Back ward compatility would be nice. But i will definitely not make the same mistake that i did last time. Selling my PS3 like i did with the ps2. As long as i have a PS3 I dont really need Backward compatility.

But for Sony it would be a good thing because

1. People who can afford a PS4 can buy it and dont miss games like The Last of Us and God of War Ascenbsion and Beyound. ( yeah i think those mentioned games would push PS4 sales as well

2. People who cant afford a PS4 but a PS3can buy a PS3 instead.

3. Sales of each game would be bigger since they could sell for PS4 users too.

i dont see it have any backwards compatibility due to the extra cost.

anyways what about the rumors that you cannot play used games? is that still under the radar for 720 and PS4?

From my understanding, for perfect software emulation of a CPU you generally need more than 10 times the processing power; and with a moderately similar architecture, you can accomplish decent results with run-time instruction translation you would need (something like) 4 to 8 times the processing power.

With how exotic the Cell processor is, I don't think instruction traslation would have particularly good results on any existing architecture, and I don't think that there is a CPU that is powerful enough to handle a pure software emulation of it.

Just for the sake of fairness, it was Atari. And yes, he's kidding. Not sure why he's so witty recently, I remember him being different few years ago.

@OP, it needs, but chances it won't be 100% if any.

I thought backwards compatibility was a big deal and was upset when PS3 got rid of it. Having said that, not having it made me realize it isn't a big deal at all.

Not once have I loaded up my PS2 to play one of those games. It's a nice feature, but one that isn't really necessary. Maybe I'm in the minority?

Well it depends... technically.. it could be possible on some fronts.. but most likely won't happen.. to Expensive.. but I can see the complaints most likely starting if the PS4 is only a BR system.. or a BR3D system.. some people might start asking what the heck?? and be disappointed.. like they were with PS3 when they got rid of backward comp. with that being said.. same people might start screaming if Sony unleashed a 650-700 dollar system on them too.. (Heck they might be screaming anyway once they see the price tag... some people were with the 3DS ad are with the WiiU..

It is not a big deal, but is an important feature... specially for the early buying of the console. The first couple of million buyers are people who will buy the console yes or yes (even if it cost a lot, or does not have good games on the market), the next couple of million is harder to sell, because is people who may like to buy it but does not have the money ready and/or have the PS3 and want to upgrade but still have some games pending to play. 

For that second group backward compatability becomes an important matter, if they can sell their old console to buy the new one and still play their pending games, it will mean they will buy faster, otherwise they may hold their purchase till their backlog is smaller or they get more money to expend, and that can hurt the sales early on. It also affects if te support does not dry fast enough, because some of their favorite games may not have PS4 versions already and they still want to play them.

Beyond the first year it becomes less and less relevant as the mayoritiy of the new games will be comming to the console, the pending backlogs are smaller, and of course the price cuts start to appear.

So backward compatability is not a very big deal, but is an important one, specially early on.

#GAIKAI

There isn't going to be any "blu-ray" backwards compatability, it's going to be streaming, streaming and more streaming. Stop wasting internet space on this garbage lol.

"blu-ray" back compat....wtf were you thinking.

PS3 cant play PS2 game discs and you guys seem cool with it. Sony has no reason to implement it, maybe go the 360 route and just be backward compatible with the "important" last gen games via software updates.

yes it does need backwards compatibility, but cost cutting measures should be factored into this decision.