PS5: 9 Massive Problems Fans Won't See Coming

9. Half-Baked Backwards Compatibility

Amongst all the excitement for more consoles and hardware power, you likely caught wind of Sony's commitment to backwards compatibility on PS5.

Coming from lead architect Mark Cerny, a patent was filed that alluded to the idea of any past-gen disc being playable on the new system. Like how the Xbox One handles things, you'd slot the disc in, and the console would emulate the requisite software on the inside, tricking the disc to thinking it's running on the system it was first designed for.

However, while Sony are yet to demonstrate any of this, one of their spokespeople let the cat out the bag, noting that backwards compatibility is still being worked on. According to them, "[the] dev team is putting all power on verifying whether they can secure complete compatibility", making it sound like we have a case-by-case basis of publisher approval.

This is the way Microsoft have handled things on Xbox, and to be honest, it makes sense. Tons of publishers signed on to remaster or remake deals this generation (including Sony), and they're not going to undercut their own sales by letting you play the version you already own.

According to trusted journalist Patrick Klepek, a big part of the PS5's internal mandate is "history", but I'll believe it when I see it.