A patent for the PlayStation 5 was previously discovered last year pointing towards players being able to play old games, but now another patent has been published which shows more signs Sony is making it a priority for their next console. The new patent, discovred by website Gear Nuke, is registered to Sony Interactive Entertainment and lists Mark Cerny, the lead architect on the PlayStation 4, as one of the console’s creators. Crucially, the title of the patent is ‘Simulation of legacy bus operation for backward compatibility’ – which is exactly what it sounds like.
The patent, interestingly, also mentions a method of boosting performance of legacy applications, supporting the previous patent which describes ‘remastering by emulation’. It essentially points to Sony possibly mimicking Xbox Game Pass in upscaling old games to higher resolutions for retro PlayStation games, which makes sense considering it’s become a competitive selling point for Microsoft’s machine. While this is far from confirmation of Sony’s plans with the PlayStation 5, it’s an encouraging sign the company is reconsidering its stance on the issue – after the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 both launched with no backwards compatibility options.