Did Ubisoft mistakenly reveal details about the PS5’s backward compatibility support?
A seemingly innocent Ubisoft support page may have given far more details about Sony’s next-generation PlayStation console than it should have.
Earlier today, we wrote about Ubisoft providing more information about how upgrading to the next-gen versions of its games from the current-gen versions will work. Part of that information came in the form of a support page for upgrading on PlayStation 5. Said page isn’t all that long, and everything seems pretty straightforward—until you get to a certain paragraph on the Australian version of the page.
If you look at the third paragraph down in the answer section, for no apparent reason, the FAQ not only talks about how PlayStation 4 titles will be playable on the PlayStation 5—an important thing to note in all of this—but then also goes on to say that backward compatibility “will not be possible for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, or PlayStation games.”
Given that nobody would be expecting to be able to upgrade from pre-PlayStation 4 versions of games to PlayStation 5 versions (if such things even exist), this is a weird inclusion for the FAQ. It also then leads to a huge question: Did this FAQ just confirm the fact that the PS5 won’t be able to play any older PlayStation games before the PS4 era?
After this mention was found, some online have wondered if maybe it’s Ubisoft trying to clarify that PS5 games would only be compatibly with PS4 games in terms of things like online multiplayer. However, as best we know, there wouldn’t be a single currently-known case in which that would be relevant anyhow, as there aren’t any Ubisoft releases that would exist on both the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 3 to potentially offer cross-play with. (PlayStation 2 then only has a small number of online-playable games period, while the original PlayStation never had any sort of internet support.)
Obviously, mistakes happen, and that paragraph’s inclusion could be chalked up to a simple misunderstanding, a miscommunication, a copy & paste error, or any number of things. However, given Sony has still said nothing about the PlayStation 5 being able to tap into the history of the company’s consoles beyond its immediate predecessor, it’s hard not to wonder if that simple statement is indeed letting us in on the disappointing truth.
Source: Ubisoft Australia Support Page
