Sony has confirmed that most of the PS5 games will also appear for the PS4. The trigger is the massive installed base of the last-gen console. But do the cross-gen releases have a negative impact on the new-gen versions? Sony’s Jim Ryan addressed this issue and also defended the price of the next-gen games.
Sony would like to support the PlayStation 4 for a few more years, which includes the release of more games. Since the PS5 is now on the market or will be released worldwide tomorrow, November 19, 2020, the approach also means that many of the upcoming games will be published across generations for both systems.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Sackboy: A Big Adventure already hit it, behind God of War Ragnarok there is still a question mark and with Horizon Forbidden West the next cross-gen game is in the pipeline.
Not all players are enthusiastic about the strategy and fear that the development of the PS4 version will have a negative impact on the qualities of the PS5 counterpart. This is a fear Sony’s Jim Ryan wanted to get out of the way. Speaking to The Telegraph, he emphasized that the PS5 versions will be built from the ground up for the next-gen console.
“The first thing to say is that our PS5 experiences or versions of these games are built from the ground up to take advantage of the PS5 feature set. So I think offering a PS5 version of these games for the PS5 community and then a PS4 version of these games to the PS4 community, I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” said Ryan.
There is, of course, a reason the PS4 players cannot be neglected. In the past few years, more than 113 million copies of the last-gen console have been shipped or sold. The huge installation base still creates immense demand.
“We’ve got a community of PS4 gamers 100 million-strong. It would be wrong to walk away from those people too early. And they’ve been engaged with their PS4s this year under lockdown to a greater extent than at any point over the course of the cycle. They’re using their PlayStations. They’re happy with their PlayStations. Why would we stop giving them games?” said Ryan.
