In a recent interview, Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan has revealed that the company will be making its upcoming PlayStation 5 games exclusive to the console, and will not be playable on the PlayStation 4.
Speaking with Gameindustry.biz, Ryan explains that the team behind the PS5 wants to give PlayStation fans “something new, something different, that can really only be enjoyed on PS5.”
“We have always said that we believe in generations,” said Ryan. “We believe that when you go to all the trouble of creating a next-gen console, that it should include features and benefits that the previous generation does not include. And that, in our view, people should make games that can make the most of those features.”
“We do believe in generations, and whether it’s the DualSense controller, whether it’s the 3D audio, whether it’s the multiple ways that the SSD can be used… we are thinking that it is time to give the PlayStation community something new, something different, that can really only be enjoyed on PS5.”
Such a point will have likely gone unspoken in earlier console generations but the past few years have seen Sony and its main competitor Microsoft building a system that bridges its current and future generation of gaming hardware. To add to that, Microsoft has also been emphasising that its upcoming Xbox Series X games will also be playable on the Xbox One.
Of course, that is not to say that Sony will be leaving PS4 players in the lurch as they “have always felt that we had a responsibility to serve that [PS4] community for several years after the launch of PS5 and that it represented a huge business opportunity” for Sony.
“The numbers are quite straightforward. If you say in broad-brush figures that we have a community of 100 million PS4 owners right now, and in the first couple of years… I don’t know, somewhere between 15 and 25 million might migrate to PS5, that still leaves a huge number of people with PS4s,” explained Ryan.
PS4 players will also be able to play most, if not all, of their current game library on the PS5, they just won’t be able to do it the other way around.
Germaine is a fun-sized introvert who loves nothing better than sleeping in on rainy days. She can be found reading fanfiction and manga while still waiting for her Hogwarts acceptance letter. It’ll come eventually.
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