Sony/Microsoft Backwards compatibility is always a requested feature of a new console from gamers everywhere. After all, if you’re trading up, you don’t really want all those old games you’ve invested time and money in to become unplayable, right?
While the Xbox One has done a great job with backwards compatibility this generation, Sony very much dropped the ball with the PlayStation 4. You can argue it didn’t need backwards compatibility because it has great exclusives of course, but the fact remains that it’s a missing feature that people want.
SonyThe good news is that it sounds like the next generation of consoles will have backwards compatibility all round. At least, that’s according to industry veteran Marc-André Jutras, formerly of Activision and Ubisoft, he’s currently working with Cradle Games on the upcoming science fiction RPG Hellpoint.
He told GamingBolt:
The PlayStation I think will do it. I know, was it the Xbox 360 where they had a backward compatibility list with the original Xbox? They had to approve the game title by title? I think that was weird, and I hope it won’t be like that. I prefer to have an emulator that will run all the games a console has, maybe with small bugs and glitches, instead of saying I have 50 games in my library and I can only play four of them because the others aren’t approved yet.
Jutras’ comments echo what a number of industry analysts and developers have been saying for a while now. While PS5 backwards compatibility isn’t confirmed, it has long been rumoured and is certainly at the top of many a list in terms of desired features.
It’d also make sense that Sony implement it, if only so they can continue to show off their dazzling lineup of PS4 exclusives for as long as possible. As far as the next Xbox is concerned, with backwards compatibility being such a key feature of the One, I’d be surprised if it didn’t carry over to the next gen.
There was also a recently uncovered patent from Sony that strongly hints towards backwards compatibility for the PS5, but we’re still a ways off from finding out for sure. The next generation of consoles isn’t expected to arrive until at least 2020.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.