Sony PS4 Backward Compatibility

[owsf2000]

People were excited for a while there that Sony was going to answer Microsoft's bid for favor by working on 360 BC on the Xbone. Apparently Sony had quietly enabled PS2 BC recently as well. Among the musings over what it meant, my prediction on forums ended up being correct. This isn't disc-based BC people were hoping it would be - where you'd be able to put in your old PS2 discs into the PS4 and play the games natively. (Like early PS3 models)

Instead it was pretty much what I figured it would be. The emulation is intended to let them add PS2 games to the PS4's digital store - since the PS3 versions of those PS2 games aren't compatible. (Those were partly emulated, partly re-compiled code.) As a result, at present at least, you can look forward to rebuying the games you bought on the PS3 all over again, unless Sony decides to set it up so that you get the PS4 version if you already have the PS3 version, and make them cross-buys going forward.

Otherwise you can pay 14.99/game. I'm not sure if that's the same price as the PS3 versions or not anymore to be honest.

In short, as far as consumers are concerned, there is no BC on the PS4. The emulator the PS4 has is just so Sony can easily add new titles for you to repurchase.

And this means my interest in the PS4 can safely stay at 0%. A whopping 100% higher than the Xbone. I guess the Wii U will have a monopoly on my current-gen gaming budget next year. (Yeah, despite the inferior stats, I still place the Wii U in with the PS4/Xbone since it's still commercially supported.)

Mind you, I'll probably be buying more retro stuff overall.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

One the one hand, I'm kind of surprised that they offered it at all, in any form, but on the other hand, I'm not surprised in the slightest that they only offered it as digital downloads (aka THE FUTURE™). This is, after all, the modern video game industry that we're talking about here. In any case, there are very few PS1, PS2, or PS3 games that I'd much care to repurchase, through any means (either via the PS4 store or by actually going out and rebuying a PS1/PS2/PS3 and the physical games).

So far, I still don't have much interest in even getting a Wii U at this point, much less a PS4. (And I don't think there's a need for me to go yet again into how I feel toward the X-bone. Even negative-100% interest is still much too high compared to my own level of interest in it. ¬_¬)

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I think there's about 10 games on the Wii U I wouldn't mind picking up to play at some point, although the one that would probably seal the deal would be the next Zelda game which was announced in 2014. And then absent from the last E3... Which means we might be looking at a 2017 release for it at this point, since Nintendo has said they generally only show off games they expect to ship within the next year. Still, Hyrule Warriors, Splatoon, and the various staples already on the system are interesting enough to want the system.

The real problem I have with Sony doing this highly limited repurchasing brand of emulation is the fact that we'll only ever get a tiny portion of the library made available. And most of the games I use to enjoy were niche titles that aren't likely to see a re-release in this fashion. Perhaps where the emulator will make it piss easy for them to release things compared to on the PS3 where some retinkering was needed for every game, (Actual work), there will be hope for more niche titles but at that point it'll probably fall on companies re-aquiring licenses for games they brought over from Japan and whether they'll consider it worthwhile doing so. That and I don't like them doing this at all if it's almost entirely a pure emulator solution this time around (although the emulator apparently adds in trophies by looking for specific conditions/checks/etc. yippie. 9_9)

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

And, of course, there's the usual "access to everything will be lost when they inevitably turn off Store support for the PS4 in a decade or so" issue as well. So if one did get a PS4 and did want older games from the Store on it, one had better buy them as soon as possible and then hope against hope that they don't additionally require some sort of online access just to be able to use (like most indie games on the 360 did, and likely still do, for all I know).

(EDIT) For the record, if I ever do get a PS4 someday, it will likely be near the end of its life cycle. As such, I very likely won't go too deeply at all into the Store aspect of it, just for that very reason. (/EDIT)