Sony patent on backward compatibility of PlayStation 5

A recently discovered patent suggests that Sony is considering a new method of updating old games, with "remastering by emulation".

Historically, compatibility with earlier versions has never been a priority for Sony. Some consoles got it, some did not, and some even took it off when they started to worry that people are buying too many new generation games.

But this generation Microsoft has managed to get backward compatibility and make it an essential feature to promote the Xbox One on PlayStation 4.

And yet, if a new patent means what it seems to mean, Sony does not intend to get caught again in PlayStation 5.

The GearNuke website discovered the patent and, although it was originally filed, it was updated last week with new information describing 'emulation remastering'.

The text below comes directly from the patent and describes the on-the-fly update of textures for higher resolutions than expected:

Each asset, such as a texture requested by existing software, such as legacy computer game software, is associated with a unique identifier. 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 reshapes the textures to present them on a resolution display higher than that envisaged in the original software and stores them in the data structure with their identifiers. The original software is then read on the higher resolution display, resource calls (such as texture) being intercepted, identified, and the data structure entered to retrieve the remastered resource having a corresponding identifier. The remastered asset is then inserted on the fly in the presentation of the game.