Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot is excited about the next generation of consoles, the executive communicated recently during a quarterly financial call. Guillemot was posed a question about the upcoming release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X in late 2020. The CEO's response, pertaining specifically to next-generation backward compatibility plans, was surprisingly enthusiastic. Guillemot appears to believe the cross-generational plans of Sony and Microsoft are worth looking forward to.
"It will be something new in the industry," is how Guillemot characterizes Sony and Microsoft's plans for backward compatibility next-generation. That Guillemot specifically calls it new reveals how plans for PS5 and Xbox Series X backward compatibility aren't just the same form of the feature as has been seen in past generation. There's something more to the way the PS5 and the Xbox Series X will be dealing with backward compatibility and Ubisoft is into it.
Guillemot does extrapolate on how next-gen consoles will stand apart from previous generations, to a degree. "Those consoles will be running almost all the back catalog of the previous consoles," Guillemot explains, adding, "It will help the old generations to continue to be big consoles on the market for years to come." It seems that Guillemot is specifically referencing Xbox's decision to do a rolling console shift, keeping the Xbox One relevant through the Xbox Series X's launch and on.
In the past few months, Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox Series X would not feature any first-party exclusives. This may even last for a couple years. The idea is that all Microsoft's games for the Xbox Series X will also run on older Xbox One consoles, just as Xbox One games will run on Xbox Series X. Sony has made the opposite promise, confirming that the PS5 will absolutely have console exclusives at launch which won't be playable on PS4. Perhaps Guillemot knows something that console gamers don't, though.
Another interesting point worth bringing is how Guillemot says "almost" all of the back catalog from the previous console generation. It isn't clear what games he might be implying wouldn't be playable on next-gen consoles or why. The simple answer is that he's referring to digital-only games and that some of them won't be made available on next-gen platforms, either due to licensing or contractual issues, or even technical issues. Still, it's a topic worth paying attention to as both Sony and Microsoft reveal more details about the PS5 and Xbox One. Perhaps Guillemot was only talking about Ubisoft games.
Source: PlayStation Lifestyle