Again?! When you, XBots, learn? PS Now isn't a BC option, never was! IS A RENT SERVICE! For PS4 and... (prepare yourself, you will get surprised) PS Vita, PS3 and Smart TVs! :O

@davi

If it plays games not included on the PS4 it's an option. period. The point is why counter compete with themselves? They spent a lot of money on the service. Wether it's BC or not they still want to push it. Wouldn't they? I'm sure they have had BC in their back pocket since before the gen started perhaps. What I was saying is defending that they have or have been working on BC. Just didn't want to compete with their brand new service.

Also no sense in calling people gaming slurs. I own a PS4 anyways.

Compete with themselves?! You know Sony want to put PS4 games on the PS Now? When that happens, it will be a BC/rent service? And on the PS3 a FC service? You want see the PS Now as a BC option? So do it! I still think it's a bad idea. XBots always like, in general, not criticize MS and support them in all decisions. «MS will buy oculus rift»; «Morpheus sucks, MS will buy Oculus and will be much better»; «VR sucks». See? So, if Sony decide to do BC like MS are doing, instead of a emulator of PS2 on the PS4, to play all games. I will not to like.

Both consoles currently have bc working, only ms is the first one who has it rolled out fully. Just because Sony doesn't have it out for all/certain games doesn't mean it took them that long to make it work. Maybe it did, I don't know, but that's a mighty big assumption you're making.

Check the patent death. Like many have stated, it was in the works, ms just beat Sony to the punch for once. Ms spoke up a share play type system yet Sony released there's first. Maybe you're looking for something that isn't there. Instead of spectating and projecting, read some of the comments in here. I initially thought the answer to the question was 'yes' but I was ignorant to the facts. . . . It happens

Yet those same Microsoft developers/engineers working for Microsoft put out that Xbox One that soooo very few wanted not 2 years ago and with all the redoing and relaunching of the NXBOE not many more want it now and even less want it outside the United States also those same Microsoft developers/engineers also put out that Xbox 360 famous not for those Xbox 360 games but for the RROD. So this Xbox One Backward Compatibility feature may be the very best thing the Microsoft developers/engineers have ever, ever, ever done.

Is it really that big of a deal. Both companies have achieved bc through many means on their own time schedule... No one company is looking at another with trying to figure out how to bring their brand of back catalog to current t hardware...

Sony brought the PS1 catalog to PS2, PS3, PS Vita. They brought PS2 games to PS3 via hardware and software on their own time table and MS did so via software on XB360.

Just because MS attached their BC to their E3 press or doesn't mean Sony's venture is reactionary... They already offer PS3 games via PS Now on PS4 and that will soon come to PS Vita TVs Laptops and Tablets...

It's backwards compatibility, I really don't see the big deal, it has always exist on hardware powerful enough to emulate it. My thing is if you're making a big deal out of BC then you purchased a next gen hardware for the wrong reasons...

I didn't purchase my PS4 to play PS2 games or PS3 games especially with these remastered games... It's just another pointless bullet points for Fanboys to swing their digital penis in a circle jerk.

And leave it to IGN to talk foolishness.

Death the secret MS fanboy.

Lol @ Rookie Monster below

"Disc based or bust"

How ridiculous. How is that a bust? Most people don't own PS2 games anymore, and you obviously can't buy them. Disc based really isn't going to happen, and it certainly wouldn't be very cost effective for Sony. So I guess it's "bust" for you and your non-existent PS4.

@Unreal,

Funny how you are the better PlayStation owner and I still have my PS2 games. I'm not sure hwat country you live in, but I just found 136 thousand listing for PS2 games on eBay. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.h... I can also buy them locally from a few game stores. What do you think people did with their PS2 games, throw them away?

Prolly whatever Brolly and piccolo's fusion becomes.

Hmm hmm. This guy knows.

@Spotie,

If Sony has been working longer, where is it? They are either really, really slow or not very skilled if Microsoft not only started much later, but also brought much more complex games first.

"PS2 emulation was rumored- and had to be worked on- before anything about Xbox BC."

Wait, you got your idea just out of a rumor potentially from someone's basement? You know you're reaching, Spotie.

@Genuine-user,
"However, It's likely that PS4 will only support digital emulation."

Hmm, if you believed it is digital only, then wouldn't that be the same as me saying:
"But if it is just digital on the PSN stores and the only way to get it is by paying, then Sony probably had this in mind for a couple years now and that is how it was always going to be."

Head scratcher on your comment there as it is exactly the same as what I'm saying. LoL

But anyways, here are more clues of what Sony had in mind initially in regard to PS2/1 titles.
http://www.gamespot.com/art...
"There are some amazing games for PS1 and PS2 and our longer term vision is to go back further into the PlayStation generational library and offer those with PlayStation Now," the streaming service's Director of Marketing Peter Jamshidi said in response to a question from a reader on the PlayStation Blog. "Right now however, we are focused on bringing to users experiences from the amazing PS3 library."

Now, that was before the XB1 BC announcent. And all of a sudden BC for PS2 get leaked just right after the BC update for XB1 was released. Sony spent millions on Gaikai and Onlive. It is just common sense of what Sony was planning, which is a lot different than the old console days when BC was available since day one on those older Sony consoles. Do you actually think it took them 2-3 years to make a PS2 emulator?

But, like I said, competiton is good so if we get Disc based PS2 support on PS4 out of this, then it is only a good thing.

The 4 bonus Star Wars games of which 3 are emulated on PS4 were annouced back in August -
http://blog.us.playstation....

PS1/PS2 emulation was semi-confirmed by Digital Foundry back in January 2014 - http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

@Genuine-User

Uh... June is before August, just in case you somehow forgot...

I don't think the PS2 emulator will play a PS2 game via the disk. It is much more likely to read the disk and put the image into an appropriately labeled PS4 library which is no different to what is being done with PS4 games.

Once a PS2 image (usually less than 4.7GB) is installed in the PS4 library it can then be played via the emulator. By doing this you are confirming that you can read the full disk properly so there won't be any nasty surprises. Not sure how Sony is going to manage security though.

For those people who would like to play a particular PS2 game they don't have there is always the store for which they would have to play for the download, hopefully at a reasonable price. I think most distributors and developers wont turn their noses up at the prospect for extra money on their old games.

the above is only conjecture and you are right "only time will tell" but it would be a very logical and efficient way of supporting PS2 emulation.

Honestly, if it were #1, as some rather devout MS fans around here would like to make it seem, then their whole argument of Sony engineers are not as capable as MS kind of goes out the window. Two months for an emulator for a rather specializing chip(emotion engine) would be quite impressive. Heck, producing, programming, testing, and getting a game through compliance testing that quickly would be even more impressive.

Sometimes i do wonder if people really think about their comments, and the implications for some of their prior arguments and reasoning when they do their excessive "cheer leading".

Because it's obvious given the time frame for release of the titles. Production, even for some port to an emulator title, is going to run at least 6 months. Even if it is as simple as throwing the game into an emulator wrapper, that game has to be tested, and go through compliance testing. That alone is easily 3-4 months of time....probably more for a 4 game compilation.

Pre-production would likely be AT LEAST 2-3 months given the parties involved, because things do not move quicker than that in pre-production, and it's just the way it is.

There would be no reason to have that pre-production before they were sure that there would be an emulator that would do the job, so I'd imagine that once that was close to done, they MAY have started pre-production.

And assuming that they did somehow make the emulator in 5 months, and had it completely tested for it's own thing in that time, and gone through the pre-production of the emulator itself in that same time(another 2-3 months min...likely more), the time frame still clocks it in at 1 to 1-1/2 years from the beginning of emulator development.

However, given that things like this don't just get thrown together, it was probably in the works for quite a while.

No, we don't know specifically when Sony started working on it's emulator. However, we can infer an estimated date range based on some common sense,and the for those who understand the production cycle, it becomes easier.

Heck, for all we know, this emulator was always working before the PS4 released. Maybe the thing Sony was waiting on was this trophy support for older games that didn't have it programmed in, and getting that to work properly.

The PS2 emulators on PC took years before they were in working order, adn they're still buggy. Unless you believe that Sony just ported a PC emulator over...which is rather silly considering they could make more efficient ones that didn't use as much emulated code when it could avoid it.

those ps2 emulators on pc have been in development for a decade.

I'm not saying Sony fully started and finished backwards compatibility since the Xbox announcement 5months ago (but don't you think they probably got wind of it before the announcement). But people are basically saying Sony can never be influenced by MS because they're better, I know we bashed BC but Sony was really working on it way before MS and now BC is nice to have. This blind fanboy/console war is so stupid. Just go look at the "who has better BC" article from a week or two ago it's just fanboys blindly screaming false information for the most part. This whole site is the bad PS4 fanboys saying everything Xbox is horrible than Xbox owners screaming back defending the Xbox.

I own at least one console from every single generation. BC is nice because it means I don't have to have a 360 to play many of the games.

It is annoying switching between my 14 different consoles in my theatre room. Anytime I can lower the stack I feel great!

How is BC on playstation better?

Can it play ps3 games?

No.

Can it play any ps2 games yet?

No

The big question is will it be real backwards compatibility where you can put a ps2 disc in the ps4 and play the game without having to pay?

As for xbox one BC.

Starting from December more are going to get added regularly. The small list we have now is just the start

@rainslacker You're correct, my comment is purely speculative.

@Malacath - I still have quite a few PS2 games so, disc play bc would be nice. But yes, I'd much rather be able to play my PS3 games on my PS4.