On Monday, the Ubisoft FAQ page went live this holiday season to walk the company’s fans through the games coming on the console set. In doing so, the FAQ seems to have finally confirmed something that Sony has yet to announce about its PlayStation 5 console: its backwards-compatibility limitations.
When digging through Ubisoft’s latest American FAQ page series, most of the language depends on what appears to be a seamless transition from Xbox One to Xbox Series X or from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 to purchased software. (Like the previously announced cross-generation software See Dogs Legion And Assassin Creed Valhalla.) However, a new page came out from the company’s Australian Australian support site with clarifications about PS4 and PS5 multiplayer connectivity, and added surprising details:
[Update: Shortly before this article’s publication, the quoted text was removed from the Ubisoft page in question, though it remained live for hours while PlayStation fans began sharing it far and wide.]PlayStation 4 players will be able to join multiplayer games with PlayStation 5 players. Backwards compatibility will be available for supported PlayStation 4 titles, but not for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 or PlayStation games.
Jump to the less welcoming platform
Representatives of Sony Interactive Entertainment did not immediately confirm whether Ubisoft’s claim was legitimate. Up to this point, we only knew about PS5 backwards compatibility with PS4 software, as Sony’s senior VP Hidaki Nishino told fans in March that they “believe[d] The vast majority of 4,000+ PS4 titles are playable on the PS4. “This funny image after the March release about the architecture of the PS5 includes:
At the time, we were loudly surprised at Ars that that significant amount of free space meant we could expect other PlayStation console pay generations to slot into the PS5 family or see a message supporting the old pay about Sony’s PlayStation Now cloud-streaming. Service. Paying PS can now stream subscribers to Sony-curated selection of PS2 and PS3 games on compatible devices like PS4 consoles and Windows PCs. While we would like Sony to see that PS5/2/3 games are recognized on their discs on the PS5 and if by default they are not played, offer a fairly-minimal plan to stream PS1 / 2/3 games from the cloud, today Likely the news doesn’t bring that sound.
The PlayStation 4 was the company’s first console not to ship with native backward-compatibility support for disc-based games, with the incompatibility of the only-download software software debuted on the PlayStation 3. This means you have to grab your old console to access those games. The PS3 received a major upgrade early in its lifetime to remove support for the PS2 disc (due to this feature running on the PS3 “feeling engine” architecture built into the early PS3s, which was dumped to reduce costs).
By comparison, Microsoft has aggressively ordered fans of older games with a backward-compatibility sales pitch on both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X. This means that gamers of the Xbox ecosystem can expect native usage in previous purchases (either in disk form or as a digital purchase) over multiple console pay generations. And Resolution and performance upgrades based on game-by-game. We’re still waiting to hear if PS4 games that fight performance issues can achieve PS5-specific improvements, although the PS4 Pro’s alternative “boost mode” has already made it clear that certain games (cough, cough, Bloodborne) Special patches will be required to take advantage of the new hardware.
