Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan told Famitsu that the PlayStation 5 will not support games from the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 or the original PlayStation. The company is prioritizing simultaneous SSD use and the DualSense controller, Ryan said, leaving no resources to implement backward compatibility for those older generations.
Ryan confirmed the PS5 will be compatible with “99%” of existing PS4 games, ensuring most current-generation titles will run on the new console. Still, the lack of PS3/PS2/PS1 support disappoints players who keep physical or digital collections from earlier PlayStation generations.
Scale of the missing library
Support for PS1, PS2 and PS3 discs would have given the PS5 access to an estimated library approaching 17,000 games, including numerous classics that influenced later generations. The absence of that compatibility means those titles will not be natively playable on PS5 hardware.
Historical context of PlayStation backward compatibility
Previously, PlayStation consoles offered varying degrees of backwards compatibility: the PS2 and early PS3 models could run PS1 discs, and the PS3 initially included PS2 support on some hardware revisions before that feature was removed in later models. Even after physical-disc support was discontinued, several PS2 titles remained available for download and play on PS3 through digital versions on the PlayStation Network.
How this compares with Microsoft’s approach
Microsoft has taken a different path: although not universal, the Xbox One can run 577 Xbox 360 titles and 41 original Xbox games. Microsoft’s newer Xbox consoles are also designed to run all Xbox One titles, highlighting a broader backward-compatibility effort across generations.
Responses and perspective
Ryan previously expressed skepticism about demand for older games. In a 2017 interview with Time Magazine he said he did not understand interest in legacy console titles, describing PS1 and PS2 games as looking like “antiques” compared with modern releases. Advocates for backward compatibility point out that classic games maintain cultural and entertainment value similar to enduring music and films.
Source: Ars Technica
