Future PlayStation 5 owners who will be playing PlayStation 4 games on their new and shiny console will not be only doing so because of Sony’s free upgrade.
Games that will not see their PS5 renditions will be significantly more playable on the next-gen console than their native running platform, thanks to the PlayStation 5’s Game Boost.
Massive backwards-compatibility support
Right off the bat, Sony admits that while the PlayStation 5 may not be entirely capable of running all of the games in the PS4’s library, 99% of it will. That’s a very large number considering more than 4,000 titles that run natively on the current-generation PlayStation console.
When PS5 launches this November, more than 99% of the PS4 library will be playable on PS5.
Your top backward compatibility questions, answered: https://t.co/VV4qNSa3oA pic.twitter.com/44WKSvcvae
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) October 9, 2020
In fact, Sony claims that the PS5 is only incapable of running 10 games from the PlayStation 4 catalog. But, fortunately, the list does not include any of PS4’s big and exclusive titles. For the most part, the games themselves were pretty negligible, as far as playability and popularity go.
Emulation enhancements
Players who would be making the transition from one generation of PlayStation console to the next, however, will find more advantages to the move than being able to play the latest titles. The experience will also be boon, too, for giving backwards-compatibility to PlayStation 4 titles, with major improvements via Game Boost.
One of the major highlights of the backwards-compatibility enhancement is the performance level for each game. Displaying its superiority over the PlayStation 4 Pro’s hardware, any PS4 game that runs on PS5 will see better, yet stable framerates. Which, in simple terms, would mean a smoother experience throughout when playing a backwards-compatible title on the PS5.
Another aspect of the better experience with gaming will-be previous-gen titles would be higher visual fidelity. This capability especially applies to games that have their frame rates unlocked or have dynamic resolution support up to 4K.
Lastly, albeit not as substantial as the previous two, players who would be playing a PS4 title on PS5 will experience an all-new user interface, inherent to the new console.
Some discrepancies
Considering the disparity between the DualShock 4 and DualSense’s controllers, though, a slight alteration can be anticipated. Primarily, playing a backwards-compatible title on PS5 will offset support on what is supposedly PS4’s “share” functionality. Other missing functionalities seen from the PS4 but not in the PS5 includes Tournaments and Second Screen app.
As a caveat, Sony claims that, at least in the console’s early state post-launch, players might experience “errors or unexpected behaviors” when running backwards-compatible games.
Image used courtesy of PlayStation/YouTube Screenshot