PS4 won’t natively support PS3 games

In amongst a long list of impressive PlayStation Clould features laid out for the PS4 by Gaikai’s David Perry was one little detail that may turn many potential buyers off.

While Perry said that cloud services on the PS4 would enable Sony to stream PS3 games to users, he also mentioned that PS3 games won’t be natively supported on the PS4, which means the new console won’t recognise your PS3 game discs.

Backward compatibility has been quite a controversial topic on PlayStation consoles. The PS3 initially added and then removed PS2 backward compatibility, and many had hoped that the backlash to that move would prompt Sony to include PS3 compatibility on the PS4.

The lack of native PS3 support probably has a lot to do with the PS3’s Cell-based custom architecture and the fact that the PS4 is built more like a PC, but it’s a feature we’d like to have seen in there all the same.

The PlayStation 4 was officially unveiled earlier today and is set for release towards the end of the year.

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