Yeah, sounds more like a confirmation of what we all already expected. Sony has shown little to no interest in straight-up backwards compatibility this time around, instead choosing to offer select titles via PS Now or remastered versions.

Isn't the architecture substantially different in those older generations? I also didn't think anyone was expecting PS1 - 3 compatibility.

I would expect PSN games that worked on PS4 to work on PS5, though.

Definitely. That doesn't make it impossible (see what MS did with 360 compatibility) but takes a concerted engineering effort to make it work. Sony doesn't feel it's worth pursuing; or if they do, they're not talking about it until/if it happens.

But yeah... nobody should be expecting it from them. It's just in contrast to what MS is doing, that's all. It seems all three companies (Sony, MS, Nintendo) are handling their older catalogs in different ways. I'd love to be able to pop a handful of PS2 discs into a PS5 to play/replay them, but I respect that that's not going to be an option.

PS3 was different architecture and never going to work anyway, hence PSNow. So I'm good with PS4 back-compat. I don't need it to go back to PS1/2.

I would love it if Sony re-released the PS3 with backwards compatibility for 1&2. I know they want people to double dip on remastered editions but for licensing reasons, there are many games that won't be re-released anytime soon that I own and would love to play again.

That would be awesome. Almost akin to all of these retro consoles that have been released. I’d get one.

I still have my working perfectly launch PS3 for that reason.

I had to bake my launch PS3. Got an extra year out of it to get me to the release of the PS4 before it crapped out again.

I imagine the number of people with fully functional launch PS3s (with full PS1 & PS2 BC) is pretty slim, and those that are willing to sell what they've got probably want way more than it's worth. Having the compatibility in a modern system (or a rebooted PS3 Classic as Red Hood said) would be nice, though.

My launch PS3 with full compatibility died just before the PS4 came out. I had it repaired twice but it failed a 3rd time and apparently is because of the heat it generates. I have functioning PS1 and PS2 but the memory cards on those suck and they fail often, so any progress made on any game gets lost. That's why I loved the PS3 and the backwards compatibility because I could save my games on the hard drive and not depend on shitty memory cards.

Sony has been using the excuse of the the PS3 and before being different in the tech sense but I'm pretty sure they just simply don't want to do it as the money they get on remasters is more than what they would get on a older system re-launch. But man, that's what I feel it has been missing from all these gaming companies that have released retro consoles. All the official ones come with the limited pre-programmed games without the option of using old games in these retro consoles.

My launch P3 is still humming along like a champ, but it is/was used more as a Blu-ray player and media server than a game machine.

Same!
(though mine's not launch - it's the first round of slims that I got after my 80gig w/ BC died)

I still have a PS3 slim I bought around 2011 for the sole reason of having a console that would play all those games I have. This one plays some PS1 games too, but there are some that won't recognize.

Every PS3 plays PS1 games. PS2 games will only play on the launch 20 and 60 GB systems and the 80GB system that was launched with Metal Gear Solid 4.

I had the MGS bundle PS3, it died maybe a year before PS4 came out. I sold it for parts and bought a slim top loader to replace it. I still use it to play PS3 games and watch movies. I hardly ever used either of them to play PS2 or PS1 games.

I'm jealous. Mine got the YLOD last year and was unable to be fixed. Probably my fault for using it for PS1 thru P3 games.

I had one of the "fatty" PS3's then it died. I then replaced the fatty with a slim. I still have the slim and it works perfectly.

September 2nd and still no price, no date or pre-order info from Sony and Microsoft. In the history of gaming consoles, has this info ever been this late before?

The Switch only had something like 50 days from full reveal to release. Preorders didn't go up until January 13th for a March 3rd release.

I was thinking the same thing bc Im still using my launch 20gb PS3 which is basically a space heater at this point. It gets so hot I only use it in the winter! I was looking at prices for a replacement on ebay a few months back and they are not cheap.

There's a rumor of a Sony event where everything will be revealed next week on the 9th. It's the 25th Anniversary of the PS in North America. Of course anyone could have pulled that out and started the rumor so who knows.

In the history of gaming consoles has a system ever got released in the middle of a pandemic that still has a lot of the country shut down? This isn't a normal situation.

Yeah, I figured that one out awhile ago. Both companies need/should just go ahead and tell people if they are planning to release them this year or not. If they can't due to a parts shortage or something related to the pandemic, fine, that's totally understandable. But this cat and mouse game they keep playing with consumers has gotten very old.

They have done just that, though. Sony reaffirmed Holiday 2020 in their earnings report in August and is running ads, and Microsoft narrowed the Holiday 2020 window to November specifically less than a month ago.

What we don’t know is, well, everything else. Prices, exact release dates, launch lineup, whatever the plan is for the Xbox Series S that still hasn’t been revealed, gameplay on the Xbox Series X...

I think this might just be the new normal and that COVID has less to do with it than people suspect (at least in terms of logistics/manufacturing). Ultimately, anyone who decided months ago to buy a PS5 or XSX on day one likely still will, no matter how exasperated they are now.

Earlier in the year (or maybe late last year), I recall seeing some internet rumors that the PS5 supposedly would be backwards compatible with PS1-4. I'm not sure where the rumors started, but obviously they were false, with the exception of PS4 compatibility. Couldn't Sony add backwards compatibility through software emulation? I mean, if I could download emulators to play Playstation 1&2 games on my computer a decade ago, surely it wouldn't be a problem for the company that owns/created the original hardware to emulate/virtualize the systems on newer hardware, right?