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Gamers are not really interested in backwards compatibility according to Sony, but we really are. We want to play with our library of games in the next gen. Moreover, if you can enjoy those titles in the next iteration, that’s a reason to jump in. Sony could be exploring the backward compatibility on PS5.

Gearnuke publishes that Sony has updated an interesting patent called “Remastering by emulation”. Along the patent there is a technical description, here there is a summary:

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.

In a nutshell: the user introduces a legacy asset and the system detects it as an asset that has to be upgraded.

A system like that could allow PlayStation 5 to be compatible with games for old PlayStation machines, but we are not going to dream awake yet.

Thanks, Gearnuke.