Reverse Compatibility of Next-Gen Consoles - Is it Really That Important?

Xbox vs PS5 is the talk of the town, as it has been for the past few months. Every now and then there's a surge of news on the tiniest fragments of new information flooding news sites. In this small peek at the current console war, we'll be taking a look at backwards compatibility and understanding from the leaks - who's winning in this regard so far? 

This discussion stems from a recent bursting headline due to an announcement from Ubisoft. which was relatively harmless - but the fact that it has been removed since does give it additional weight. Accordingly, on its next-gen support page for its customers, it offered the following statement: 

Backwards compatibility will be available for supported PlayStation 4 titles, but will not be possible for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, or PlayStation games

Now, is this surprising news? Hardly, but the fact that Sony forced Ubisoft to remove the statement is interesting and could mean one of two things: 

• Sony has no interest in supporting physical and digital copies of PS1, PS2 or PS3 games 
• Sony is interested in the support and is leaving it as a final surprise before launch 

While the second statement is promising, I believe that the former is true. Naturally, if you think about it, why would Sony want to support old physical and digital copies of previous generations when that would undermine their Playstation Now service? As the next generation pushes to cloud gaming, it makes sense to me that Sony would have this reservation.  

Then, of course, the main reason why they haven't mentioned it much and only talk about the PS4 generation compatibility is due to the competition from Xbox. Reverse compatibility is where the Xbox Series X looks to strike hardest. 

Our commitment to compatibility means existing Xbox One games, including backward-compatible Xbox 360 and original Xbox games, look and play better than ever before.

Your favorite games, including titles in Xbox Game Pass, benefit from steadier framerates, faster load times and improved resolution and visual fidelity – all with no developer work required. Your Xbox One gaming accessories also come forward with you

Sony have not come out with a similar statement at all - they remain as quiet and sneaky as ever. It's clear here that Microsoft has the edge and if you have an established Xbox game collection, you're probably thrilled by the already official news. 

The Dilemma of Reverse Compatibility - An Intrinsic Design Choice 

Instead of concluding there, I'd like to dwell on the discussion a little more. What implications does reverse compatibility have for console developers and game publishers? Of course, as gamers, we love the idea of saving money - but I think there's more to it than that. 

Here are some positives and negatives behind reverse compatibility. 

Positives: 

• Gamers can save on costs for games they bought now, right before the end of the PS4's life cycle, which they'd like to play on the PS5 
• Gamers may touch their inner nostalgic side and establish a new found love for older games that already touched their profound spiritual being (had some fun with that one). 

Negatives: 

• Less profit as gamers won't have to purchase new copies for PS5 - affects both Sony and game developers
• Less need to subscribe the paid services such as PS Now and Project xCloud, again reducing costs
• Development resources used on stabilizing reverse compatibility instead of developing other aspects of the new console 

The decision for reverse compatibility could reflect on the developers' interests - the new vs the old. Could it be that Xbox is more focused on last-generation technology while the PS5 has sacrificed this in order to make way for more next-gen breakthroughs? 

I'm not sure, but it's something to consider in this discussion. Neither approach is necessarily objectively 'wrong', but simply different in its aim and targetted audience. Ideally, no compromises are made, but we all know that everything takes up space in a console and above all, money. 

Hope you all enjoyed that! Let us know your personal thoughts in the comments section below! Would you prefer a focus on reverse compatibility or next-gen technology or should there simply be no compromises?