The decades old PlayStation 4, released back in 2013, has continued to receive big, new Sony exclusives, even as those old-gen ports feel dated or inferior. But now it seems Sony is finally ready to move on and ditch the aging PS4. Well almost done…
It’s hard to believe, but the PlayStation 5 was released over two years ago, on November 12th, 2020. Yet the last massive Sony exclusives –Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok– were released on both the PS5 and the older PS4. And while it was nice that more people got a chance to play these big games, it also felt strange that Sony was still supporting this weird era of cross-gen gaming into 2023. This was the same company whose boss, Jim Ryan, infamously said in 2020 that Sony had always believed in “generations” in response to Microsoft promising long-term support for cross-gen games, meaning you can only be in one era at a time. Fast forward to early 2023 and thereafter Microsoft failed to ship really… anything in 2022 Sony has released some big titles for each Xbox generation. But most were released on both PS4 and PS5, apparently contradicting Sony’s belief in separate, distinct generations.
However, this seems to be finally changing a new trailer from PlayStation. In the new video released yesterday we see a montage of 23 games coming out in 2023. And just eight of those are coming to both PS4 and PS5. And all Sony exclusive games, including Spiderman 2 and the horizon VR spin-off, skip PS4 entirely.
Here are all the games and DLC expansions featured in the video:
- Final Fantasy 16 – PS5 only
- Horizon 2 DLC – PS5 only
- Spiderman 2 – PS5 only
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage -PS5/PS4
- Resident Evil 4 (Reissue) – PS5/PS4
- The prophesied – PS5 only
- suicide squad – PS5 only
- Empty room – PS5 only
- star blade – PS5 only
- street fighter 6 -PS4/PS5
- Star Wars Jedi Survivor – PS5 only
- Alone in the dark – PS5 only
- Firewall Ultra – PS5/PSVR 2 only
- Pacific Drive – PS5 only
- The Lords of the Fallen (2023) – PS5 only
- Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain – PS5/PSVR only
- Destiny 2: Lightfall -PS5/PS4
- ages -PS5/PS4
- bye -PS5/PS4
- Season A letter to the future -PS5/PS4
- SynDuality – PS5 only
- Hogwarts legacy -PS5/PS4
- Wild Hearts – PS5 only
If you’ve been paying attention over the past year, you’ve probably noticed that many third-party providers and developers are doing this begin the transition to the current generation, leaving the Xbox One and PS4 behind. On the one hand, then, it’s not surprising that Sony is, too.
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On the other hand, just a few weeks ago, Sony released one of the biggest games of 2022 – the new one God of War– for both the shiny new PS5 and the aging PS4. And sure, the PS4 port of the game was great. In fact, it could be one of the most technically impressive games released on the old console. a perfect swan song for Sony’s machine. But after playing it for a few hours, I felt like the PS4 (and its fans) were struggling to keep up. While I’m not shocked to see Sony signaling so publicly that it’s finally dropping the PS4, I’m still pleased with the news.
I have to imagine that many developers are also willing to move forward without having to balance so many different console specs between PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One, One X, One S and Series X/S and just focus on a select few , bigger, better looking versions of games that are getting harder and harder to make even for just one platform.
It’s likely that Sony was hesitant to push into a PS5-only future while it was impossible for most to buy the console in the first place. Things are starting to change on that front, and they will Easier and easier to grab a PS5. And the more people buy the updated console, the easier it will be to finally look forward to the next generation of gaming.
