PS5
Something strange is going on with PlayStation today, as for some reason, the PS5 is starting to list unpurchaseable PS3 games that weren’t there before, as spotted by VGC.
Previously, if you viewed a PS3 game on the PS5 store, it would simply point you toward the PS Now version of the game. But now? These games are listing their own, individual purchase prices, games like Dead Or Alive 5, Prince of Persia and Bejeweled. And some of these games are titles that do not appear on PS Now in some regions where they are indeed appearing.
Some are linking this to a patent filed by Mark Cerny regarding backward compatibility, and that PS5 may be about to expand its PS3 offerings because of that.
And (or) it could be about the Bloomberg report of a large scale relaunch of PS Plus, which merges it with Now, and has three different tiers:
- Tier 1 – Exiting PS Plus benefits
- Tier 2- A large catalogue of games like Game Pass
- Tier 3 – Extended demos, game streaming and classic PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP games
So, this could be something to do with Tier 3, as Sony seems like they’re about to beef up their subscription offering to better take on Game Pass. And more PS3 games could be on the menu to help with that.
Again, this current set of listings appears to be some sort of bug or error. You cannot actually purchase these games, despite the prices being listed, and trying to do so will return an error.
We’ll see how long these listings appear, and supposedly more games are being discovered as players search the store. This could be a purchase option that’s about to go live imminently, or something just being trialed that is part of a larger change down the road.
Regardless, it seems like players are about to get more PS3 game options on PS5 soon enough here. Stay tuned for more information to come.
Update: Some are claiming this is a bug *directly* related to PS Now, even if some games are no longer on the service:
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