Yoshida: No Backwards Compatability For PS4

Microsoft surprised - and delighted - a great many gamers during their E3 presentation this year when it announced that the Xbox One would be made backwards-compatible with Xbox 360 games.

One of the people surprised by the news was the company’s closest rival in the games industry: Sony.

In an interview with Polygon, Sony Computer Entertainment’s head of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida, said that the announcement was “interesting”, but that he had no intention of changing Sony’s approach to PlayStation 4.

“The technology involved must be very challenging,” Yoshida is quoted as saying. “I’m interested in seeing the list of titles.”

But despite admitting that he was impressed by the announcement, Yoshida stressed that Sony won’t be responding with backwards compatibility of its own. “The announcement didn’t change. I don’t think we will change our approach. The PlayStation 4 doesn’t have backward compatibility.”

“Backward compatibility is hard,” he continued. “I won’t say we’ll never do it, but it’s not an easy thing to do. If it was easy we would have done that.”

Instead, Yoshida pointed to existing and previously-announced features on PlayStation 4, such as the upcoming media player. Sony’s focus, he stated, will remain on adding new features and value for consumers.

Regarding PlayStation Now, which is currently the closest thing the PS4 has to backwards compatibility, Yoshida had this to say: “PlayStation Now works surprisingly well. But the primary purpose of that project was to create a new network service that could be used to bring PlayStation games to multiple devices including non-PlayStation devices, like Sony and Samsung televisions. That is an example of our adding and creating new services and initiatives.”

So while many might be hoping that Sony follows in Microsoft’s footsteps, it doesn’t look like things are about to change any time in the forseeable future.

Bio
Twitter
Latest Posts

Dale Morgan

Founder, Editor in Chief

When Dale isn't crying over his keyboard about his never-ending workload, he's playing games - lots of them. Dale has a particular love for RPGs, Roguelikes and Metroidvanias.