Clearly, times are tough for Sony. After having had to increase the sale price of its PlayStation 5 by fifty dollars to save its operating margins, we learn through a discreet podcast that the future PS VR 2, not yet marketed, will not run the old titles compatible with the PS VR. The reasons given are obviously technological, according to Hideaki Nishino, vice president of Sony Interactive Entertainment:
“PS VR games are not compatible with PS VR2 because PS VR2 is designed to be a true next-generation virtual reality experience. The PS VR2 has much more advanced features, such as the brand new controller with haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, tracking systems, 3D audio which is finally coming of age, 4K HDR… All this means that creating games for PS VR2 requires a completely different approach than that required for the original PS VR”
A very good explanation of why PS VR2 games don’t run on PS VR. However, it is difficult to understand why the reverse is not true. At a time when backwards compatibility is as much a selling point as a concept to be put forward for ecological reasons – the proliferation of peripherals being one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions from the practice of video game – Sony’s decision seems strange to say the least. Especially when you know that the PlayStation 5 does have a backwards compatibility mode.
However, on Les Numériques, Furolith specified an important point: “we dare to imagine that the manufacturer would very much like to offer such backward compatibility, but that the task is made very difficult by the impossibility of transcribing in “one-for-one” the controls of the DualShock 4 or the PlayStation Move to the Sense controllers from PS VR2.”