Backwards compatibility has been a feature of new consoles since the days of the PlayStation 2. More recently its removal from console hardware has been used as a cost saving exercise by Sony, and in doing so the company angered more than a few gamers. But according to EA, backwards compatibility is not set to continue with the roll out of next-gen hardware.
That prediction has come from Blake Jorgensen, EA’s chief financial officer, who made the comment during a Q&A session at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference held in San Francisco yesterday.
Jorgensen was talking specifically about EA’s sports titles. He believes the current gen will remain strong into 2014 even if we see new consoles in time for Christmas 2013. That’s simply because such games get released on a cycle to tie up with the calendars of different sports, which don’t always simultaneously tie up with a new console launch. He went on to say next-gen machines “will most likely not be backwards compatible,” which again suggests current-gen will remain a strong platform for sports due to their popularity as multiplayer games.
No explanation was given as to why he thought the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 would drop backwards compatibility.
The PS4 is expected to switch from a Cell architecture to a more PC-like set of components. That does make offering backwards compatibility difficult for Sony, and potentially very costly if they decide to include enough additional hardware inside a PS4 to run PS3 games. But Sony has an ace up its sleeve in the form of Gaikai, meaning it could allow previous gen games to be played without any compatible hardware being shipped.
Microsoft has no equivalent to Gaikai, but it has been pushing full Xbox 360 $299.99 at Dell game downloads through Xbox Live. If it decided not to include backwards-compatibility through hardware support, there could be some method offered using Xbox Live and download copies of older games that can run on the new hardware.
Backward compatibility may be out of the question depending on what exactly constitutes a next-gen console. The growing popularity of mobile gaming and the coming introduction of cheap gaming platforms such as Ouya has certainly changed the market. The PS4 and Xbox 720 may be very different machines. Hopefully we’ll find out how different on February 20.
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