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It's been claimed that game developers submitting games for certification on the PlayStation 4 to be released after the middle of July must make efforts to ensure their games will also work with the PlayStation 5, according to a report from Eurogamer.
The information comes from developer documentation reportedly seen by Eurogamer released on PlayStation's internal partner website, and according to them was added as an option in a recent version of the PS4 SDK released last month.
What the move means is that any PS4 game submitted to Sony for testing after July 13 should, theoretically be playable on PlayStation 5, but it'll be down to developers to ensure this is the case. It's said that Sony will be contacting individual developers in order to help them test PS5 compatibility on their games, with the primary requirements including that a game's code runs without issues on the PS5 and 'provides the same features' as the game does on PS4.
As pointed out in the article, it's worth noting that the edict only applies to games 'submitted' after the July 13 date, and not necessarily those released after that point – for example the upcoming Ghost of Tshushima and The Last of Us 2 have both already been submitted for their respective releases despite the former not coming out until a couple of days after the cutoff.
For existing games however, there is some notes on those as well – though they won't be required to become forwards compatibile with PlayStation 5, developers are apparently being 'strongly recommended' to try and make their games forward compatible in future patches where feasible by Sony.
Backwards compatibility is already proving a big selling point for the next gen, with Sony already claiming that 'over 4000' PlayStation 4 games will work with the PlayStation 5 on launch, which should happen later this year.
(via Eurogamer)
