PS5 Confirmed Backward Compatibility

[Mr Puggsly]

forevercloud3000 said:

Mr Puggsly said:

Remasters a gen apart are fine. One of my favorite releases this gen has been Halo:MCC. The jump to 1080p or even 4K with 60 fps is awesome, the definitive experience. The original games struggled to maintain 30 fps and much lower resolution.

Furthermore, a generation can be like 7 years. So sometimes there is still a big gap between a remaster. Maybe a decade, I mean we're just getting Halo Reach on X1.

This doesn't end any need or desire for remasters though. Because some games might be capped at 30 fps, locked at a low resolution (a bigger problem for native BC), or use low quality assets. A remaster can either swap out the visual assets entirely like Gears of War Ultimate, while some remasters might just improve frame rate, resolution and use higher quality assets that may have been exclusive to PC.

Sometimes a game on my backlog might just switch to the remaster. Which is great if the remaster is ultimately the superior experience and I can use my newer hardware.

I think they mean more in the sense of a games being re-released. Take Halo MCC. There is little fathomable reason to make a Xbox Next version of the game when there are still XB1 versions that are BC with the new hardware. For most games, the power difference would require nothing more than a patch, not a complete from a ground up re-release which are usually spurned  unless they expect big sales. Xbox One's hand curated BC announcements did well to encourage the resale of old 360 games, I think that is much more a possibility going forward.

Remake/Remaster culture heavily benefited from the loss of full BC consoles in the last 2 gens. Without it I think their existence is questionable.

Skyrim just simply CANNOT make a PS5 version when the PS4 version will work perfectly fine. They would have to be adding some actual new content and or features to make that worthy and I question if even that could appeal to the audience to get them to buy it a 3rd time when they already have reasonably compatible version.

I stated in a previous thread that I too think the era of Remasters is almost about over because most of the biggest have been remade already in last 10 years, most anyway and the era of the Pro Systems means games are patched for upgrades all the time.

I agree BC makes remasters less necessary, but I also argue they can be justified if the port wasn't very good or a simple patch won't improve a game enough. Maybe it encourages remasters to be more ambitious. For example, the Skyrim remaster had significant features added. While the Gears of War remaster had new visual assets.

A few games worthy of remasters that come to mind are Dead Rising 3 and Assassin's Creed Unity. I think those games need a lot more work than patches. Ryse and Sunset Overdrive are games that could be remastered while more platforms are supported. I would like Halo 5 remastered if that's what it takes to fix all the weird visual quirks and to add split screen. I could probably think of other titles that could justify remaster treatment but I think you get the point.

I kinda agree with your sentiment. However, BC could also change the scope of what a remaster should be.

Last edited by Mr Puggsly - on 17 April 2019