E3 2015: Sony has no plans for PS3 backwards compatibility on PS4

Sony has revealed that there are no current plans to bring PS3 backwards compatibility to the PlayStation 4, following Microsoft's announcement for the Xbox One.

During their E3 press conference, Microsoft surprised the gaming world by announcing that Xbox 360 games will be playable on Xbox One, although so far it's limited to 100 select titles coming later this year.

Speaking with Polygon, head of Sony Computer Entertainment World Wide Studios Shuhei Yoshida said: "I don't think we will change our approach. The PlayStation 4 doesn't have backward compatibility."

Both the PS2 and the first 80gb model of the PS3 were backwards compatible, and PSP games are available digitally on the PS Vita. Sony's insistence to not follow Microsoft's example stems from its ambitions for PlayStation Now - an on-demand streaming service that includes a range of PS3 games.

According to Yoshida: "PlayStation Now works surprisingly well. But the primary purpose of that project was to create a new network service that could be used to bring PlayStation games to multiple devices including non-PlayStation devices, like Sony and Samsung televisions."

When asked once more about the possibility of backwards compatibility on the PS4, Yoshida concluded that "backward compatibility is hard. I won't say we'll never do it, but it's not an easy thing to do."

PlayStation Now is available in the US with a European beta currently taking place.

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