During E3 2015 Microsoft made one of the biggest announcements out of everyone that attended the event — the Xbox One is getting backwards compatibility. Not every game will be backwards compatible, as they have to work with game publishers to make the Xbox 360 games compatible, but Microsoft is taking votes on which games to make available.
The announcement truly came as a surprise, considering that in 2013 Microsoft's Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb warned that any hair-brained ideas to force your Xbox One into being backwards compatible simply would not work; "To be clear there is no way to make your Xbox One backwards compatible."
Since the reveal from Microsoft at E3, PlayStation 4 owners have been waiting for an announcement of their own — the PS4 becoming backwards compatible. According to Shuhei Yoshida in the latest issue of EDGE Magazine, that announcement will not be happening.
PlayStation Now should be more than enough for fans looking for backwards compatibility. The feature was not only intended for backwards compatibility – it is meant to serve as a network that brings PlayStation games to multiple devices, but it has the requested feature.
"We don’t have backwards compatibility with PS4. With PS Now you can play PS3 games on PS4, but the main purpose of PS Now is a network service," said Yoshida. "By removing the requirement of games running on the console itself we can bring PlayStation games to multiple devices, including non-PlayStation devices. We just announced an alliance with Samsung in the US so people who purchase Samsung TVs can play PlayStation games on their TV. So that’s the main purpose, not to provide backwards compatibility."
Yoshida understands that fans want their PS4 to become backwards compatible, unfortunately the company isn't focusing on making their games compatible, they are focusing on new PS4 games and new services.
"I totally understand people asking for it, and if it was easy, we’d have done that, but our focus is creating PS4 games and adding new services. Remaking games on PS4 makes the games even better – with The Last Of Us, you can play at 60 frames per second, and the same goes for Dark Souls 2. Actually, I just finished Dark Souls 2 again on PS4."
With Yoshida's final statement it seems as though Sony would rather have games entirely re-appropriated and remade for the PS4 than have the console itself become backwards compatible. If that's the case, it would be nice to see incentives for purchase for fans that own the PS3 version of the game (like discounts on the PS4 remakes).
