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[Aidah]

It would be cool if you can pop in a game disc from any of the previous generations and play it, but neither Xbox nor Playstation come close to that.

Personally, the most I've used backwards compatibility on console was using Wii U to play Wii games I missed out on.

Anyway, I think even a total lack of backwards compatibility would ultimately not affect the decision to purchase, just like its inclusion wouldn't guarantee it. However, if it's there then there's no doubt that it would make the console even better, and it could come in handy, even if rarely.

I should note though that I've been buying almost all multiplats on PC for around 12 years now, and all those games are sitting there ready to be played whenever and in better performance than what my hardware at the time could do. This no doubt makes backwards compatibility on console less important to me because it only affects exclusives and console only games.

 

[gamerforever]

I care about it to the extent that i can replay my ps4 games on it as I don’t particularly want two PlayStations near the tv. Apart from that does anyone given older games more than 10 minutes? I guess if they are improved vastly i would want to replay them in full, but there’s too much to play out there, so I wouldn’t really replay them, maybe play them for the first time.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Backwards compatibility doesn't harm. It enhances library quite a bit if games are available digitally at same time.

I wonder what I would've done with Vita if BC was not there.

Definitely considering series x strongly cause of it.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

I'm not envious, I think I own like 2 Xbox 360 games and 1 OG Xbox Game on my X1X HDD and no back catalog of PlayStation games. Honestly going back and playing OG Xbox or PS1-PS2 games wouldn't be as fun as people make it out to be. Controls have gotten better, games feel better overall to play etc. Go back and play GTA San Andreas and feel how stiff the game is, goes for most titles. Also I'm not sure about XSX but with the X1X BC for older games really varied in quality, before they gave it that "4K" love The Witcher 2 looked worse than it did when playing it on a 360, it was a blurry mess and I couldn't bring myself to play it. I know there are differences with displays as well, upscaling from sub 720p on a 4K set isn't exactly a recipe for great picture quality. I think BC with games from this gen on will be important because the games we have now generally look very good as opposed to games from 15-20 years ago.

 

[Relativ9]

I missed a bunch of big games this generation (all AC's after Black Flag, Horizon, Death Stranding, Spiderman, ect) and I'll skip GoT and TLOU2 because my PS4 sounds like a jet engine, so if I can play those on PS5 in 4K that's a pretty big feature to me.

However, I don't feel the need to go back and play older (non-HD) games that are emulated (not remade/remastered), if need be I can do that on my PC and they rarely hold up.

So yes and no.

 

[laynelane]

It's not a deal breaker for me, but I do miss it with the PS4. I still have my PS3 hooked up so there's no problem playing PS3 or PS1 games and I've purchased many of my favourite PS2 games on PS3 and still have a working PS2 - but I really enjoyed the ease of full backwards compatibility like the PS2 had.

 

[Hardvlade]

I love backwards compatibility and honestly it's one of the best things MS has done. The fact that they're looking to improve (Some*) current Xbox One games to 4k and double the frames (30 to 60 and from 60 to 120) is awesome. Even though there's a lot of old games I wouldn't replay, there's still some fantastic games out there that some people love going back to.

I hope they continue to improve and adding more games to the backwards compatible catalog or enhancing some of the old favorites. I still hope that they double the frame rates on Red Dead Redemption, game looks fantastic on the Xbox One X as it is.

 

[Ovek]

I couldn’t give a shit about backwards compatibility. However I do give MS major props for going balls deep on the feature and not monetising it for the gamers that do care.

 

[bender]

It's my favorite feature of the Xbox One X and I used it way more than I thought I would. Played through Red Dead Redemption, Forza Horizon and Panzor Dragon Orta. I still tinker around with Burnout 3, Virtua Fighter 5 and Sould Calibur. I sill need to spend more time with Chaos Theory, Double Agent and Ninja Gaiden.

 

[godhandiscen]

I like Microsoft’s BC. However, if they had more exclusives launching perhaps I wouldn’t be playing such old games. I would trade BC any day for more exclusive new experiences.
Since Halo 5, I think Ori 2 is the only Xbox exclusive worth a shit for me, and that’s sad; Halo 5 released almost 5 years ago.
As a fan of Xbox, I don’t understand the defense force anymore. We should be shaming the Xbox leaders, not praising them.
If you enjoy Halo, you have barely anything to be happy about this gen. If you enjoy Crackdown, you have nothing. If you enjoy Fable, you have nothing. If you enjoyed Ninja Gaiden 1/2, you have nothing. If you enjoyed MechWarrior, you have nothing. Etc, etc.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Got into a random Twitter spat with a troll who may as well change his user name to "Transcendent Gaming Expert" as he tried to maintain that nobody cares about backwards compatibility.
This person used the fact that PlayStation 4 selling 110 million units was proof of the fact and that PlayStation 3 sold much better without it. I made the point that the PS4 was a very well supported device which was priced well, better designed than it's opposition, a huge improvement on it's predecessor, much better supported and capitalising on the misfortune of the competition. I also stated that the success of the PlayStation 3 wasn't due to the removal of a feature nobody wanted, it was due to the fact that removing the hardware required to do so in the PS3 Slim re-design lowered the price and barrier to entry significantly. Also considering that Sony started to pump out first party gold at this time and they were getting third parties back on good terms was a huge change of fortunes also. But nope, apparently we just got rid of something people didn't want and we printed money.

But I would argue that, that simply isn't true.

The closer we get to the new consoles, the more I find myself becoming envious about the backward compatibility Microsoft offers. I'm an avid PlayStation fan at heart and PlayStation was my childhood. I was old enough to be there when Sony were revolutionising the console business and I've been here since. But as an adult with children, a fiancee, a mortgage, a car etc. I find my finances limited and can only afford one console. I tend to stick to what I know but also in part, because Microsoft never really had a first party line-up where I had to break the bank and get an XBOX.

However, I do have an extensive collection of games from PS1 to PS4, including both PSP and Vita. Looking at what Microsoft is doing with backward compatibility is really to be applauded. If I really want to enjoy my PS2 collection in better quality, I either have to dig up my 60GB behemoth PlayStation 3 that currently sounds like a jet engine taking off or spend hours pissing around with an emulator on my moderately powerful PC, though the emulation offers much better quality visually and in terms of performance which is what I want really. There are so many great games that aren't going to get remade or sold again because nobody knows who holds the licences. Publishers and developers from days gone, Midway, Acclaim, Probe, THQ. Too many to count. These aren't going to be listed to an online store and honestly the PS2 selection of games is embarrassing on PlayStation 4.

Now for me, it isn't a deal breaker that there isn't universal backwards compatibility here. But the fact that this new console is powerful enough to be able to offer me the ability to play all of my games in a much higher quality through emulation is quite disheartening. I have well over 1,000 games. I enjoy playing older games. A great example is The Darkness, 2K clearly have no intentions of remastering the PS3/360 games, nor make a sequel. But wouldn't it be great to pop it into my PS5 and see HDR added, the frame rate stabalised or increased and resolution increased? I really want to play InFamous 2 like that but somehow Sony haven't remastered those games. Maybe if I could do that when I fancy playing Ghost in the Shell on PS1 or PS2, when I pick up Nightmare Creatures, Persona 4 or even Persona 4 Golden. Those many games locked on platforms gone where we can't reasonably enjoy them now like Soul Sacrifice or Crisis Core.

How do you feel about backward compatibility in the modern climate of gaming? Is it a must? Do you care? Discuss.

Why is this even a thread when ps5 will have as already mentioned thousands of bc ps4 games? Bc has been a part of ps family since early consoles just not in 3 due to the cell. PS5 more than likely won't have ps3, 2,1 bc but come on let's stop the hyperbolic stuff a very very small minority care about bc from those older consoles and some cant even bring themselves to play ps 1 or 2 games due to the jarring difference in graphics.

BC is such a big focus on Microsoft because let's be honest thy have been lacking in the contemporary game department. I had bc in my ps3 and never used it, didn't miss it in 4 and will rarely use it on 5 except to maybe replay Bloodborne.

 

[phil_t98]

I think Back Compat is more important than ever. When we get our shiny new consoles later this year. There will be a few games at launch people will but but they will still have access to there PS4 and Xbox one library’s. Digital content is becoming the de facto way to buy games and there shouldn’t be any reason why it shouldn’t be accessible on a new console

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Nobody want BC?

Shure out of the 15 same vocals guys here and on reee. In fact, it's the number one most wanted and request feature. Being affordable comes after that. That's a huge mistake from Sony.

After 2 PS3 slim, i've devided to sell them and get a fat. It's now a dex console. I can play PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP on it. Games look great... at a certain point, i'm not shure i want to upgrade anymore. 2d PS1 and 2 games look so good on PS3... and there are soooooo many.

 

[darkinstinct]

BC is the most important thing if you buy digital. Not losing your property is essential. If I bought physical I could just sell those discs, but my digital library becomes worthless without BC. I have 871 digital games on Xbox One (including Xbox and Xbox 360). I have 57 digital games on PS4. I expect to keep them playable. If they are not, I would just go PC.
And having enhancements is awesome for the early gen, when we are starved for next gen games.

 

[Trimesh]

I've always been Sony first but....

BC is important.

It should be done.

Microsoft is doing an excellent job.

Sony should have begun working on its response when 360 compatibility was being rolled out to Xbox One.

The state of backwards compatibility today should be downright humiliating to Sony.

Without wishing to minimize MSes efforts, they do have a big advantage - a few years back they decided they needed their own virtualization product to compete with VMWare and they went on a buying spree for as many virtualization companies as they could get their hands on. Since this is a highly specific and esoteric area, they ended up with a in-house talent pool in this area that would be difficult to match.

Sony, despite having a lot of good engineers, don't have a group that specializes in this area - with the PS2 they went with a hybrid approach and used the PS2 I/O processor as the main processor for the PS emulation mode (easy to do since they were both based on the same R3000 core), implemented some parts in hardware (like the PS GTE) and emulated the GPU using the PS2 main CPU. On the PS3, they promised PS2 back compatibility up front but then found that their initial planned approach (emulating the PS2 on Cell) was Just Too Hard and had to adopt the very expensive plan B of effectively putting all the PS2 silicon inside the PS3 as a subsystem. This obviously worked very well, but it added a lot of cost. With the later models, the BC stuff was removed and it seemed a lot of people didn't care.

With the PS4, no mention was made of backwards compatibility at all - this was probably a mix of not wanting to get into the same hole they did with the PS3 where announcing the feature early ended up forcing them to spend significant extra money on implementing it and the recognition that there were some things the Cell was by any standards extremely fast at.

Although not wishing to tempt fate, I really can't see the PS5 not having at least PS4 BC because it would be pretty much trivial to implement.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Without wishing to minimize MSes efforts, they do have a big advantage - a few years back they decided they needed their own virtualization product to compete with VMWare and they went on a buying spree for as many virtualization companies as they could get their hands on. Since this is a highly specific and esoteric area, they ended up with a in-house talent pool in this area that would be difficult to match.

Sony, despite having a lot of good engineers, don't have a group that specializes in this area - with the PS2 they went with a hybrid approach and used the PS2 I/O processor as the main processor for the PS emulation mode (easy to do since they were both based on the same R3000 core), implemented some parts in hardware (like the PS GTE) and emulated the GPU using the PS2 main CPU. On the PS3, they promised PS2 back compatibility up front but then found that their initial planned approach (emulating the PS2 on Cell) was Just Too Hard and had to adopt the very expensive plan B of effectively putting all the PS2 silicon inside the PS3 as a subsystem. This obviously worked very well, but it added a lot of cost. With the later models, the BC stuff was removed and it seemed a lot of people didn't care.

With the PS4, no mention was made of backwards compatibility at all - this was probably a mix of not wanting to get into the same hole they did with the PS3 where announcing the feature early ended up forcing them to spend significant extra money on implementing it and the recognition that there were some things the Cell was by any standards extremely fast at.

Although not wishing to tempt fate, I really can't see the PS5 not having at least PS4 BC because it would be pretty much trivial to implement.

"really can't see the PS5 not having at least PS4 BC because it would be pretty much trivial to implement"

Again what's this about? It's already been confirmed ps5 will have extensive bc. Is this early 2019 again when ppl were guessing? We are way past the guessing phase. All ps consoles have had bc minus ps4. Cerny and Sony have gone on record saying ps5 will have bc and more.

 

[GametimeUK]

I'm in a weird space for this. Backwards compatibility is a reason I love PC gaming, but I don't really care much for it on consoles. It might be because PC handles it in a far superior way, but it looks like Xbox is playing a bit of catch up and enhancing old games which is great. Either way I'll buy the PS5 regardless so in that sense it doesn't matter to me, but it's a reason why PC is my main platform.

 

[longdi]

I'm in a weird space for this. Backwards compatibility is a reason I love PC gaming, but I don't really care much for it on consoles. It might be because PC handles it in a far superior way, but it looks like Xbox is playing a bit of catch up and enhancing old games which is great. Either way I'll buy the PS5 regardless so in that sense it doesn't matter to me, but it's a reason why PC is my main platform.

consoles used to be island'ed buy and play whenever you want, cheaper box.
Now the hype is to build ecosystem on top of them. So more people are joining in, more 'casual' expectations needs to be supported.
Tbf even apple store dont support all legacy apps. It is a tricky point for me to argue!

 

[Bryank75]

consoles used to be island'ed buy and play whenever you want, cheaper box.
Now the hype is to build ecosystem on top of them. So more people are joining in, more 'casual' expectations needs to be supported.
Tbf even apple store dont support all legacy apps. It is a tricky point for me to argue!

That's only a necessity for Xbox...I feel Nintendo and Sony are fine without abandoning the closed platform model. It could in fact harm them and their model in the long term.

 

[kuncol02]

I personally find it strange just how much some people need you to know how little they care. Apparently not caring = at least one paragraph per BC thread about how much of a waste it is, and usually steering the conversation to sales or 1st party or something else entirely irrelevant to the topic given that, at least in MS’s case, the BC implementation and upkeep has zero negative impact on either sales or first party. It’s not even entertaining trolling, it’s just hot air.

I could bet, that if situation would be reversed, then same people would wrote in every thread that BC is most important function ever.

 

[-YFC-]

Yes, BC is very important. Especially in the first year or two of console's life cycle. So it impacts my decision, yeah.

 

[Gamernyc78]

I could bet, that if situation would be reversed, then same people would wrote in every thread that BC is most important function ever.

So cliche and expected. Ppl talk with their wallets right? Xbox one had bc right? Ps4 did not, let's take a guess which console outsold the other almost 3:1. Come on bro bc is a gd feature but not a system seller. Ps3 bc when it was there wasnt hailed by gamers as the must have feature back then just like it isn't now.

 

[ZehDon]

In terms of “stuff my new expensive console should do”, play my old games is pretty high on the list. Sharing game screenshots to Facebook, on the other hand, isn’t in my top 100. If PlayStation 5 doesn’t launch with PS1 and PS2 compatibly, and are this stage I highly doubt that it will, thats a huge selling point for Microsoft. If Sony are so proud of their library of exclusives that they don’t want them on digital services, why lock them to hardware that they don’t manufacture anymore?

I’m currently playing through my original KOTOR OG Xbox game on my One S, and it’s pretty magical. Conker: Live and Reloaded is next. Then MechAssault. Selling these older titles digitally is a way to preserve our gaming history, while making money, while offering literally the best games ever made for generations to come, all while getting players to invest in your ecosystem and stay connected to your brand for literally decades.

GamePass and multi-gen BC are great PR and good business for Microsoft. Sony needs to wake up.

 

[Gamernyc78]

In terms of “stuff my new expensive console should do”, play my old games is pretty high on the list. Sharing game screenshots to Facebook, on the other hand, isn’t in my top 100. If PlayStation 5 doesn’t launch with PS1 and PS2 compatibly, and are this stage I highly doubt that it will, thats a huge selling point for Microsoft. If Sony are so proud of their library of exclusives that they don’t want them on digital services, why lock them to hardware that they don’t manufacture anymore?

I’m currently playing through my original KOTOR OG Xbox game on my One S, and it’s pretty magical. Conker: Live and Reloaded is next. Then MechAssault. Selling these older titles digitally is a way to preserve our gaming history, while making money, while offering literally the best games ever made for generations to come, all while getting players to invest in your ecosystem and stay connected to your brand for literally decades.

GamePass and multi-gen BC are great PR and good business for Microsoft. Sony needs to wake up.

Huge selling point? I see the goal posts are moving again. Now tht ps5 is confirmed to have ps4 bc it becomes "if it doesn't play ps1, 2,3," games it's a huge loss lol bro most ppl do not and don't want to play those older games I think you need to wake up and realize that. Ps4 outsold Xbox one with no bc almost 3:1 tht tells you how important that is on the totem poll and again ps5 has bc for ps4 and then some, it's a moot point.

 

[cHaOs667]

So cliche and expected. Ppl talk with their wallets right? Xbox one had bc right? Ps4 did not, let's take a guess which console outsold the other almost 3:1. Come on bro bc is a gd feature but not a system seller. Ps3 bc when it was there wasnt hailed by gamers as the must have feature back then just like it isn't now.

BC was announced at E3 2015 and got released later that year. Back then the generation was already lost for Microsoft. And BC is an amazing feature - one of my sons loves to play the OG Star Wars Battlefront from the first Xbox - even though he has access to the newer Battlefront titles.

 

[Blood Borne]

We have ample hard evidence that BC has little or no effect on sales. This is not an opinion, this is just pure fact/hard data.

BC is a nice to have but only a super minority care about BC. I personally don’t care.

 

[klosos]

Well BC is massive for me personally, i have been noticing the last couple of years BC has become more and more important. I like a lot of you don't have much time anymore to really sit down and play hours upon hours on a game and the few hours a week i do get to really enjoy gaming i want that time spent on a game that i know i will like. that's where BC comes into it, why should i shill out £45 on a game ( Days Gone / Gears 5) which i might like , which i might not . when i know i can load up ME trilogy and enjoy that again.

Also Digital is coming more and more ingrained in console gaming and that's something the higher's up at Sony need to think about as well when discussing BC.

However that might also be having modern gaming fatigue.

 

[kuncol02]

Now tht ps5 is confirmed to have ps4 bc

There was thread lately, that it was removed from specification on PS5 page.

 

[Steve.1981]

For me personally, BC is essential.

I value replaying older games that I know & love, just like I value reading LotR or Dune again, or watching Aliens for the 15th time. These days I don't rush out there buying every new game. I buy stuff that appeals to me & will be replayable. Also buy my games digital now & I want to know that my purchase is not arbitrarily tied to one box.

Just checked & I currently have 39 OG Xbox & 360 titles on my external drive, with a further 26 ready to be downloaded again when I choose. 65 great games, that's a lot for me but I'm sure people out there will have much bigger libraries. I've played them all more than once & every one is worth another play through at some point. Why would I want to lose access to these great games. Why would I not want to enjoy them again. That makes no sense to me.

Xbox are making all the right moves with BC & have been for years now. They've made it clear that they're commited to BC through both words & actions. I couldn't be happier with that.

 

[shaddam]

Fuck gaming "journalism"

 

[M1chl]

We have ample hard evidence that BC has little or no effect on sales. This is not an opinion, this is just pure fact/hard data.

BC is a nice to have but only a super minority care about BC. I personally don’t care.

I mean, why is emulators getting such a huge fuss lately, with all those "retro consoles" and stuff...

 

[sobaka770]

I don't see the harm in having good BC.

That being said I tend not to replay older games and go for newer stuff instead. Most big-profile games I do replay, I either mod on my PC (which no BC can match - just look at Witcher retexture and lighting mods) or they tend to get a remake or remaster which is once again a bigger effort than just porting. I'm happy that series X will do by default enhancements for all the games, I think Sony really made a big problem for itself with the Cell processor on PS3 but most PS4 games will be compatible and PS2-1 era games are just too old and clunky for me to care. Overall it's still the strength of newer releases that I'm mostly looking forwards to.

 

[Self]

I absolutely want full BC.
Thing is the old games look plain ugly on a new set. I want advanced BC. Higher resolution, framrate etc.

MS is doing the right thing.

But to be fair Sony has a much greater library to process and adept.

 

[Reficul]

Microsoft is doing a great job with BC, there's no question about that. And I'm happy for anyone who wants to play, and is able to play their old games on new hardware.
For me personally it's no big deal. I remember buying the fat PS3 thinking the BC would come in handy. It didn't.
I still have that same PS3 as I thought it would come in handy when I felt the urge to play my old games after purchasing a PS4. It hasn't.

It's a nice to have feature for me, not a must have.

 

[T-Cake]

I'm in a weird space for this. Backwards compatibility is a reason I love PC gaming, but I don't really care much for it on consoles. It might be because PC handles it in a far superior way, but it looks like Xbox is playing a bit of catch up and enhancing old games which is great. Either way I'll buy the PS5 regardless so in that sense it doesn't matter to me, but it's a reason why PC is my main platform.

I'm kind of the opposite. With each passing year, the number of titles on PC that start getting issues (either because of driver updates or Windows updates) increases. They no longer work without having to edit some configuration file or add a user patch. If the Xbox can keep adding more titles to backward compatibility, it would be my de facto choice of hardware to play those older games as they simply "just work" and I'm not bothered about modding old games with better visuals on PC.

 

[Bankai]

ABSOLUTELY

Cenry doesn't seem te be willing to invest in it. He's all for "the generational leap", as he said many times before. I hear that as "just keep your old hardware and move on". I don't like that and would LOVE added features like better fps, AF, AA, HDR and the likes in PS3 games (so many gems locked on that platform).

 

[cormack12]

Got into a random Twitter spat with a troll who may as well change his user name to "Transcendent Gaming Expert" as he tried to maintain that nobody cares about backwards compatibility.

How do you feel about backward compatibility in the modern climate of gaming? Is it a must? Do you care? Discuss.

OK, that first sentence cracked me up. People are weird.

I generally don't play games from previous generations when the new consoles hit. There may be a few rare exceptions. However, remasters and remakes were kind of a new thing for this generation (or at least the ratio of them), which leads to a bit of a conundrum.

I'm guessing a lot of titles will be releasing on current gen and not have an equivalent immediately available when the new consoles launch. They may take a few months afterwards to arrive. I'd expect the big studio's to be ready day 1 like Ubisoft. But there are a lot of other titles that we're not sure about. So yeah, it would be nice to be able to have the new console and know I could use BC to play GoT for example - I'm guess flagship titles this late will be precompiled with this in mind but nothing is concrete. At the moment it's hazy as to how that will be delivered, hopefully more details will be shown at the reveal events.

And i hope we get something more than the half arsed 'boost mode' on Pro. the auto scaling on Xbox sounds pretty good, and the games I've seen use it like RDR look like they give solid results.

 

[Clear]

BC is a nice bonus, but if you have a steady stream of new games to experience its not all that relevant.

MS is using BC mainly as filler. They simply needed a lot of product this gen to make up for an undeniably thin first-party and exclusive line-up while maintaining old/establishing new service offerings.

As a sales driver... well we have evidence from this gen as to how its not a difference maker. Next gen this gap is certain to be closed somewhat as Sony will be offering at least some (likely most, or even all) of the PS4 line-up which itself incorporates titles from the older Sony hardware either remastered or emulated....

 

[slade]

It's important to me in that the games I've bought digitally on PSN be available to play on future Sony devices. It is a trade off you make in order to never be able to resell them. It is the one feature I am envious of on Xbox.

 

[mejin]

BC is good, but not essential.

PS5 BC with PS4 is already huge per se.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

BC is one of those things that people think they want and will use but in reality most people don't. It's important to have for next gen because I think people in general don't like getting rid of shit they paid for unless they have to.

 

[ZehDon]

Huge selling point? I see the goal posts are moving again. Now tht ps5 is confirmed to have ps4 bc it becomes "if it doesn't play ps1, 2,3," games it's a huge loss lol bro most ppl do not and don't want to play those older games I think you need to wake up and realize that. Ps4 outsold Xbox one with no bc almost 3:1 tht tells you how important that is on the totem poll and again ps5 has bc for ps4 and then some, it's a moot point.

What goal posts did I set and then move? Who is this post responding to? Who are you talking to?

Your logic is straight up broken - most people don't have 4k TVs, should Sony drop 4k support? Most people don't have surround sound setups, should Sony drop surround sound support? - on top of your sweeping generalisations being self-evidently wrong and factually incorrect. Half of all Xbox One users use backwards compatibility - a fact given in response to the ignorant notion that "lol bro most ppl do not and dont want to play those older games". It's usage has only grown as more and more games were added to the compatibility list. Older titles often move in and out of vogue. Skate3 - an Xbox 360 game - was famously re-printed after the Xbox One launched. Why? Because most people really don't mind playing older games as long as they're good. And there's a lot of great ones out there.

Today's fun facts:
Who first established that Backwards Compatibility was even something consoles could do? Sony, with the PlayStation 2.
Who first established Multi-Generational Backwards Compatibility was something consoles could do? Sony, with the PlayStation 3.
Who decided that they couldn't make enough money on it so abandoned the feature set only to sell up-scaled emulated PS2 titles at inflated prices for their new console? Why, Sony of course, with the PlayStation 4. (PS3 emulation has a technical reason for being very difficult, so I won't dock points for that).

Microsoft have picked up the ball that Sony ran with but ultimately dropped, and they're reaping the benefits. Sony simply don't do it because they don't consider the return worth the effort. Millions of PlayStation fans with massive libraries of cherished classics disagree with that notion. So do Microsoft, so do a lot of other people, judging from this thread alone. So, please, stop speaking for millions of people you clearly don't represent on topics you clearly don't understand.

 

[MadchesterManc]

Its a nice feature to have, but it's not a system seller for me. I still have most of my old systems and it only takes a few minutes to set them up.

Props to Microsoft's for their emulation efforts, but unless next gen backwards compatibility is like what we used to have Ithen 'm not really interested. For me BC is like what we had with Ps2, Ps3, Wii, Wii U - you pull a disk from the shelf and put it in the console. Job done. Having to check a list beforehand and then have the console download several GB of data (so a net connection is required) isn't quite the smooth BC experience we had only a few years back with the Wii U. It sounds like next gen will be BC in that you can just put a current gen disk in and it'll work as it does on the Ps4/Xbone. Hopefully that's the case.

 

[Orta]

100% bc with all generations of Playstation with all associated next-gen bells and whistles would be incredible.

Hell, I'd buy a seperate Sony box if they made something that played PS1-4 discs. Vita and PSP compatibility would be the cherry on top.

 

[Clintizzle]

Those who say they don't care about backwards compatibility are the same who have bought GTA IV and Skyrim more than once in the past 5 years.

 

[ZywyPL]

With consoles being basically a closed spec x86 PCs, there is no reason/excuse for the games not being able to run on systems that will be released in the future, be it PS5/XBX, or the consoles after them, and so on .

That being said, I really love what MS is doing with BC - higher resolution, higher framerate, sharper textures, HDR, so when you decide to play some older titles again, like a 5-10yo games, they will actually look and perform better than they were all those years ago, back when you were playing them for the first time. They seem to figured out how to make it all work from the system level, so no matter the game, no matter the engine, every single title has access too all of the additional power of a newer hardware, and actually puts it into a good use. I'm mostly hyped for the auto-HDR, not really for BC titles but for all of the upcoming games where devs won't decide to support HDR, DF reported that even with OG XB games that feature looks pretty damn good, that's a feature that will finally put all those modern TVs into proper use.

Sony on the other hand, with Jim "why would anybody play this?" Ryan in charge, have yet to prove themselves. But seeing how Pro's extra power is locked/unused without a patch, or PS5 suspiciously still having a 36CU GPU, I think they will have a hard time ensuring proper BC in the future, it looks like they screw up something with that Pro's infamous butterfly GPU design, like there's something missing/wrong on the driver/FW level, so not only they cannot use whatever CU configuration they want now, but even multiplying the PS4 CU count is problematic to use by the game not designed for any additional power in mind. Hopefully there will be a dedicated BC segment during their PS5 reveal, to clear everything up.

 

[splattered]

The people that say they don't want it at all are most likely the ones that already don't have it or aren't old enough to even have the nostalgia of playing older games and just look forward to the next cod/fifa

 

[Quixz]

As someone who gets rid of all the old toys every generation BC is a waste of my time.

 

[Roberts]

Summary of this thread:

Xbox gamer:"BC is essential"
PS gamer:"Nah, I can live without it"

Not judging, but that's been a trend ever since xbox announced Bc.

 

[TigerKnee]

I really don't understand why would anyone be against having their entire library from each generation (enhanced at times!!) under one roof.