Surely the PlayStation Showcase event and the PS Plus Collection service have raised many questions about the backward compatibility of the PS5 . For months there has been speculation about the possibility that the new generation of consoles will offer to play previous titles, but Sony has kept this feature until the last day. Now we know the price and release date of PS5 , but during the presentation they did not make it very clear what this backward compatibility would consist of. At the same time they announced PS Plus Collection, a service that will bring together the best PS4 games. So can you play PS3 and PS4 games on PS5 ?
PS5 Backward Compatibility: Can PS3 Games Be Played?
Over the years, gamers have accumulated hundreds of video games in both physical and digital formats . Their main concern is whether they will be able to play their favorite games on upcoming consoles like PS5, whose launch is just around the corner. So there is more and more interest in backward compatibility, a term that until a few years ago we had not even considered. This feature allows the hardware to run data created for earlier versions such as PS3 or PS4 games. Instead, the companies have released remasters just months apart like The Last of Us on PS4.
The Last of Us was remastered for PS4 a year after its release.
Backward compatibility comes to PS5 to avoid this situation and leave previous games abandoned in a corner of the shelf. So far, Sony had not been clear on this matter and the actual details of the PS5 backward compatibility that will be limited to the previous generation games have not been known until the last moment . This means that users will not be able to play PS3 games on the brand new console, as well as on PS1 or PS2. Therefore, video games created specifically for these consoles cannot be played on PS5.
How PS5 Backward Compatibility Works
In this regard, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan confirmed that PlayStation 5 will be backward compatible with 99 percent of PS4 games thanks to Legacy Mode, a mode that guarantees perfect compatibility. But not from PS3, for example. This news has created a lot of debate because it is not about full backward compatibility as many players would have liked. The main limitations are due to the architecture of the consoles , since the PS5 has been created following the structure of the PS4.
“We took into account the specialized engineering for the PS5, as we produced the device. In between that, the PS4 already had 100 million players; We thought they might want to play PS4 titles on PS5 as well, so we included PS4 support, ″ explained Ryan. However, he confirmed that problems were encountered implementing that: “We focused our efforts on incorporating the high-speed SSD and the new DualSense controller at the same time. Then, unfortunately, we could not achieve the implementation of such compatibility « .
These internal differences have made playing PS3 games on PS5 impossible . This does not mean that full compatibility is ruled out for the future, but at the moment it simply is not possible. Therefore, the only way to play them is to run a remaster created for PS4 in physical or digital format. As explained by Ryan, the PS5 reader will support the PS4 video game discs to be able to install and run normally. But as an additional service they have created a virtual library with the most important PlayStation 4 video games called the PS Plus Collection, to which all PlayStation Plus subscribers will have digital access.
