizing one’s games for the PS4 while also keeping the PS4 Pro in mind can be a task. How difficult is it actually though, especially with lead engineer Mark Cerny saying it takes only a bit of effort?

GamingBolt spoke to Thumper developer Marc Flury from Drool and asked about developing on two SKUs as opposed to one and whether an incremental console upgrade was a good idea given the currently small market for 4K TVs.

“Thumper is just one SKU. Sony requires every game to support both Pro and normal PS4. It’s more work, but it’s nothing new. Every PC game has a much more complex set of hardware configurations to support. I’m not sure if it’s good move, but an upgraded option for ‘enthusiasts’ makes sense to me. As I mentioned, I think it’s a pretty conservative move.”

As for Cerny’s claims that only 0.2 to 0.3 percent of overall effort is required to convert a PS4 title to PS4 Pro, the developer replied, “It’s hard to quantify, but it’s not too much work. We were lucky because we could afford native 4K, so all I had to do was change some numbers. I didn’t spend time implementing any of the more sophisticated techniques other games use to approximate 4K resolution (e.g. 4K checkboard).”

Thumper is currently available for PS4, PS4 Pro and PC along with support for VR.

Yesterday it was revealed that Hideo Kojima’s upcoming action open world (and possibly horror) game Death Stranding will be running on Decima, an engine which has been largely developed by Guerrilla Games. This same engine will also power the upcoming role playing game Horizon Zero Dawn on the PlayStation 4. Ever since the PlayStation 3 era Guerrilla Games are known for pushing visual barriers and their partnership with Kojima Productions is a shining example why video game tech needs to be shared between different gaming companies. In this way, more intelligent minds will work on a single product resulting into amazing experiences…something that both Death Stranding and Horizon Zero Dawn are shaping up to be.

Following this announcement of the partnership, developers from Blizzard and Naughty Dog have shared their opinion on the matter. Drew Thaler from Naughty Dog believes that the partnership between Kojima Productions and Guerrilla Games is a ” hot match up” and they they are both “creative power houses” who will “raise the bar.”

Helder Pinto, who is a 3D artist at Blizzard also shared his views by stating that “Kojima partnering with Guerrilla interesting prospect. always said we as an industry need to share more and stop keeping our tech so secret” to which Anthony Vaccaro, environmental artist at Naughty Dog stated that such a policy depends from one company to another but however on the whole he hopes that the trend of sharing tech continues in the future.

What is your take on this matter? Do you think different games studios should share technology between them? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kojima Productions using Guerrilla's engine is a hot, hot matchup. Creative and technical powerhouses. They're going to raise the bar.

— @drewthaler@threads.net (@drewthaler) December 3, 2016

Really depends on the studio, so many are way to guarded. We've had tons of success sharing back and forth with 3rd party studios

— Anthony Vaccaro (@vaccaro3d) December 4, 2016

yeah I hope the trend continues and spreads more. Makes for better games to share tech 🙂

— Anthony Vaccaro (@vaccaro3d) December 4, 2016

Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding has been confirmed to be using the new Decima Engine, which is based off of Guerrilla Games’ technology that is being used for games like Horizon: Zero Dawn. At PlayStation Experience during a panel, PS4 system architect Mark Cerny talked about how the partnership between KojiPro and Guerrilla emerged.

Cerny first said he has no idea how far the engine could evolve. “I think what’s notable about Guerrilla Games’ technology, is that it’s not just graphics technology. It’s a great number of things. You design a world, you script AI for the enemies. It’s a very deep and intuitive toolset.

“I have absolutely no idea where it’s going to end. The one thing we know, as games companies that work on technology, is that it’s going to continue to evolve and get better. I could not hazard a guess as to where they’re going to take it.”

Interestingly enough, Guerrilla and KojiPro worked together on the same code, which was new to Cerny, and it’s to the point that you can’t tell who coded which lines. Most of it is still by Guerrilla though.

The collaboration came about primarily thanks to Cerny as he and Kojima traveled for two weeks and visited various studios, seeking the right tech for Death Stranding. The decision to go with Guerrilla was due to other studios’ engines being made for their own titles rather than open to others. The independence among staff in both Guerrilla and KojiPro was also noteworthy and helped the teams understand each other.

Death Stranding is in development currently for PS4 and PC.

The PS4 Pro is already being unboxed by many publications and Digital Foundry was able to reveal some information, courtesy of system architect Mark Cerny, about something called “geometry upscale rendering” that could be done for upscaling 4K.

Cerny talked about the technique being fairly low cost computationally and allowing for implementation within a few days. It also eliminates most jaggies and when compared to the time taken for checkerboard rendering (which many titles like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare are using), it takes much less time.

The technique is pulled off when the ID buffer and depth buffer are dissociated from the frame buffer – though the frame buffer is at 1080p, the other two buffers run at 4K, thus allowing for 4K geometry coverage but full HD resolution. The drawback is that the frame buffer’s 1080p resolution means that the full clarity and sharpness that comes from a frame buffer increase won’t be there.

This is more of a “quick solution” rather than proper implementation of 4K. It can also be used to make for less jaggies at 1080p than the base PS4 title while adding other visual effects thanks to the PS4 Pro’s advanced hardware.

What are your thoughts on the capability of the PS4 Pro in this regard? Let us know in the comments.

Interesting things are happening with Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro en route to its launch. As noted in its reveal, the upgraded console will allow for current gen PS4 titles to run at increased resolutions and feature improved visuals.

Speaking to Digital Foundry, system architect Mark Cerny revealed some of the changes that would be coming to PS4 titles that run on the PS4 Pro. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, for example, is currently being retooled as the team is “taking another look at rendering strategies,” according to Cerny.

Checkerboarding seems to be the popular technique among the majority of releases with nine of the 13 revealed utilizing it. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Days Gone and Horizon: Zero Dawn will all run up to 2160p resolution with checkboarding and super-sampling will bring these down to 1080p on full HD screens.

There is an anomaly though – Deus Ex: Mankind Divided uses checkerboard rendering and also adopts a dynamic frame buffer. This causes the resolution to shift between 1800p and 2160p depending on the complexity of some scenes. As for Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, it will use native rendering at a dynamic resolution so while the actual resolution can vary, it will generally fall between 80 to 90 percent of 4K.

The PS4 Pro is out on November 10th worldwide. What are your thoughts on its capabilities? Let us know below.

We already know that Hideo Kojima and Mark Cerny are on a road trip together. We also knew to pay attention to what the two are doing- we’re probably going to glean a lot about what they may have up their sleeves in the future that way.

And sure enough, we learned of a trip the two made to Sony’s London studio, where they had some fun with VR. With PlayStation VR. And given that Kojima is currently working on a brand new game that will be coming to the PS4, is it too unreasonable to speculate that he may also make that game VR compatible? And given that Cerny is also so into VR, is it unreasonable to speculate that Sony’s next machine may just go all in on VR?

Whatever it is, it’s fun to see Kojima and Cerny go all in on what might just be the future of gaming as a medium. Let’s wait to see what these two geniuses cook up for us next.

Visiting London VR team. Blurred out part of photo is the plan for their next VR experience — sorry! pic.twitter.com/PKnjzoLhVB

— Mark Cerny (@cerny) January 25, 2016