The PlayStation 5 may be getting full legacy backward compatibility in the near future as hinted at by a new patent. In its current form, the PS5 only allows people to play PS4 games on their console. Although not every PS4 game is playable on Sony's new console, the vast majority of its library is available and gives fans access to thousands of games that they may have missed over the last generation.

In 2020, it was heavily rumored that the PS5 would have full backward compatibility for PS1 to PS4 games. Of course, this panned out to be false, but that didn't stop fans from wanting to see it come to fruition. Xbox managed to get a good chunk of the biggest Xbox 360 games and a respectable number of original Xbox games playable on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, which proved to be a game-changer for Xbox as it allowed fans to revisit old games, pushing titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 near the top of the sales charts almost a decade after their original release. Sadly, Sony hasn't been able to capitalize on this as much.

Related: Biggest PS5 Exclusives Releasing In 2022

A new USPTO Report patent filed by Sony's Mark Cerny (via Shaun McIlroy) suggests that the company has figured out how to get older PlayStation titles to run on PS5. This would align nicely with the rumor that Sony is planning to include PS2 titles in an Xbox Game Pass competitor. Many believed these games would just be streamable through PS Now, but it seems like Sony figured out how to make it work natively. Whether this will allow players to pop in their old discs like Xbox fans can is unclear.

See the post on Twitter here.

The rumored Xbox Game Pass competitor from Sony is reportedly planning to launch in spring 2022, and the new patent seemingly adds credibility to an already fairly reputable rumor and may also suggest that Sony could be hosting some sort of event soon. After all, a new subscription service and backward compatibility would warrant some fanfare. It's worth noting that not all patents come to fruition, and the Sony news should still be taken with a grain of salt, especially due to the architecture of previous consoles which could make backward compatibility difficult.

It's unclear what the extent of this backward compatibility could be. The last wave of backward compatible Xbox games was released in November, and Microsoft noted it wouldn't be adding any more titles due to things like licensing issues, one of many obstacles Sony would have to overcome for backward compatible games on PS5. Hopefully an official announcement is imminent.

Next: PS5 Shortages Will Reportedly Be Countered By Making More PS4s

Source: Shaun McIlroy/Twitter, USPTO Report