It's been almost a week now and all I can think of is .. sony's silence for so long followed by coming out with a fairly technical talk has done very few favors for the average person that may have tried to engage. In particular, the backwards compatibility messaging was "we've tested the 100 most played games and are happy to say that most of them will be playable from launch". Even I can admit to being a little thrown off by that wording, it sounds like they only plan to make popular games run well and the use of the word *most* makes it sound like not even 100 games will run day 1. This of course wasn't really what Cerny was trying to say , the actual messaging was intended to be "most of the 4000 titles" will run but since testing needs to happen game by game , they can't promise 100% compatibility from launch.
At least that's my take away at the moment. I have to assume Sony is planning 3-4 more events similar to this that focus more on the hardware itself and the games we'll be playing. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see one of the final videos be "Backwards compat on PS5 AND YOU" very close to launch where it's revealed that your digital library of titles (including PS+) will just carry over with your PSN ID , fully tested titles will launch as normal , other games might load up with a little disclaimer like " this title should work well enough but hasn't completed internal testing, some errors may occur not found on a PS4 gaming console" and finally you might have a small chunk of the library (5-10% maybe ?) that just doesn't work. A 4th category might even be "this title has been enhanced by the developer to take as full advantage of the PS5 hardware as is possible and features the following enhancements : (increased resolution, framerate, enhanced graphics) ".
I guess what I'm most curious about here is whether we can fully wave goodbye to old style cross gen games. Back in 2013 and even going into 2014 , PS3/PS4 and XB360/XB1 titles would all have different SKU's so even if you bought the last gen version of a game you'd still have to (in most cases) pay to buy it a second time to play it on the new console. I'm hoping this fall at least that any game available on current AND next gen hardware is perhaps placed on the shelf with respective branding on the box and you can just pop that disc into whatever you have. So the example in my head is maybe the new call of duty , there's only 2 versions in stores , XBox or playstation. The cases of each don't say PS4/XBone they only say "playstation" and "xbox" with perhaps a small tag on the box art "plays on ps4/ps5 gaming consoles" or "plays on xbox one/series x gaming consoles". Pop the disc into a PS4 /XB1 and it updates for that specific platform , throw it in a one X or a PS4 pro and maybe it grabs a small update to run better there , throw it in a PS5/XBSX and it grabs a substantial update that makes it a "next gen" version at no extra cost. I really hope this is the direction taken by ALL new third party software starting this holiday season (if we don't get a covid19 delay anyway). I also wouldn't be too surprised for some games to see a second scenario play out - you buy a PS4 title , let's say Cyberpunk 2077 and it runs just fine on PS4/PS4 pro and it's clearly marked as a PS4 release. A couple months later the PS5 console launches and cyberpunk is a game that has at least passed cert to simply run on PS5 with few extras. 6 months goes by and CDPR have an official full update for cyberpunk that fully updates the game to run on both series X and PS5 with console native new features , people who bought the current version can download a free patch IF playing on the new console to take advantage of this. Then, later down the road ; as single player DLC wraps up for CP2077 ,a GOTY edition is released ONLY on next gen systems. This being intended for new potential buyers , since early buyers would likely have just updated the game along the way.
Whatever happens I think we can all agree that we're a hungry bunch and more news is always needed to satiate that appetite.
