PlayStation clarifies it ‘believes PS5 will play majority of PS4 games’

PlayStation has moved to clarify PlayStation 5’s plans for backwards compatibility with PS4 games.

In a presentation on Wednesday, PS5 architect Mark Cerny said Sony expected almost all of the top 100 PS4 games to be playable on PS5 at launch.

In an updated statement published on Friday, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Hideaki Nishino said the company would test compatibility with “thousands” more PS4 games before PS5’s launch.

The platform holder believes that the “overwhelming majority” of PS4 games will be playable on PS5, Nishino claimed, but he did not provide a timescale for doing so.

The statement reads: “A quick update on backward compatibility – 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.

“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.

“In his presentation, Mark Cerny provided a snapshot into the Top 100 most-played PS4 titles, demonstrating how well our backward compatibility efforts are going.

“We have already tested hundreds of titles and are preparing to test thousands more as we move toward launch. We will provide updates on backward compatibility, along with much more PS5 news, in the months ahead. Stay tuned!”

Sony revealed the official PlayStation 5 hardware specifications on Wednesday, and confirmed new features related to expandable storage and 3D audio.

Microsoft also released the full Xbox Series X hardware specifications earlier this week, and shared new details about Xbox Series X’s own backwards compatibility, including how older games will look and play on the next-gen console.

As previously reported, Xbox Series X will be backwards compatible with existing Xbox One accessories and games, including backward-compatible Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles.

Improved resolutions and frame rates, and HDR support for backwards compatible games are proposed as system level features and the latter could be applied across the entire Xbox library, Microsoft said.