Report: Sony Will Allow Publishers to Decide Whether Their PS4 Titles Receive Free Upgrades for PS5

Earlier this week, EA confirmed Madden NFL 21 players will receive a free upgrade from PS4 to PS5, similar to Xbox Series X’s Smart Delivery system. Of course, this raised questions about whether other PS4/PS5 titles will make use of the same feature. Reportedly, Sony won’t mandate that such a system is upheld across the board. Instead, publishers are free to make this decision at their own discretion.

This report comes by way of Gamespark, a Japanese website that reached out to Sony Japan for further information. Twitter user BlackKite translated and summarized the response Gamespark claimed to receive. See BlackKite’s post in tweet below:

To be fair, it appears Microsoft is running its Smart Delivery program in a similar fashion. Yes, according to Microsoft, all Xbox exclusives optimized for Xbox Series X will support free Smart Delivery upgrades. Publishers, however, will get to decide whether or not their third-party experiences take advantage of the program.

With all of the above in mind, reason suggests that if a third-party publisher’s Xbox One game is upgradeable to Xbox Series X for free, the same will hold true for PS4 to PS5 releases. We’ll have to wait and see if such a practice actually comes to fruition, though. It’s also worth noting that Sony has yet to confirm whether all of its first-party titles will adopt a Smart Delivery-like system.

Late last month, a report claimed Sony sent a memo to developers and publishers about PS5 forward compatibility. Allegedly, starting in mid-July, every PS4 game submitted to Sony must also work on PS5.

The PlayStation 5 is scheduled to hit store shelves on an unspecified date this holiday season.

[Source: Gamespark via BlackKite on Twitter]