There has been quite a bit of chatter online recently about the PlayStation 5 potentially running PlayStation 3 games through emulation. Beyond the rumors there were even patents being discovered that suggest Sony is toying with the idea of brining PlayStation 3 emulation onto the PlayStation 5 console. On paper, this is great. Who wouldn’t want the ability to play some of their past favorite games on more modern hardware?
Well, it’s all just rumors right now, so we’ll need to cool our expectations right now. For instance, this stems back to an industry insider named Jeff Grubb, who noted that they had heard there was some work being done for a little while now. But so far, there hasn’t been anything officially unveiled at the moment. That means we’ll need to sit tight to see if Sony makes any formal announcement on emulation coming to the PlayStation 5.
With that said, we’re finding another report online thanks to PlayStation Lifestyle, which credits Digital Foundry. The folks over at Digital Foundry have found that PlayStation 3 emulation on the PlayStation 5 will still be difficult. You can see the video Digital Foundry put out below, but beyond the more technical jargon, there seems to be plenty of concern about some games that just flat-out won’t work out on the PlayStation 5.
So again, it’s likely that if this does come out for the PlayStation 5, games that are selected for emulation will be slim pickings. But again, much like how I stated earlier, these are just rumors right now. We don’t have anything official from Sony to confirm that select PlayStation 3 games will be able to emulate perfectly on the PlayStation 5 hardware. Of course, we always hope Sony can pull off bringing more of their classic libraries from past platforms onto the PlayStation 5. Let’s cross our fingers for now and see what Sony unveils at their next big showcase.