Sony President Shuhei Yoshida reiterates Sony's total lack of interest in bringing backward compatibility to the PlayStation 4 in a series of Q&A videos.

In an effort to bring the Paris Games Week to the world, Sony President Shuhei Yoshida held an online Q&A session today. Yoshida fielded several questions regarding the future of the PlayStation 4, posting video answers to questions sent in the form of Tweets.

One of the Tweets submitted to Yoshida asked if the PlayStation 4 would be receiving backward compatibility, allowing gamers to play PlayStation 3 titles on their PlayStation 4 consoles. Yoshida's answer was blunt and to the point, simply replying, "No." Though he delivered the denial with a smile, the disappointing answer echoes Sony's prior stance on backward compatibility for the PlayStation 4, stating that it's "hard" and not in their best interests to include backward compatibility.

Yoshida also replied to a Tweet asking if older PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 classic titles would be coming to the PlayStation 4. He was a bit more receptive to this question, apologizing and stating that they had no news to share at this time. While gamers who have been waiting to play their older PlayStation titles are probably not happy to hear either piece of news, his willingness to discuss the PlayStation 1 & PlayStation 2 classics question in more detail seems to indicate that there could be something planned for the future.

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Though Microsoft recently announced that the Xbox One would be receiving an update allowing gamers to play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One, Sony has made no effort to follow suit. This has put gamers in the unfortunate position of either having to give up on their older titles completely, or keep a PlayStation 3 around in order to play them. Sony has tried to bridge the gap between the PlayStation 4 and older PlayStation games by creating the PlayStation Now service, with which gamers could effectively virtually rent older titles to play by the hour, but out of control pricing left gamers sour.

There's every chance that the PlayStation 4 will reach the end of its lifespan without receiving backward compatibility. After all, Sony removed the ability to play PlayStation 2 games on later versions of the PlayStation 3 console, and game developers continue to release remasters and ports of PlayStation 3 titles for the PlayStation 4. Making the PlayStation 4 backward compatible would mean an end to future PlayStation 3 remasters, cutting into developer profits, It would also seriously agitate gamers who've bought remastered versions of PlayStation 3 games they already owned for the PlayStation 3 because it was necessary in order to play them again on the PlayStation 4.

Do you think consoles should offer backward compatibility? Let us know in the comments.

Source: PlayStation France Twitter, (2)