Sony is reportedly pushing PlayStation 5 Pro compatibility on developers.
Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming made this statement in Twitter earlier today:
“All games after Sept 16 will need to support the PS5 Pro”
Now, some fans seem to hope that this will mean more than it does, but Tom has been clear about what he’s learned, and Sony has also been clear in their communication as well.
PlayStation 5 Pro support does not mean that all developers have to make their games run 4K 60 FPS on PlayStation 5 Pro. It also does not mean that they expect developers to use ray tracing or other features. It would be absurd to expect a release like Animal Well or Balatro, for example, to find a way to use such features.
This is more of a baseline requirement. Every game that will be released on the PlayStation 5 also has to run on the PlayStation 5 Pro. It may seem to most gamers that a game made for the earlier platform would also run on the upgraded version. But it is absolutely possible to program games in such a way that it doesn’t have that compatibility.
The natural next question here is how this will affect future game development. We consumers shouldn’t see any discernible effect. However, it will be an added step that will make development on the PlayStation 5 that much harder.
And that should raise questions if Sony was right to go forward with this mid-cycle upgrade in the first place. If the PlayStation 5 Pro turns out to be a niche product, then there won’t be that many gamers who will even experience the efforts of developers.
In a situation like this, PlayStation’s dominant position over Xbox can be harmful to developers and gamers alike. Games small and big alike will take that much longer to finish development and get release. We can imagine most game companies choosing to delay games ready for other platforms just so that they could get a higher number of sales on PlayStation.
And that could compromise the chances that future games will be successful. As it is, we have seen that most gamers now are doing most of their spending on a small group of live service games made from five to six years ago.
That means all these games that have to fit compatibility with another extra platform, and that effort won’t add to the chances of their success. Perhaps the worst part about this situation is we will likely never know if this will harm future games, as most developers will likely stay silent so as not to make trouble with PlayStation.
