‘Overwhelming Majority’ of PS4 Games Will Be Playable on PlayStation 5
Sony finally releases more PS5 information today. | Source: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP
- Sony has provided an update on the backward compatibility capabilities of the PlayStation 5.
- The console will support the ‘overwhelming majority’ of PlayStation 4 games.
- Backward compatible titles will also benefit from a performance boost on the PlayStation 5.
Amid the barrage of information hurled at viewers during Mark Cerny’s PlayStation 5 deep-dive earlier this week was disappointing news about the console’s backward compatibility capabilities.
The PlayStation 5 would only support most of the top-100 most-played PlayStation 4 games at launch, said Sony.
The news was a long way from the rumors that have circulated as far back as last summer. These hinted at the PlayStation 5 offering backward compatibility for PS1, PS2, PS3, as well as PS4 games.
Would Sony add more titles down the line or would this be it?
PlayStation 5 Will Be Compatible With ‘Overwhelming Majority’ of PS4 Titles
Presumably sensing the disappointment, Sony has provided an update to a PlayStation.Blog post offering a summary of Cerny’s talk . The update focuses solely on backward compatibility and bears some good news.
Sony hopes that the ‘overwhelming majority’ of PlayStation 4 games will work on the PlayStation 5. The update reads:
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. We believe that the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5.
It may not be compatible with games from all the previous PlayStation consoles, but few would argue that it’s not good news.
Improved PS4 Game Performance
Sony didn’t stop there, though, revealing that the PlayStation 5’s impressive hardware has the potential to improve the performance of PS4 games. PlayStation’s Senior VP of Platform and Management, Hideaki Nishino, explains:
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.
Sony rounded off the update by promising more PlayStation 5 news in the months ahead.
