A new report has shed a little more light on the PlayStation 5's mysterious backwards compatibility functionality. Specifically, it sounds as if the next-gen console will be able to run any PlayStation 4 game... despite previous reports that it would only work with a select number of PS4 titles first approved by Sony.
Lance McDonald, a popular streamer known for some really rather excellent Dark Souls and Bloodborne content, provided us with this update. Taking to Twitter, he claimed that the PS5 hardware would be compatible with all existing PS4 games. Bizarrely, this tweet was swiftly deleted... but you can find an archived version at ResetEra.
"There's been some confusion about this in the past and I can clear it up now," wrote McDonald. "The PlayStation 5 can run all PlayStation 4 games without per-game whitelisting. Sony continue[s] to test titles, but the system will not prevent you from launching untested games."
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McDonald then followed up his now-deleted tweet with an intriguing statement: "I deleted a tweet out of respect for the platform holder," he wrote. "Feel free to interpret that however you like."
The implication here, of course, is that McDonald said something he ought not to have said. This, in turn, would strongly suggest there's truth to his claims. Otherwise why would he have even bothered to delete them?
The last official word on PlayStation 5 backwards compatibility was that Sony would essentially have to approve any PS4 titles before we could play them on the new console. The idea is that the company wants to make sure the older games work and run properly on the newer hardware, and that any games not available to play when the PS5 launched could be introduced further down the line.
Fans were told that the 100 most popular PS4 games would be available to play on PS5 at launch, implying that we'd have to wait for the rest. McDonald's suggestion certainly makes it sound as if that won't be the case after all, however.
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As promising as this may be, what fans really want to know is whether or not we'll be able to play original PlayStation and PlayStation 2 titles on the next-gen console. We still have no idea what's going on there, but an intriguing report from last month suggests that Sony is looking into some form of cloud-based emulation.
A recently discovered patent filed by Sony points to a form of emulation that would allow for a large number of game titles across PS1/PS2/PS3 and various generations of consoles to be stored and used via the cloud gaming library. Sony will be sharing more PS5 news later this month, so hopefully we learn more about backwards compatibility soon.
Featured Image Credit: SonyTopics: PS5, PS2, PlayStation, PS1