At E3 2015, Microsoft surprised a lot of people with the announcement of a backwards compatibility feature for the Xbox One. Understandably, everyone wanted to know if Sony would ever consider introducing the feature to the PlayStation 4. However, PlayStation Europe President Jim Ryan and Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida both reiterated at the time that the company was committed to PlayStation Now, and was taking a different path than Microsoft. In a recent interview with EDGE magazine, Yoshida was asked once again what Sony made of Microsoft’s reveal, to which he responded by saying that he was “very surprised” by it and is “very curious” to see how it works.
I was very surprised. It must have taken lots of effort for them to realize the backwards compatibility, because the Xbox 360 and Xbox One use very different kinds of architecture. And I’m very curious. They showed a very short list of titles that work, and doing software emulation means you have to work title by title. So I’m curious to see what kind of games will be included in those 100 games that they say will be compatible by the end of the year.
Yoshida previously said that the PlayStation Now service works “surprisingly well” and can be used to bring PlayStation games to multiple devices including non-PlayStation devices. During his interview with EDGE, he said that Sony has formed an alliance with Samsung in the US, which will allow those purchasing Samsung TVs to run PlayStation games on their TVs. However, he understands why people are still asking for backwards compatibility.
I totally understand people asking for it, and if it was easy, we’d have done that. But our focus is creating PS4 games and adding new services. Remaking games on PS4 makes the games even better – with The Last Of Us, you can play at 60 frames per second, and the same goes for Dark Souls 2. Actually, I just finished Dark Souls 2 again on PS4.
While it doesn’t seem likely that Sony will add backwards compatibility to its consoles, Yoshida did say last month that he’s not saying the company will “never do it.” For now, it’s all about PlayStation Now.
[Source: EDGE via GamesRadar]
