Should Microsoft bosses laugh secretly after Yoshida Shuhei confirmed that PS4 will never be backwards compatible?

As early as this year's E3 game show, Microsoft launched its own killer weapon - Xbox One is backward compatible with old 360 games, which made many Xbox fans cheer. However, Sony disagreed. Yoshida Shuhei once said that although Microsoft's decision to be backward compatible is interesting, PS4 will still not be backward compatible.

At the recent Paris Games Week, Sony Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida took to his French Twitter account to answer questions from netizens and once again gave a firm answer: PS4 will never be backwards compatible.

In the face of Sony's remarks, should the Microsoft bosses who own WIN10 and its backward compatibility policy smile secretly?

Sony: The focus should be on providing high-quality games

As we all know, whenever a new console is launched, the lack of games is the weakness of the new console. If it is not compatible with games on old platforms, the sales of the new console in the early stage will not be very good. Without sufficient sales, it will affect the enthusiasm of third parties to launch works on new platforms.

Therefore, Microsoft's backward compatibility policy has undoubtedly become a booster for Xbox One sales, but Sony has its own unique insights.

From the perspective of the player base, players who purchased PS4 and Xbox One all joined the ranks of TV games in this generation. Just like the survey conducted by Naughty Dog Studio before, 80% of PS4 players have never seen classic games like the "Uncharted" trilogy.

The purpose of new players buying these consoles is very simple, which is to be able to play various masterpieces freely. They often care about which games will be launched on the new consoles in the future. Those who care about the backward compatibility of the consoles must be old players. If I am an old player, then I must have an Xbox 360 or PS3. Why should I play these old games on the next-generation consoles that are not as good as the remastered versions?

Sony believes that its goal should focus on providing players with better quality games. Shuhei Yoshida also revealed on his French Twitter account that Sony's first-party and second-party companies are developing more than 30 games, but of course he himself is not clear about it.

For old games, in addition to compatibility, remaking is also a good way

Although Sony announced that it would not support PS4 backward compatibility, it does not mean that PS4 is not friendly to old games. In the face of Microsoft's backward compatibility policy, remaking games is obviously a good choice.

Xbox One is compatible with 360 games, but in fact it only adds a virtual machine to the console to simulate the 360 ​​environment. It is not truly hardware compatible, and the 360 ​​can only achieve a maximum of 720P, 30fps in terms of picture effects. Since the simulator effect is not ideal, some games even experience frame drops, screen tearing, etc., which does not meet the requirements of the next-generation console at all.

As for the old PS3 games that are loved by players, the high-definition remake allows these games to reach a new level of presentation on the next-generation console. This not only enhances the gaming experience of old players, but also allows new PS4 players to play these classic games.

However, when it comes to remakes, Sony is not the only one. Microsoft has also produced remastered games suitable for next-generation consoles. However, the policies of the two companies are completely different. In order to allow players to experience the excellent performance of PS4, Sony packages the games into collections and sells them to players, which not only improves the gaming experience, but also boosts the sales of console games such as PS3.

Microsoft's approach is slightly different. Although it has also released a game collection in response to players' requests, in order to comply with the backward compatibility policy, it has remastered one of the games in the series in HD, and then given players the 360 ​​versions of the remaining games after purchasing them.

The two console giants have different strategies for dealing with old games. The fundamental goal is to provide players with more abundant games. However, the games in the next-generation consoles are not as abundant as those in the previous generation. Policies such as remaking classics or backward compatibility are still needed to achieve generational change.

For consoles, what attracts players is always the quality of the games on the platform. With the emergence of a large number of next-generation console exclusive games such as "Uncharted 4" and "Halo 5", the games on PS4 and Xbox One will also become richer.

So, whether you call the current situation backward compatibility, exclusivity, or "rehashing old stuff", most people still hope to put the future of console games in the real future.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.