Sony has reportedly instructed that new PS4 games be PS5 compatible

Sony has reportedly informed developers that any PS4 games submitted for certification from July 13 must also be compatible with PlayStation 5.

From this date, developers will be required to make sure that games sent to Sony for testing can run on both platforms.

For a game to be considered forwards compatible, the PS5 version must include the same feature set as the current-gen version, according to documentation published on PlayStation‘s internal Partner website and seen by Eurogamer.

It’s unclear whether Sony will launch a similar scheme to Xbox Smart Delivery, which will let players buy a game once and play it across Xbox One and Xbox Series X.

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.

“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,” Nishino added.

In comparison, Microsoft says Xbox Series X already plays thousands of games thanks to its advanced backwards compatibility support.

Discussing what it calls “the most powerful and compatible next-gen console” in a blog on Thursday, Xbox Series X director of program management Jason Ronald reiterated that the system will be backwards compatible with existing Xbox One games and accessories, including backward compatible Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles, which will “look and play better than ever before”.

Xbox Series X can increase the resolution of selected older games up to 4K and double their frame rates from 30 fps to 60 fps or 60 fps to 120 fps, with all the heavy lifting carried out at a system level, meaning no extra work is required by developers.

The console is also capable of automatically adding HDR support to older games, which will see significant reductions in in-game loading times too.