PS5 reportedly won’t have its own Xbox Smart Delivery alternative

PlayStation 5 will reportedly not have a unified free cross-generation upgrade program like Xbox’s Smart Delivery.

Instead, Sony will leave such upgrade programs to the discretion of third-party publishers, an SIE spokesperson reportedly told Japanese publication GameSpark (translated by VGC).

According to the publication, an SIE spokesperson said it “plans to be as flexible as possible in supporting any publishers choosing to provide upgrade plans.”

Microsoft’s Smart Delivery is an initiative which means players “only have to purchase a title once in order to play the best available version for whichever Xbox console they choose to play on”.

This is separate from Xbox Series X backwards compatibility, which will run legacy games at current-gen or increased performance levels.

In a blog post on Monday, Microsoft confirmed both physical and digital games will support Smart Delivery, including Game Pass titles.

Although Sony will reportedly not be actively promoting a cross-gen program, its stance on third-party developers is not unlike Xbox’s, which allows studios to decide for themselves whether to support Smart Delivery or not.

And while it’s not yet clear if Sony intends to offer free cross-gen upgrades for its own first-party titles, the platform holder is yet to announce any games planned for both PS4 and PS5.

Electronic Arts said this week that owners of physical PS4 copies of Madden NFL 21 will not be able to upgrade to PS5 if they own the Digital Edition console (they will be given a free upgrade if they own the PS5 console with a disc drive). The SIE spokesperson reportedly declined to comment on this policy when approached by GameSpark.

VGC has contacted Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe for clarification.

Further reading

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EA’s Smart Delivery alternative currently won’t upgrade physical PS4 games for the digital-only PS5

Publisher "looking at solutions to support players who want to convert their physical copy to a digital entitlement"

In March, PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny said Sony expects almost all of the top 100 PS4 games to be playable on PS5 at launch.

In a follow-up statement, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Hideaki Nishino said the company believes “the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5”, although he didn’t say when that might be.

Sony has reportedly informed developers that any PS4 games submitted for certification from mid-July must also be compatible with PS5.