The PlayStation 5 Won’t Be Backwards Compatible with Consoles Older than the PS4

While not entirely surprising, it’s looking like the PS5 will not be backwards compatible with the majority of old PlayStation consoles. Sony has not been very keen on giving details as to the cross compatibility of their new console, but a Ubisoft support page seemed to have accidentally given away Sony’s intention of not making the PS5 backwards compatible with consoles past the PS4.

It seems that someone either at Ubisoft or Sony caught the mistake, as the page has since been altered to remove any mention of consoles prior to the PS4. Before being deleted, the post said that backwards compatibility, “will not be possible for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, or PlayStation games.”

If Ubisoft’s assertion is correct, it means that Sony is taking a starkly different approach to their next generation console than Microsoft is. Microsoft previously announced that the Xbox Series X will be backwards compatible with nearly every Xbox One game on launch, and nearly every Xbox 360 and Xbox game that is currently playable on the Xbox one.

Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War are being sold in both cross-generation bundles that give players the ability to play the game on the current and next generation consoles. This, combined with Sony stating that they are bringing more PS4 titles to PC suggests that while we may be losing out of games before the PS4, we at least will have most PS4 games playable in some way.

Just don’t get rid of that dusty PS3 quite yet.

Nicolas Perez is an editorial intern at Paste and opinion co-editor for New University. He’s rambling on Twitter @Nic_Perez_.