The PS5 launches in just a few months, but
will you be able to play all of your PS4 games
on it?
In this video, I’ll be breaking down everything
we know about PlayStation 5’s backwards
compatibility, and whether or not your PS4
games will work on PS5.
Let’s do this!
Mark Cerny first announced the specs of the
PS5 at his Road to PS5 talk back in March,
and he also briefly touched on backwards compatibility.
Cerny stated that Sony have been working on
backwards compatibility, and that 100 of most
played PS4 games were being tested with boosted
frequencies using the power of the PS5.
He followed this up by saying they believe
most of those 100 PS4 games will be available
to play on the PS5 at launch.
So does this mean that only 100 PS4 games
work on PS5?
No.
No it definitely does not.
Following that presentation, the official
PlayStation blog received an update to clarify
backwards compatibility.
According to this update, Sony believe the
overwhelming majority of over 4000 PlayStation
4 titles will be playable on PS5 by launch,
so what on earth was Mark Cerny claiming when
he said only 100 games would be playable.
The blog post implies that those 100 games
were the only ones actually tested at the
time of the presentation and are also the
only ones that are going to be receiving manual
optimisations.
I believe this may mean that those top 100
most played titles might receive updates to
support haptic feedback in the Dualsense,
adaptive triggers, ray tracing, 3D audio as
well as all the other features provided by
the PS5, whilst all those other games just
receive boosted frame rates and higher resolutions.
Something also interesting here, is if you
ask Google how many PS4 games there are, it
tells you there are only 2826, which is not
well over 4000 like the PlayStation blog leads
you to believe.
It seems the PS blog’s 4000 number, also
includes special editions games, as well as
DLC expansions.
So given all of this, it seems very clear
that by launch, you will be able to play all
of your PS4 games on your PS5, some of which
will have been severely upgraded.
A PlayStation blog in August, also confirmed
that the PSVR and PS camera will work on the
PS5, which means all PS4 VR titles should
also work by launch, also probably receiving
higher resolutions and frame rates.
In terms of how you actually download and
play your PS4 games, my guess is you can download
them via your library if you own the digital
copy, and you can also just insert a disc
if you own a physical copy, but for that you
would need the physical version of the PS5.
That does make me wonder if Sony will offer
some sort of method to verify that you purchased
the physical copy, and they then allow you
to convert that to a digital license to be
able to play it on your digital edition of
the PS5, but I don’t have any clue as to
how they could do this, without people just
sharing discs with all of their friends so
they all then get the digital license to that
game.
So will PS4 games work on PS5?
Yes!
From everything we know, it seems very clear
that all, 4000 PS4 games and special editions,
will be playable on PS5 at launch, with manual
upgrades being released to at least 100 of
them.
Will PS3, PS2, and PS1 games work on PS5 though?
For that, we simply haven’t heard enough,
but I personally believe that games from those
generations will be playable on the PS5, but
only if you have a PlayStation Now subscription
and you can then stream it via that service.
If you want to know if PS Now is worth it
or not, then click the video on screen now.
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