Naturally, when one of the Big Three makes a bold move, the media will eventually turn to the other side and ask, "what are you going to do about it?" Sony's answer, "The Playstation 4 does not have backwards compatibility". That's probably not the answer fans were hoping to hear.
Shuhei Yoshida, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment's world wide studios went on to remark that "the technology involved must be very challenging" and if backwards compatibility were easy to do "we would have done that". It remains to be seen just how effectively playing old 360 games will be, but it has been confirmed that the Xbox One will be tricking the old games into thinking they are being run on the old operating system through emulation.
It goes without saying that emulation is a bit of a dirty word in game circles. But it shouldn't be, because the process in and of itself is not an illegal act. Emulators are just so frequently associated with ripped BIOS and game files (THOSE are illegal) that people often have a tendency to blur the lines between the two.
Sony is also pushing their current streaming platform, Playstation Now, which has a library that has gradually grown since its release. However, with a $19.99 monthly subscription fee (or $45 for three months), there's a growing sense among consumers that people should not have to pay more money for games they already own. A notion that Microsoft directly addressed at their Press Conference on Monday. It's also worth mentioning that Yoshida did not dismiss backwards compatibility entirely, saying "I won't say we'll never do it, but it's not an easy thing to do."
