PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has confirmed that 99 percent of the PlayStation 4's library can be played on the PS5. The next-gen console finally got an official price tag of $499 USD/$629 CAD at today's showcase, which also revealed a lot of new games for the console, including Final Fantasy 16 and, oddly enough, a new Five Nights at Freddy's game. It also shared extended looks at previously announced games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon's Souls.
As busy as Sony is showing off its brand new console, it's clearly not prepared to leave the PS4 in the dust. The company has made the unconventional decision to release PS4 versions of several of its biggest next-gen titles to give a broader audience of PlayStation fans access to the eagerly anticipated new games. Sony's even offering a free next-gen upgrade for these titles when and if the players decide to make the upgrade. Between this development and the announcement of the PlayStation Plus Collection, which brings a large selection of PS4 classics to the PlayStation 5, Sony clearly isn't content to let the past stay in the past.
As for the games that aren't included in the PS Plus Collection, Sony has a plan for at least most of them. In a recent interview with The Washington Post, CEO Jim Ryan claimed that the company had tested thousands of PS4 games for backward compatibility on the PS5, and that 99 percent of them can be played without issue. No comment was given on the 1 percent that weren't supported or what they didn't have that the other 99 percent does.
Elsewhere in the interview Ryan spoke about the lifespan of the PS4 now that the PS5 is on the horizon. Ryan stated that he expects the PS4 to be supported by Sony for about four years before finally being retired. He said that "many will transition to PS5, we hope if we do our job well, but tens of millions will still be engaged with the PS4." The aforementioned next-gen games being made available on the PS4 is evidence of this continued support for the older console, and it's heartening for fans who've built up a lot of treasured memories on their PlayStation 4.
Technology is a tricky thing. It's no easy feat to design the next generation of gaming hardware and sufficiently distance it from its predecessor, and it's not surprising that a few games might get lost during the process. The news that almost every PS4 game will be playable on PS5 is definitely good for a lot of fans, but some clarity about why that 1 percent are missing, or even what those games not taking the leap might be, would be appreciated. Still, the important point is that if a PS4 game is chosen at random and put into a PlayStation 5, odds are very good that it will play without issue.
Source: The Washington Post