PS5: 4 Ups & 4 Downs After 4 Months

2. Backwards Compatibility, Awkward Upgrade Problems & Save/Trophy Migration

Endemic of just how much Sony DIDN'T plan for a 2021 comprised of older titles being upgraded, or a push towards embracing the past like Xbox is with Game Pass, even at launch the PS5's UI had people not knowing if they were playing the PS4 version of a game on their new systems.

Sony patched in a tiny "three dot" menu to make sure you're playing the PS5 version, but that hasn't got around the fact that they didn't code an alternative to Xbox's masterful "Smart Delivery" tech.

Rather than have save progress migrate over automatically or trophy progress get recognised through our profiles, it's down to each individual developer to craft a manual, per-game "cloud save", that you can "retrieve" once you've got the new version.

The Avengers, Crash 4, Mortal Kombat 11, Spider-Man - each then trigger all your already acquired trophies at once, duplicating them in your feed. Even then, as is the case with The Avengers and Crash, some users are still missing random trophies, or entire save files.

Worse still with older games, where you can play titles as old as Dead to Rights or Full Spectrum Warrior in automatic 4K HDR at up to 120fps on Xbox, Sony's response to accessing PS2-era titles is that you "may encounter some problems".

Most notably from my own experience are The Warriors and Ape Escape 2, which despite selling for real money on the PlayStation Store, look like this: