PlayStation 5 backwards compatible with "almost all" top PS4 games at launch
Chosen by total playtime.
At launch, PlayStation 5 will play "almost all" of the top 100 most-played PlayStation 4 games via its in-built backwards compatibility support.
That's according to the system's lead architect, Mark Cerny, who has just wrapped up his hour-long detailed deep dive into the PS5's tech.
During the briefing, Cerny explained that getting each game working required individual checking. So, Sony had made sure to focus on the top PS4 games based on their overall playtime.
"Running PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro titles at boosted frequencies has added complexity," Cerny said. "The boost is truly massive this time around and some game code can't handle it. Testing has to be done on a title-by-title basis.
"Results are excellent, though. We recently took a look at the 100 top PlayStation 4 titles as ranked by playtime, and we're expecting almost all of them to be playable at launch on PlayStation 5."
And while the PS5 uses fancy SSD memory, you'll be still able to play these games on PlayStation 5 using a standard external storage.
This appears to be the same method Xbox Series X will handle backwards compatibility. But while Microsoft will support all non-Kinect Xbox One games, as well as those Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles in its existing backwards compatibility library, there was no suggestion from Sony of PlayStation 1, 2, or 3 backwards compatibility support.
You can catch up on everything else in Cerny's talk via Digital Foundry's comprehensive breakdown of everything we just watched, as Sony revealed the specs and the tech behind its next-gen vision.