PS5 Will Not Have PS3, PS2 or PS1 Backwards Compatibility, According to Ubisoft - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2020 / 3,486 Views
The PlayStation 5 will not have backwards compatibility with PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, or original PlayStation games, according to the Ubisoft support page.
This isn't a big surprise as Sony has only confirmed some PlayStation 4 games will run on the next-generation console. An exact number of PS4 games has not been confirmed yet, but Sony is working with publishers and developers testing how well the entire PS4 library runs on the PS5.
"We said that the PS5 has been designed to play PS4 games," Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan recently said. "We're going through the process with the publishers and developers testing that rather exhaustive library of over 4,000 games. We're happy with the progress that's been made."
According to Ubisoft's support page, PS5 will not have PS1/PS2/PS3 BC https://t.co/0Z8sSoF4NL pic.twitter.com/TcwxseNkkf
— Nibel (@Nibellion) August 31, 2020
To compare, Microsoft has stated their next-generation console, the Xbox Series X, will be backwards compatible with the Xbox One and all of the original Xbox and Xbox 360 games that currently work on the Xbox One.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
Backwards compatibility is a great feature. I have found it useful in the past. I commend Microsoft for their BC policy on Xbox Series X. That said this is not a deal breaker for me w/ PS5. I still have my full BC original PS3 fat. I wish Sony would digitize more old PS games and make them available on PS Now.
I'd like Sony to make more games available as downloadable classics. I wish Nintendo would do the same with some of its more recent systems as well.
Backwards compatibility is fantastic, it's a value added incentive with any platform you buy.
An individual with a substantial Playstation 1/2/3/4 games library is more likely to stick with Playstation if their games carried forwards.
In saying that... Whenever a new console generation launches, you are buying into that platform for new experiences not old ones, thus backwards compatibility not existing isn't a deal breaker for allot of people, it's just something that is "nice" to have.
Sony has an entire console generation to work/implement Backwards compatibility, whether they do or not we will have to wait and see.
Not gonna lie, I was hoping for ps3 BC but I knew it wasnt gonna happen.
My favorite PS3 games got ported to the PS4 and Switch anyway, so I'm good.
Expected, but still disappointing.
Shame
Phil Spencer will surely make some PR comments out of that (at least once it's official confirmed).
No problem for me
I can understand PS3, but PS2 and 1? I can emulate PS1 on my raspberry Pi for Christ sake! Incoming totally-absolutely-definitely-definitive-GOTY-remastered, fully priced versions of the games you already have at least two versions of.
People and media treat this like it is just the arbitrary policy of gods who can snap their fingers.
There is huge difference in architectures to account for on Playstation.
Although MS moved between Power and x86 the ISA is less impactful than something like Cell or PS2.
And MS still doesn't have full backwards compatibility, only for specific games they managed to do so.
I'd rather the focus be on new games that simply aren't possible on previous gens,
anybody interested in old games can play them on the old consoles themselves after all.
Backwards compatibility would be a great feature. But to be honest, most of the PS1 PS2, and PS3 classics I'd want to replay have already been ported forward to the PS4 and Switch. Dragon Quest VIII, Lunar 1 and 2 and Valkyrie Profile are about the only classic PS games I can't play on more recent home consoles (and I don't count mobile, either).
PS2 BC will make me buy a PS5 day one. but this does not mean that it will not be implemented later. Xbox One BC was not a day one feature.
Why is ubisoft even commenting on such? and how do they know for sure? Anyways not surpriseing if true, on other hand, this doesnt even rule out that it wont happend (unless sony comes out and says so, its not 100%).
The console launches in a couple months. If there were BC for games Ubi could sell, they’d know about it.
Ubisoft is a major publishe/developer, so they've likely got an inside look at the next gen consoles.
No way SNY is going to offer partial BC by publicly putting some of the onus on pubs/devs are they? Make it so they have to do some work to those old games to make them compatible with PS5, so it doesn't look like the blame entirely lies with SNY? MS has their excuses for why all games aren't BC, so why not SNY?
Ubisoft has actually just removed the line about the BC from this Tweet. Interesting turn of events.
doesn't really matter,
we don't linger in the past,
the future is now.
would be a nice feature but changes nothing for me. Day 1 purchase, will sell over 100 millions systems
Not surprising, but also not a source. I'd be okay if my PS3 played PS1, PS2, and PS3 games while my PS5 played PS4 and PS5 games. Ideally, I'd still prefer PS5 play all games, but this isn't a deal breaker even if true.
If you're one of the lucky bastards that have an early PS3 that is. Wish they hadn't cut off PS2 compatability in later models.
Buy the consoles then, self entitlement as always.
Who's entitled? Don't really see anyone really complaining here. At most people are saying that if Sony had gone the other way they'd have seen more value in the console. Seems like this is tilting at windmills.
Oh no, I can't play the games I owned over a decade ago and don't have any more.
That would suck if your old consoles stop working. My SNES finally bit the dust and all my games are now obsolete unless i take a gamble on eBay.
This is why BC is important.
You really expect Nintendo to have full BC for the SNES?
SNES is just an example to what happen to me. Replace SNES with your PS1, PS2 or PS3. Same concept applies. BC eliminates us relying on old hardware to play our old games. This is where PC does it best.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing. BC is always better than no BC, I'm just saying I see why it's not a priority.
Maybe it's because I literally don't have any games in my possession from PS1/2 or 3 as I've had them all which is why I don't care as much as others. But Im spending £500 on a PS5 to play PS5 games I guess.
They can still focus on new games by offering BC, this has no baring on developers, the devs aren't the ones programming the BC systems. Clearly a design choice by the platform creators if true.
https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/ps5-backwards-compatibility-can-you-play-ps4-games-on-playstation-5
The top 100 games Cerny talked about was just used as a demonstration. They had already tested hundreds at that in March. Also, every PS4 game made as of July has to work on PS5 as well.
https://blog.playstation.com/2020/03/18/unveiling-new-details-of-playstation-5-hardware-technical-specs/ Overwhelming majority of 4000+ PS4 games.
@Hiku - The Blog also doesn't say that only 100 titles will be available at launch either which I think is why we disagree with you on this. From that Sony blog post specifically it states - "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. "
This to me says more than 100 will be available at launch and is good enough for me. It's been almost 6 months since that post so either way we will see in less than 3 months time.
Not sure how much of a priority they'll make of adding pre-PS4 compatibility. They stopped adding PS2 classics to PS4 pretty early on.
Essay Pro