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superchunk on 17 May 2017
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SvennoJ said:

Look at the 2 most graphically acomplished games atm, Uncharted 4 and HZD. Would they be as good looking if it had to support a ps3 version as well? Could HZD still look a lot better if it was a PS4 Pro exclusive? All it does on pro is raise the render resolution. That's what you get with scaleable engines. The base version still determines the limits of the gameplay elements.

If PS5 has over twice the memory, twice the cpu cores etc, gameplay will be held back by supporting the base ps4. AI, physics, map size etc will all be limited by having to run the same on the old models. Which makes it possible to run the game at 4K60 on ps5 while 1080p30 on ps4, but it's still a ps4 game. Yet perhaps that is what people want :)

What you are describing with HZD is that a game was built on PS4 and is being scaled up to PS4Pro. That is not what I'm describing and that is not how it works in the real world.

Games would be built on the new / latest hardware and then scaled down to allow acceptable performance on the lower-end hardware. This was most evident with Call of Duty games (yes not system pushing games) being built on PS360 and then retooled to work on a far lower-powered Wii. However, this scenario also required a full port as the Wii was not on similar PC-like architecture as PS360 and also a poor representation of what PS5 to PS4 will be.

The difference is that consoles, again, have changed to be PCs. They are no longer simple dedicated game consoles that require special engines for game development. Instead they use the same tooling as PCs and allow a wide variance of build functionality. This is one of the reasons all three manufacturers have gone this route. It saves them time and money to support many different consoles plus PC. This is exactly whey MS is building Scorpio, something that will be significantly more powerful than the Xbox One/PS4. 

In the end, I think you will not see a PS4 game running on PS5, but a PS5 game running on a PS4. I think you'll see this by holiday 2018 with Scorpio games running on Xbox One/PS4 and this will not be a bad thing for consumers. It will instead be a good thing. Constantly improving hardware (every couple) years to satisfy any gamer's needs, constantly improving games, constantly improving features and great flexibility through the availability of a "current gen" console at a low price point.