Sony has filed a patent that observers take to counsel that backwards compatibility might lastly be coming to PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. It’s identified that the PS5 already runs PS4 video games effortlessly, however the wording of patent implies that each consoles could possibly run PS3, PS2, and PS1.
Sony filed the patent, first noticed by GamingBible, on January 6, though it’s credited to Mark Cerny and Patrick Simpson, veteran online game builders and collaborators with the corporate. In scientific phrases, the patent was filed “for backward compatibility by means of use of spoof clock and high-quality grain frequency management,” which is able to decide “whether or not an software loaded on a present model of a system is for the present model of the system or a much less highly effective model of the system.”
Put merely, ought to this technique of backwards compatibility be utilized to the PS5 and the PS4, each consoles will have the ability to learn whether or not a recreation being loaded is for any of these methods or the PS1 by means of PS3, which weren’t comparatively highly effective within the first place. If the video games being loaded into the PS5 or PS4 have been initially designed for his or her predecessors, then they’ll run these video games “at a second clock frequency when the appliance is designed for a distinct model of the system, whereby the completely different model of the system is characterised by a distinct commonplace clock frequency.”
To offer an instance, the PS5 is natively set to run video games at 60 FPS per second, be it video games designed for that system or the PS4. Because it stands, we will’t pop a PS3 or PS2 disc into any of these consoles as a result of the {hardware} they have been designed for cuts the framerate in half, and the PS5 and PS4 gained’t sync them correctly, giving rise to errors and glitches which will probably harm the consoles past restore. Nevertheless, if the strategy of backwards compatibility described within the patent is carried out into the PS5, then it’ll emulate all the again catalog of PlayStation video games with out points as long as they’re operating at a decrease pace than the console is used to.
PlayStation Now already has a restricted variety of PS3 and PS2 video games in its library, resembling Remaining Fantasy X and X-2, the Grand Theft Auto trilogy, and Sonic Unleashed. However the streaming service doesn’t emulate them in addition to Xbox Recreation Go does with video games made for Xbox 360 and Xbox as a result of connection lag. As soon as this backwards compatibility technique rolls out — if it does — the PS4 and PS5 will have the ability to run those self same video games and extra with out issues.