When I got the XSX recently, it was so I can play Starfield when it comes out. That was basically the only reason. I did not realize the extensive backwards compatibility that this thing has. But since getting it, I’ve been playing FF13 trilogy, Fable games, Dragon Age series, Lost Odyssey, etc. Basically all games of note going all the way back to the OG Xbox will play on the latest console. Either with the original disc, or you can even purchase them online.
The point of my post is I think it’s a real travesty that PlayStation doesn’t do this. I don’t understand it. First of all, you cannot buy most PS1-PS3 games on the digital store. You can’t use the discs. The main way to get access to these games is through the top tier of PS+. But the selection is quite limited, and PS3 games in particular are streaming only.
With the selection, I want to point out that you can’t even play most of the Killzone series on PS+. This is a first party title. There is absolutely no reason that Killzone shouldn’t be available. Killzone 1 isn’t even on there. A PS2 title that is not graphically demanding.
As for the streaming of PS3 games, maybe this was justifiable back on the PS4 because the PS3 has a unique architecture that can be difficult to emulate without performance drops. But with the capabilities of the PS5, it’s not credible to claim that it can’t emulate a PS3. It certainly could, if Sony wanted to assign resources to make an emulator.
I am not a fanboy of one or the other, and I probably still play more on the PS5 than my Xbox, but I think Microsoft should market their backwards compatibility superiority a lot more than they currently do.
This is part of the reason why I haven’t thought of buying a console since the PS3. There are a lot of games that were made for the ps2/1 that I really loved and I can probably never play them again because PlayStations lack that feature. They have effectively been erased, which is really sad.
I sold my PS3 a long time ago, and I’ve been using Steam on my PC since then. Now I won’t have to worry about losing access to titles I bought just because they’re locked to certain hardware that will eventually not be made any more.
What I’ve liked best is that the settings menus makes it so that the game can scale with your hardware. So if you have the capable hardware you aren’t left waiting a decade for a remaster release and nextgen console release to play with some settings turned up.