Great games are great games. I double dipped on TloU, would have even if it ran with BC

So let's look at the tentpole enhancements as Naughty Dog has outlined them. Principally, we're looking at 1080p resolution at 60fps in both single and multi-player, a 4x detail increase to texture maps and a 2x resolution boost to shadow maps. Texture streaming is no longer required owing to the PS4's prodigious RAM, and there's longer draw distances, better LOD and improved particle effects. In essence, Naughty Dog has scaled up the original game to full HD and boosted assets to match, while doubling frame-rate.

You think you get all that from BC?

Yes several bought for future investment, and BC isn't future but past.

And how would I deny that most people bougth crossgen games if there weren't many exclusives on launch?

Great games are great games. I double dipped on TloU, would have even if it ran with BC

So let's look at the tentpole enhancements as Naughty Dog has outlined them. Principally, we're looking at 1080p resolution at 60fps in both single and multi-player, a 4x detail increase to texture maps and a 2x resolution boost to shadow maps. Texture streaming is no longer required owing to the PS4's prodigious RAM, and there's longer draw distances, better LOD and improved particle effects. In essence, Naughty Dog has scaled up the original game to full HD and boosted assets to match, while doubling frame-rate.

You think you get all that from BC?

What's clear is that Naughty Dog has completely re-rendered each cut-scene though - they would have been 30fps on PS3 to match the gameplay, and they're running at 60 here, with compression artefacts only really a noticeable problem on very dark scenes.

The added photo mode and other extras were also a lot of fun to play with.

Plus you had the choice to either play with sharp shadows in 30fps or 60fps for smoother gameplay. (Personally I preferred better shadows at 30fps for immersion)

Naughty dog could have done more, they could also have done a lot less. Still, I didn't buy the ps4 to play Tlou again. When the remaster came out, I didn't mind playing the enhanced version again. Ironically, BC has never enticed me to buy games I have not played yet, only to replay games I had already played out of nostalgia sake. The only remaster I have bought that I had not played yet was the Sly Cooper trilogy on ps3. Zero games bought I hadn't played yet to play in BC mode on any console. (Well technically I did. I played FF12 on ps3 when it came out, regretted it when the virtual memory card corrupted before I could finish the game. The only reason to play on ps3 was that I had not started the game yet)

Let's try to debate the topics that are presented in a post rather than take a jab at someone, cheers.

Skip to 7 minutes.

Digital Foundry:
"Improved Textures, Higher Level of Geometry and better shadow map quality as well"

Backwards Compat can do more than people think.

That’s all well and good but fact is LOU remake was the highest selling exclusive until Uncharted 4 in 2016. By a landslide...Bloodborne, Drive Club, The Order, Infamous SS didn’t come close. I’m sure there’s more but forgive me my off hand knowledge of competition exclusives is rusty.

That tells me quite a lot between what PS fans say on the internet and actual buying habits (next gen exclusives vs cross gen). 

4x detail increase to texture maps

BC magically adds higher res textures? All those changes need extra data and/or coding interventions.

Again, the back-compat team play with render targets and level of detail settings - higher resolution textures and shadow maps are presented in most scenes and even geometry LODs seem to be pushed out and improved for a richer scene.

Human intervention, it's a patch, remaster all but in name. Most games don't have those options and it will still take human tinkering on a per title basis to reach those kind of results. It's not BC, it's a free update basically. Great, and likely the effort was made back in extra sales of DLC and digital copies. But it's not really BC, as in sticking the original disc in without downloading anything from the internet.

Great games are great games. I double dipped on TloU, would have even if it ran with BC

So let's look at the tentpole enhancements as Naughty Dog has outlined them. Principally, we're looking at 1080p resolution at 60fps in both single and multi-player, a 4x detail increase to texture maps and a 2x resolution boost to shadow maps. Texture streaming is no longer required owing to the PS4's prodigious RAM, and there's longer draw distances, better LOD and improved particle effects. In essence, Naughty Dog has scaled up the original game to full HD and boosted assets to match, while doubling frame-rate.

You think you get all that from BC?

What's clear is that Naughty Dog has completely re-rendered each cut-scene though - they would have been 30fps on PS3 to match the gameplay, and they're running at 60 here, with compression artefacts only really a noticeable problem on very dark scenes.

The added photo mode and other extras were also a lot of fun to play with.

Plus you had the choice to either play with sharp shadows in 30fps or 60fps for smoother gameplay. (Personally I preferred better shadows at 30fps for immersion)

Naughty dog could have done more, they could also have done a lot less. Still, I didn't buy the ps4 to play Tlou again. When the remaster came out, I didn't mind playing the enhanced version again. Ironically, BC has never enticed me to buy games I have not played yet, only to replay games I had already played out of nostalgia sake. The only remaster I have bought that I had not played yet was the Sly Cooper trilogy on ps3. Zero games bought I hadn't played yet to play in BC mode on any console. (Well technically I did. I played FF12 on ps3 when it came out, regretted it when the virtual memory card corrupted before I could finish the game. The only reason to play on ps3 was that I had not started the game yet)

Even though I understand the reasoning behind it, I still think it's a terrible idea to hang your hat on cross-gen and compatibility alone, when launching a next gen console. We all know what these smart delivery games will look like. We've been seeing it on pc for decades. Sure, Gears 5 on ultra settings does look a helluva lot better than the base Xbox One version, but it's essentially still the exact same game. It has the same ai, level design, physics, assets variation etc. no matter which version you're playing.

The whole point of Sony's UE5 presentation was to demonstrate how the SSD opens up possibilities for a complete shift in core level design. Smart delivery games simply can't take full advantage of that until MS finally ditches support for the Xone 2 years later. Even then we don't know what kind of pc specs they will be supporting, though. I mean will the pc version of Gears 6 really require a RTX2080 and a super fast SSD, or will it also run on more common gpu's like the GTX1060 and "normal" SSD's? Because if it's the later, those games will also not be able to take full advantage of the Series X's hardware.