PS5 May Be Fully Backwards Compatible

[Punisher5.0]

1 hour ago, Sknarp said:

So the PS5 indeed seems like it will have some level of PS4 compatability, which makes sense. When I first was told it would play any PS games I was skeptical because both the PS1 and PS2 used some pretty weird chips/engines AFAIK. Even the "backwards compatible" PS3's struggled to play most PS2 games.

Wiki page for the Emotion Engine

Hardly struggled. Some games have glitches but most run fine. The PS3 is actually powerful enough to completely emulate the PS2.

[Sknarp]

1 hour ago, Punisher5.0 said:

Hardly struggled. Some games have glitches but most run fine. The PS3 is actually powerful enough to completely emulate the PS2.

Eh, might just be my experience with it- I recall vice city being unplayably laggy and other games not working at all, but might have just been my system and my library that made me think it was struggling badly.

[Rick Dangerous]

Nope; as far as i'm concerned it's basically zilch.  100 top games? Please. 

 

I'm relieved really, can finally get of the console hardware rat race treadmill.

 

The Switch will be my final new console. 

[Atariboy]

Hopefully they will have extensive coverage of the lower tiers of the PS4 library as well.

 

I've read that it's just a quality assurance check with backwards compatibility apparently not quite perfect enough for Sony to be comfortable with fully unlocking it like on the competition, so all the less visible games should by and large be 100% compatible. They'll just need to be confirmed as problem free before Sony is comfortable with whitelisting them. So hopefully they'll have a large team to clear games and keep it going until the job is finished. 

 

I just hope they'll feel like they're able to clear games without publisher permission or if a game has expired licensing. If not, we're guaranteed of gaping holes in the compatibility list. Hopefully the former was taken care of on day 1 of signing contracts on the PS4 with publishers, after the troubles it caused with getting PSP content on PSN cleared for the backwards compatible Vita and PSTV.

 

And if we can just directly install our own discs and digital PS4 content without the need of downloading a recompiled PS5 version of each game, hopefully all of that legality nonsense won't apply that limited what Microsoft was able to do with games full of expired licensing like their own Project Gotham Racing franchise.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Atariboy

[zzip]

9 hours ago, Atariboy said:

Hopefully they will have extensive coverage of the lower tiers of the PS4 library as well.

 

I've read that it's just a quality assurance check with backwards compatibility apparently not quite perfect enough for Sony to be comfortable with fully unlocking it like on the competition, so all the less visible games should by and large be 100% compatible. They'll just need to be confirmed as problem free before Sony is comfortable with whitelisting them. So hopefully they'll have a large team to clear games and keep it going until the job is finished.

Yes, most likely.   I believe this is how MS handled Xbox 360 BC on the Xbox One,  once they added the feature, they would certify a number of titles to be compatible every month.

[Atariboy]

It was actually much more involved in that situation than just a quality assurance check to confirm that the game is operating correctly. Xbox 360 games actually had to be recompiled into a Xbox One version in order to work, which is why 360 discs are downloaded rather than installed directly when inserted into a XB1. 

 

The 360's GPU was the only component actually emulated on the XB1. The instructions for the triple-core PowerPC processor of the 360 are ran through an advanced translator that Microsoft has created that automatically converts it to X86 based code, which is then executed natively on the XB1's AMD CPU. Hence the need to recompile games. 

Edited March 20, 2020 by Atariboy

[zzip]

Sony clarified the backwards compatibility situation:

https://blog.us.playstation.com/2020/03/18/unveiling-new-details-of-playstation-5-hardware-technical-specs/

 

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!