Microsoft took everybody by surprise by revealing that the Xbox One will now offer backwards compatibility to Xbox 360’s games. Although this will be done title by title but Microsoft promises there will be a total of 100 games that support the new feature by the end of this year.
President of Sony’s worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida, was in an interview with Edge magazine’s latest issue and he discussed the matter and why Sony aren’t thinking about doing the same and that their main focus is “creating PS4 games.”. He also thinks that Microsoft’s goal of 100 games by end of the year might not happen.
“I was very surprised. It must have taken lots of effort for them to realise the backwards compatibility, because the Xbox 360 and Xbox One use very different kinds of architecture,” muses Shu. “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.”
He continued to comment on Sony’s PS Now service that lets you stream your PS3 games on your PS4 and play them normally. Although this can be considered as a backwards compatibility in a way but as Yoshida puts it “PS Now is a network service,”.
“We don’t have backwards compatibility with PS4. With PS Now you can play PS3 games on PS4, but the main purpose of PS Now is a network service,” he continues. “By removing the requirement of games running on the console itself we can bring PlayStation games to multiple devices, including non-PlayStation devices. We just announced an alliance with Samsung in the US so people who purchase Samsung TVs canplay PlayStation games on their TV. So that’s the main purpose, not to provide backwards compatibility.”
Yoshida’s own opinion is that remaking games, remasters, HD and stuff like that, is better than just offering backwards compatibility since it allows to improve the game in terms of performance and visuals.
“I totally understand people asking for it, and if it was easy, we’d have done that,” he adds “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.”
Tell us what you think of Yoshida’s latest statements and if you still want Sony to follow Microsoft’s steps and offer backwards compatibility.
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