The PS4 and PS4 pro are two popular consoles in the market right now. Xbox One X and Nintendo Switch are not far behind. How about if you want to play your old but equally good PS3 games? In this article, I shed light on the present backward compatibility situation with Sony’s PS4 and show you how gamers can have fun with PS3 titles on the console.
Can PS3 Games Be Played On PS4?
Sorry, but no. Not by inserting the disk in the console anyway. As you cannot make use of the PS3 game discs in the modern console (the same way it was with the first generation PS3 with PS3 titles), you can stream and download older titles through Sony’s own PlayStation Now service in the US, UK and lots of other countries.
Why The PS4 Does Not Offer Backwards Compatibility
Unlike Sony, Microsoft provides backward compatibility with the Xbox. One for almost 500 Xbox 360 titles. You can insert the disc if you are the owner of the game or purchase the game online through Microsoft’s online store. It’s a way for a console to offer the functionality naturally, and that is a massive point of attraction over the PS4.
However, Sony’s head of PlayStation Europe, Jim Ryan said three years ago in an interview that even though backward compatibility is hot cake when it comes to requesting by gamers, the rate at which it is used is low compared to how it is requested for.
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His words, “When we’ve dabbled with backward compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much,” “That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3, and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?”
Play PS3 Games Using PlayStation Now
Even if it is now common knowledge that you cannot play your PS3 games on your PS4 via old discs, there is an alternative option you can use. And that is PlayStation Now.
Although PlayStation Now and Xbox One’s backward compatibility are not identical, it lets gamers stream and downloads a lot of games through the internet.
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Sony’s PlayStation Now subscription gives gamers access to a library of PS3 and PS4 games available almost immediately, streaming should be praised for that. Sony even points out that you have more than 600 titles to select from.
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When you stream games, you benefit a few things like no prior downloads and synced progress between consoles so some people might fancy it. Like I said earlier, the service lets you download games you can use offline, which is very apt for those with internet connections that are just too slow, hence streaming is a painful experience.
Reading through this article, we will discover that, this article on how to play PS3 games on PS4 is nothing but an eye opener to the fact that it is impossible to play PS3 games on PS4. Due to the reasons already stated above.