NEWS
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PlayStation has no plans to follow Xbox’s example with backwards compatibility
Microsoft Corp surprised Xbox fans at this year’s E3 by announcing that it would be introducing backwards compatibility to Xbox One. Meanwhile, fans of the PlayStation 4 eagerly awaited for Sony Corp to announce that it intended to follow suit, but it does not look like that will be happening anytime soon—or ever.
It seems that Sony was as surprised by Xbox’s announcement as everyone else was. “I didn’t think it was possible,” Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer. “There must be lots of engineering effort. They talked about 100 games, but what kind of games will be included? Is it smaller games or big games? We don’t know.”
The list of titles currently supported by Xbox One’s new backwards compatibility includes only a handful of popular games from the Xbox 360, but Microsoft plans on adding more in the near future.
Sony: “I never say never, but we have no plans”
Xbox One’s backwards compatibility feature works through an onboard emulator of an Xbox 360, which partly explains why a similar feature likely will not be coming to PlayStation 4.
“PS3 is such a unique architecture, and some games made use of SPUs very well,” Yoshida said. “It’s going to be super challenging to do so. I never say never, but we have no plans.”
The original model of the PlayStation 3 supported backwards compatibility for PlayStation 2 by essentially squishing two consoles in one case. That is why the later slim and super slim PlayStation 3 models no longer supported backward compatibility—the PlayStation 2 hardware had been removed to shrink the console’s size.
Sony does offer the ability to play PlayStation 3 games through PlayStation Now, but the service does not come cheap. Meanwhile, Xbox’s backwards compatibility allows players to use copies of games they already own.
Microsoft hopes that supporting last-gen games will convince gamers who are on the fence to finally buy an Xbox One.
“We expect millions of Xbox 360 owners to migrate and move to Xbox One,” Microsoft executive Aaron Greenberg told GameSpot earlier this week. “We see that the majority of people who buy an Xbox One today own an Xbox 360. So our fanbase has stayed very loyal.”
Greenberg said he expects the combination of backwards compatibility and upcoming games like Halo 5: Guardians and Gears of War Ultimate Edition will lead to a strong Holiday season for Xbox at the end of this year.
Photo by tandemsystemsltd
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