Patents Suggest PS5 May Be Backwards Compatible

Sony Interactive Entertainment America, has patented “Remastering by Emulation” over at the United States Patent Office. This means that Sony has found a way to enhance the resolution which might bring the backwards compatibility for the PS5.

Reddit user AlphaFoxWarfare found this patent he says this is a similar approach to what Microsoft has done with the Xbox One X enhanced backwards compatibility, by adding 4K resolution, HDR, better textures without touching the actual game code.

Here is the technical explanation right from the Sony’s Patent:

Each asset such as a texture called for by legacy software such as a legacy computer game software has a unique identifier associated with it. The unique identifier can be rendered by imposing a hash on the asset, and then the asset stored with its identifier in a data structure. An artist remasters the textures for presentation on a higher resolution display than envisioned in the original software, and stores them back in the data structure with their identifiers. The original software is then played on the higher resolution display, with asset (such as texture) calls being intercepted, identified, and the data structure entered to retrieve the remastered asset having a matching identifier. The remastered asset is then inserted on the fly into the game presentation.

“According to reports, from a technical point of view, the operation of this system is very similar to the Xbox One backward compatibility program, which in recent years has received considerable appreciation from both the press and the players.

In the patent abstracts nothing is mentioned about Sony devices, let alone PS5, but refers to titles of the past generations (legacy software), to texture upscales to adapt to high-resolution screens and the addition of remastered assets.

According to the latest rumors, the reveal of PlayStation 5 would be set for the first months of 2019. According to another rumor, however, Sony is also working on upgrading the network infrastructure of the PlayStation Network in view of the launch of the next console”