
If our very own Jamie O’Neill’s recent roster of retro reviews have got you frothing at the mouth over some old-school gaming, then you’re going to want to keep your classic consoles hooked up. Revealed as part of yesterday’s colossal PlayStation Blog post, Sony has stated that the PlayStation 4 will not be backward compatible with any of the platform holder’s previous systems – including the PSone.
While the firm ruled out PlayStation 3 support months ago, many had harboured hope that the next generation console would run the PlayStation Network emulations of titles from the PlayStation 2 and PSone era. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case at the moment. To be fair to the Japanese giant, it did patch some of this functionality into the PlayStation Vita, so there’s a chance that it could do the same here. However, with the firm pushing its Music Unlimited subscription, we can’t help but wonder if this is a move designed to bolster Gaikai registrations in the near future, too.
[source blog.eu.playstation.com]
Comments 27
Maybe it's just me, but I feel I'm kind of over PSOne games by now. The few that I really really loved, I've played on PSOne, PSP, PS3, and PSVita. Not sure I need another platform for them. Even when I tried to go back and play Medievil, the graphics made my GF sick.
All that said, it's clearly possible so maybe we'll see it as an update in the future like we did with Vita (although, that was a bit of a different story).
I don't have a problem with this , in my opinion , retro games should be (and deserve to be) played on retro consoles.
also , why shell out all that cash on a ps4 ,then play games of yore ?
Not in the least bothered about the complete lack of backwards compatibility.
I'd much rather they focus on making the machine all it can be, rather than wasting resources trying to emulate past consoles on completely different hardware, all of which would only serve to increase the price of the machine and have people moaning about that instead.
If you want to play old games, keep your old consoles.
No need whatsoever to have PS1 games on PS4. There are several ways to play them if you'd like: on your old PS1, on your old PS2, on the PSP and Vita (some of them), and even on the PS3 (not only the ones that are available on PSN, but also your old discs). It would be very silly to complain that you can't play them on a 2014 machine. And this comes from a guy who's playing Dragon Warrior VII, a PS1 game, on the PS2 right now.
So you can't buy ps1, ps2, or ps3 on psn or you just can't use the disc?
So not only did Sony literally kill Lou Reed w/ it's Perfect Day commercial, it seems like a string of mostly bad news since then. Not horrible news, just not good either.
Greatness waits.
@rjejr its not always gonna be good news you just got to know there some things they can't do, that's what gaikai is for. Don't worry about the music thing orbwhatever that WILL get patched
@rjejr The Perfect Day commercial was bad?
And only 2 things could be considered, those are the music unlimited thing - which is stupid - and... I'll think of something.
So you need constant on-line connection with PSN to play PS1 games on PS4? Wow. Now I really can't understand what was wrong with Xbox One.
@gemuarto
The answer to your question is about 3 generations.
Ive always considered the Ps2 to be the best machine for playing Ps1 games due to being able to increase disk speed & smooth textures within the options but mainly due to those enhancements while maintaining an SD output. Played Ps1 games on Ps3 upscaled Yeah. Dont wanna go there again I cant understand why anyone would want to play Ps1 games on a Ps4
Seems I am in the minority. I wanted full BC since it is convenient for many reasons. Anyway this is no reason for not buying a PS4.
@Lelouch - I never said the commercial was bad, just that it killed Lou Reed. And 2 other bits of bad news: a long delay for W_D about a month before it was supposed to be released, and the delay of DriveClub which was supposed to be free at launch w/ PS+. And no MP3 playback. And now no PS1 gameplay. All of which probably could have been made clear earlier than it was, but wasn't.
@Shellybird27 - "its not always gonna be good news"
No, but it seems like it was always good news until Sony reached 1.5 million pre-orders, the most they could manufacture by launch, and since then it's been mostly a string of bad news. And I don't think that's a coincidence.
EDIT: Forget this bit - "The console's "suspend/resume" and remote assistance features are listed as unavailable for the North American launch". I think they were really playing this up back in Feb.
I'll give Sony credit, nothing big bad, just lots of little nit-picky stuff, which wouldn't even be nit-picky if the PS3 didn't already have it and it was taken away. I still nit pick that the Wii U don'st have an ethernet port or optical audio out even though the Wii didnt either.
I really fail to see why no mp3 playback is an issue when everyone who's got the money to buy a PS4 at launch probably has more than a handful of devices at home that can do it anyway. There are just so many better ways to listen to mp3 nowadays than on your videogame console. Seems like everybody is out to nitpick on unconsequential stuff when it comes to next-gen. As for the delays, I don't get the rush either — I barely have the time to play a fraction of what I'd like to as it is.
Glad I just bought a PS2 then to add to my retro man cave.
doesn't bother me, i only have a handful of ps1 games from back in the day and i never owned a ps2 or ps3 so i own none of them.
i hope that gaikai is subscription based, and gives you unlimited access to the entire library. for example, maybe $5 for access to ps1 and ps2 games, $10 for access to ps1, ps2, and ps3 games, or something like that. there are a lot of gems i missed out on from Sony systems over the years.
subscription would be best for me, so i can play all the games i missed!
if they run the service the way OnLive ran, where you paid per game, there's no way i'd be able to afford all of those classics and it would put me off from the service entirely.
But as a side note, PCs can emulate ps1 and ps2 games, and if its powerful enough, ps3 games. i don't see why the very powerful ps4 with PC architecture couldn't emulate them as well, especially if the emulators were designed by sony themselves.
i'm with the article where it says this is likely a ploy to get people to buy into giakai. like i said, i just hope it's a reasonably priced subscription model.
@Tasuki Retro man cave? Than includes playboys from the 80's when girls had a lot of bush down there?

I' m buying a Vita and Vita TV so this won't be that big of a deal. Hopefully they Patch it in just to have the PS4 have even more software support.
@rjejr
I'd say delays to two key day one games a month before launch is more than just nitpicky bad news. There's really no need to explain yourself because the Sony zealots are getting upset that some of us are starting to question some bs decisions. At least MS had the courtesy to tell people right away it was going to bend them over before eventually backing off. Sony should've been more upfront about some of this stuff, period. No PS1 gameplay, no mp3, no cd? This stuff doesn't really effect me because I have my older systems and I honestly never understood why somebody would use their home console as a music player, but hey for some people this is a big deal and Sony should've been more clear about it. It is absolute crap to be forcing music unlimited on people and while I fully expected PSone and 2 playback to not be there as well once the Gaikai announcement was made, it still seems like a dumb decision. I guess we'll have to wait and see how things play out. The joy of getting any system these days at launch is you're basically a beta tester. Very early on, 3DS and Vita were very bare bones as far as features so people who want stuff that isn't there now shouldn't give up hope.I'm getting the PS4 to enoy PS4 games, I won't lie and say I don't want it to win in sales though, I want to see PS4 be a huge success and that's why some of these decisions concern me. Hopefully Sony knows what it's doing.
Old? Retro? My fatty ps3 has ps2 hardware, and that's only from '07. Ps1 and 2 were not so long ago, guys. Y'all don't regularly play games you've always enjoyed even tho they're old now?
@Gamer83 All of your points are perfectly fine, but Sony can't be held responsible for the Watch Dogs delay. The rest is fair — though I don't think the issues are particularly big deals, even if they are disappointing and should be complained about.
@get2sammyb
I don't hold Sony responsible for Watch_Dogs, that's all on Ubisoft not wanting to compete with itself and frankly not putting a competent team on the game (when a game looks worse with each successive showing, it's clear you have a 'C' level dev team working on it). I can't imagine Sony didn't know something was up though, considering how much it had riding on the game and how closely it has been working with Ubisoft. Whatever, what's done is done, and a lot of this stuff being left out is stuff I do see returning if people complain enough about it. I just don't see the point of angering consumers first then reacting later but I guess it's better than putting a feature in (PS2 playback in PS3) then ripping it out later. Either way you're f'ed, and for all I know the general consumer who doesn't visit gaming websites may not even care in the least about this.
@Gamer83 Jimmy fallon show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRxkBVrJWuQ
You're right looks like shit
@Sanquine
I hope they don't actually release it this spring. It's probably wishful thinking on my part because I'm sure too much money has already been spent but I'd love to see them just completely rip the current build apart and start over making the game strictly designed around PS4 and Xbox One. Then down port to Wii U and other systems later on if it's an absolute must.
@eliotgballade I agree 100%, I have my PSOne to play PSOne games same as my PS2 and PS3 to play their respective games, why people buy a new console to play old games I'll never know, especially as now they don't use memory cards soon you can't carry your game saves over
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I am used to Sony omitting backwards compatibility (which I find a bit odd since the three generations controllers are practically the same) so I am not surprised by this. My PS1 stopped working long ago, so I sometimes use my PS3 to play Street Fighter Alpha 2.
Hopefully we can at least get them off the cloud in the future.
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