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Sorry, PS4 Owners… Sony Says No Backward Compatibility for You

Published Jun 19th, 2015 9:05AM EDT
PS4 Backwards Compatibility

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Microsoft had a heck of an E3 this year. From the first announcement to the last demonstration, the company’s E3 press conference was a fan-favorite in 2015. And the company’s Minecraft demo on HoloLens was absolutely mind-blowing. It was a much-needed win for Microsoft, which has been lagging behind Sony since their current-generation video game consoles first launched ahead of the holidays in 2013.

The first announcement Microsoft made during its E3 event was Xbox One backwards compatibility, which will allow Xbox One owners to play many of their old Xbox 360 games on their new consoles. PS4 owners have been wondering whether or not the same feature would be added to the PlayStation 4, and now they finally have their answer.

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Sony’s Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida was interviewed recently by EuroGamer, and the topic of the Xbox One’s backward compatibility feature was raised. The lack of backwards compatibility on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 was a safe assumption ahead of their debuts, but gamers were still upset when the news was confirmed.

It looks like Sony was taken completely by surprise by Microsoft’s announcement this week. And unfortunately for PS4 owners, it doesn’t look like Sony has any plans to allow PS3 games to be played on the PlayStation 4.

“It was surprising,” Yoshida said of the news. “I didn’t think it was possible. There must be lots of engineering effort.”

He went on to downplay the Xbox One’s new backwards compatibility feature. “They talked about 100 games, but what kind of games will be included?” he said. “Is it smaller games or big games? We don’t know”

Finally, EuroGamer got him to confirm the news that PlayStation fans definitely didn’t want to hear.

“PS3 is such a unique architecture, and some games made use of SPUs very well,” Yoshida said. “It’s going to be super challenging to do so. I never say never, but we have no plans.”

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.