How PS5 Will Play PS1, PS2 & PS3 Games Revealed

While Sony has officially only confirmed backwards compatibility for PS4 games when it comes to the PS5's legacy capabilities, rumours continue to swirl that the company's plans are much more ambitious. For a while, patents and rumours have suggested that the new machine will be able to play PS1, PS2 and PS3 games in one form or another, and a new patent has shed more light on how that will be possible.

Essentially, should this idea be implemented, Sony has effectively found a way to emulate its old games and store them in the cloud. According to the translated patent, these "games can be run on a virtual machine that mimics the operating system associated with each game console,” giving players access to this legacy content.

Going off the patent, it seems as though this would prioritise a digital future when it comes to backwards compatibility, and most likely tie into Sony's PS Now plans. That subscription service currently offers the chance for players to stream PS3 games, and adding PS2 and PS1 titles to the mix would be a game changer.

Of course, whether the system will be able to recognise if a player already owns the game and can access it for free remains unclear.

Either way, full backwards compatibility is looking increasingly likely.