By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
freebs2 on 04 January 2019
Edit Thread
Kerotan said:
killeryoshis said:
You can make hardware completely Backwards compatible and not ask a single developer. When Nintendo made the Wii it was completely backward compatible with the Gamecube. You can play any Gamecube game on the Wii. Sony also did this with the PS2 as it was able to play PS1 games no problem. Developers can't legally stop the Xbox 4 and PS5 from being backward compatible like the Wii. However, Developers can pressure Sony and Microsoft to not do it by support means. Which means that they will treat the system with no backward compatibility with better support.

Honestly making a system backward compatible is a lot of work. You have to basically make two consoles in one. Which is why a lot of systems don't do it. Microsoft only has to ask developers to add a game to BC because digital rights are different from physical rights.

Thanks for the reply. I think ps5 will absolutely have BC because they don't want to give MS a selling point over them. Does digital BC work the same as physical? As in Sony don't need to ask devs to allow us to play our digital ps4 games on ps5? 

I know it took lots of effort in the past but if ps5 runs the same x86 architecture as the ps4 won't it be quite easy? 

You gave the awnser yourself, in the past BC was a hassle but with x86 becoming a standard it should be much easier to make Ps5 and Xbox Two "natively" backwards compatible.

As for your previous post, I believe MS has to ask publishers the permission to release thier BC games because technically those game are emulated and this could cause come legal issues. If you are playing an emulated game you aren't just running the original code but your also running the additional emulation code plus maybe some patch or fix to make it run properly. I believe this leaglly colud be seen as an alteration of intellectual property. It would also expalin why BC on Wii and PS2 did not need permissions, since in those cases you were playing just the original code.