Sony believes cross-gen games will be important for the next several years

Sony may have expressed its disdain at cross-gen games prior to revealing the PlayStation 5, but in recent weeks they’ve been quite keen on the subject.  

While previously revealed as PlayStation 5 exclusives,  Sony will be releasing three cross-gen games over the course of the year: Spider-Man Miles Morales,  Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Horizon: Forbidden West.

In an interview with AV Watch, Sony Interactive Entertainment head of platform planning Hideaki Nishino explained that transitioning straight into exclusive PS5 development isn’t an easy task for developers.

Google Translated by VGC, Nishino said: “It may not be easy to develop PS5-specific development from day one. For the time being, development for PS4 is also necessary.”

“It’s not a PlayStation unless you prepare a system that developers can use up over several years, so I think there is great potential in the future.”

Much like Xbox’s cross-gen plans with games such as Halo Infinite and Xbox smart delivery,  Nishino explains that forward compatibility with these types of games are important for players who are moving from one system to another.

“The current assumption is that the transition from PS4 to PS5 will take about three years. In the meantime, how can I keep buying games on PS4? Can the purchased games be played on PS5? That is important.

“After a certain period of time, we ask developers to develop on the premise of ‘cross generation’ of PS4 and PS5. Of course, we also need to improve the library to make it easier.”

These statements are a far cry from those said by PlayStation before the reveal of cross-gen software.  In fact, back in July,  PlayStation global manager Eric Lampel said: “we believe in generations. So we want to evolve every part of the experience.”

“In many cases, we can’t take everybody with us from previous consoles into [a next generation experience]. You need new hardware, you need new devices to experience what these developers want you to experience.”