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[angrod14]

Altough BC wasn't a very critical feature in the past for consoles, I think the paradigm has changed since last gen. The shift to digital libraries, which implies consumers heavily investing into a plataform's locked ecosystem, means they will be reasonably expecting the preservation and availability of such library when transitioning to the new iteration of hardware. Imagine buying an iPhone 15 and Apple telling you the apps you bought with your iPhone 14 are not supported anymore; unacceptable.

There's also the fact that after having it standard now on PS5 and Xbox, people will certainly be expecting the same when the PS6 and next MS console are announced. But the major factor here will always be hardware design, as implied in the poll.

I was shocked when they revealed PSVR2 lack of backwards compatibility. You're trying to sell a very expensive niche piece of hardware, with very little software available, while completely shitting on the people who invested into the previous version of it? Seriously? What a joke.

 

[ThisIsMyDog]

Consoles are going be ARM based cloud platforms so no

 

[Mephisto40]

I would be on the verge of crazyness for Microsoft or Sony to bring a new console out that doesn't support anything other than it's own games on the storefronts

 

[M1chl]

Hopefully, they will at least have something like Rosetta. GPUs are probably not going to change architecture in major way.

 

[adamsapple]

As long as there are no wild changes in terms of structures, yes, I expect the next gen to be fully compatible with the current one and so on.

 

[VGEsoterica]

I mean considering these are all just PC parts in a box if its NOT a given its a business decision and not a technological one

 

[DaGwaphics]

Certainly should be. Xbox seems particularly well positioned to keep BC going forward, it would be really odd for them to drop the feature.

Nintendo will probably keep printing money with the "new" versions of major games for each hardware revision though.

 

[JCK75]

It damn well better be.. even Nintendo has no excuse.. we've seen how good switch emulation is on Steam Deck so even if they switch to AMD, those games should be running.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

The future is uncertain so anything can happen. Heck I'm not even 100% sure if the next nintendo console will have back-compat with the current Switch.

 

[diffusionx]

It's expected at this point. Except I highly doubt the future of these things is in x86 - but they could switch to ARM and run x86 games in a compatibility layer. Every single Apple computer being sold today is doing just that for non-native apps.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

No. If you want that certainty, stick to PC.

 

[WhiteWaterM00se]

The longer this goes until Switch 2 is announced, I believe it may in fact not be BC. Or fully BC.

This is what I am currently expecting anyway.

 

[Griffon]

If PC wasn't hugely reliant on backwards compatibility, ARM-based CPUs would have become the standard years ago.

x86 days are numbered.
As soon as x86 emulation gets good enough, everybody will jump ship.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Consoles are going be ARM based cloud platforms so no

With Proton tools, should not be an issue.

 

[crackajack]

I assume MS might be in a better position to go away from x86 since their whole virtualised machine angle is more flexible, also they have knowledge in ARM and of course should know how to program an OS. Linux gets ported to practically anything, so why should actual pros not be capable of doing the same? With some extra effort, so of course there must be some benefit in doing so.
Flip flopping on architecture is not impossible. Apple does this "all the time". As long as the power is somewhat comparable backwards compatibility should be no problem. Cell was and is just hard since the APU is quite special as I understand, but even without official documentation some genius people seem to figure it out as a full time hobby project.

Nvidia will be pricey, but ARM + DLSS might be interesting and they could do that. Or Intel tries to compete with AMD since modern stuff already ran okay on their new designs and backwards compatible stuff only needs okay performance anyway, so likely good enough on a newer gen of hw.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Xbox has BC all the way upto original xbox.

I suppose they didn't do the hard work to give up on it in future. So I think it's here to stay, at least on Xbox.

 

[Tsaki]

Yes for Xbox and Playstation. No they are not going ARM. As long as AMD creates greatly performant CPUs as they currently do with Zen, they will stay with them.
As for Nintendo, it's murkier. They are on cartridge which puts some doubts to the extent of BC in the future.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Yes for Xbox and Playstation. No they are not going ARM. As long as AMD creates greatly performant CPUs as they currently do with Zen, they will stay with them.
As for Nintendo, it's murkier. They are on cartridge which puts some doubts to the extent of BC in the future.

Yep, and to keep the APU die size small for cost, they will go with chiplet stacking to get more performance per watt.

 

[Tsaki]

Yep, and to keep the APU die size small for cost, they will go with chiplet stacking to get more performance per watt.

Chiplet stacking is great for yields and AMD is at the forefront. Last year they had the success story of 5800X proving that it works and performs as expected. This year they released the new generation which supports higher clocks. They are also using chiplet stacking by connecting not only GPU chiplets together but also GPU and CPU blocks (MI300X and MI300A). In my theoretical 2028 release of next gen, 5 years from now, the tech will have matured enough to be used without worry by the console manufacturers. Different chiplets for CPU cores, GPU cores, L3 cache, AI accelerator blocks etc.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I said no. It’s not even certain on pc after os updates.

 

[SF Kosmo]

On home consoles, yes. With Nintendo, there is always a chaos factor.

 

[Drew1440]

I would be on the verge of crazyness for Microsoft or Sony to bring a new console out that doesn't support anything other than it's own games on the storefronts

If they were wise, developers would start compiling ARM or Risc-V builds of their games for future proofing. Although it's more likely they will be sold as remasters instead.

Still there was nothing stopping the PS4 from playing PS1/2 games from disc, the bluray drive was fully capable despite some claiming it wasn't (more to do with red book CD audio capability) they just didn't want to support it since there was no value in it.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Sony ditched the idea of B.C compatibility soon after they stopped producing Playstation 3's with that feature....you look at the PS4 days and apparently the dawn of some great PS2 titles coming onto it never happened....things got worse with the PS5....you think they would have had a compatibility programme similar to Microsoft's but it didn't happen......the sad state of play is that it's only in the older generation can you find the best of the best arcade racers, tennis games, Command and Conquer type of games, and the great Pro Evolution Soccers.....now you can't even get that much less Panzer Dragoon Orta on Playstation

 

[DaleinCalgary]

MS and Sony are making a lot of money on remakes now and Nintendo is a remake and resell company of previous gen games so no it will not be standard.

 

[EverydayBeast]

As a veteran gamer, you don’t need backwards compatibility, just connect the damn console. I think that’s the nicest way to say it.

 

[drganon]

Don't know, but I hope it is.

 

[Kataploom]

If PC wasn't hugely reliant on backwards compatibility, ARM-based CPUs would have become the standard years ago.

x86 days are numbered.
As soon as x86 emulation gets good enough, everybody will jump ship.

If anything, ARM days are even more, they just started to ask for more money for licenses and to prohibit chips customizations (yeah, goodbye custom ARM versions of their SoCs that they don't do themselves), removing two of the advantages of using ARM over other architecture. It seems like companies are already looking at RISC-V as a substitute. I'm not into mobile hardware market that much but that's what I've seen lately on YouTube

 

[00_Zer0]

Don't trust any console manufacturer. If you have any beloved games that you want to play well into the future buy a hard copy of it, and keep your old console around, because one day you might not get a chance to play it on the newest console generation.

 

[I Master l]

PS5 BC is %100 hardware based "Cerny literally said "AMD did a masterful jop implementing PS5 BC"
I beleive Sony will stuck in a bad position in the future choosing between an upgraded architecture
that will break BC or just add mure CUs to an old one, MS in the other hand are using virtual machine
to run everything on the Xbox they will have more flexibility even implementing an ARM CPU

 

[cireza]

It would be a mistake to consider BC a given, in my opinion. It is always either very challenging, or very constraining. Xbox might give the impression that it was easy, it certainly wasn't.

You have both examples of this, by the way.

Very challenging : what MS did with Xbox
Very constraining : what Nintendo did with Wii U

 

[oji-san]

After the last 2 gens (PS4-PS5/Xbox One-Series) not having BC will be insane.

 

[SeraphJan]

If they need to change architecture in the future, BC will probably reset