After an attempt to backtrack on the promised free upgrade of Horizon Forbidden West, Sony has announced that going forward it will charge an extra $10 for PS4-to-PS5 game upgrades.
A $10 upgrade fee
In 2020, Sony promised to upgrade a handful of cross-gen PS4 games to the enhanced PS5 versions free of charge, including Horizon Forbidden West. So it generated significant backlash when Sony suddenly tried to walk away from its promise last week.
The company now says that Horizon Forbidden West will be the last free PS4-to-PS5 game upgrade from its studios. Sony confirmed that going forward all of its new cross-gen titles will cost $10 to upgrade from PS4 to PS5.
- "I also want to confirm today that moving forward, PlayStation first-party exclusive cross-gen titles (newly releasing on PS4 & PS5) – both digital and physical* – will offer a $10 USD digital upgrade option from PS4 to PS5. This will apply to the next God of War and Gran Turismo 7, and any other exclusive cross-gen PS4 & PS5 title published by Sony Interactive Entertainment," said Jim Ryan, President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Sony added that if you own a PS4 game disc you will only be able to upgrade if you have the disc version of the PlayStation 5 console.
Gran Turismo 7 will cost extra to upgrade from PS4 to PS5. Picture: SIE
Generations & compatibility
PS4 games will still run on a PlayStation 5 console even if you decide not to cough up the extra $10 dollars but you will not be getting enhanced video and audio, or any new 'next-gen' features.
Sony's decision stands in contrast to Microsoft's approach with 'Smart Delivery' (list here) that allows you to buy a game once and always play the optimized version across Xbox One and Xbox Series – although there are exceptions called 'Dual-Gen'.
Also read: Next-gen console games will cost up to $70 / €80
Even though PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S are natively backwards compatible with games from the previous console generation, as both are based on the x86 processor architecture (like PCs), the 'cross-gen' situation has turned into a mess.
- Source: Sony
