PS4 to PS5 transition will take about three years, Sony says

Sony says to expect the transition from PS4 to PS5 to last about three years, a period in which we're likely to see a mix of cross-gen releases and next-gen exclusives.

In an interview with AV Watch (via TweakTown), SIE VP Hideaki Nishino touched on PlayStation's approach to game development at the launch of PS5 and beyond. With an install base of 100+ million and growing, Nishino explained the importance of continuing to support cross-gen releases into the PS5's life cycle (pardon the slightly awkward Google translation).

"The current assumption is that the transition from PS4 to PS5 will take about three years," Nishino said. "In the meantime, how can I keep buying games on PS4? Can the purchased games be played on PS5? That is important."

PS5 is backwards compatible with most PS4 games, so players waiting to invest in next-gen hardware needn't hesitate to buy cross-gen games on PS4. In fact, a number of PS4 games are getting PS5 upgrades that will be free to anyone with a copy of the current-gen version. Again, given the amount of people who own a PS4, this makes sense from a business perspective and is in line with the PS3's roughly 10-year life cycle.

Of course, we know from next-gen exclusives like Demon's Souls and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart that not every PS5 game released in that three-year window will be cross-gen. "[For] a certain time, we ask developers to develop on the premise of 'cross generation' of PS4 and PS5," Nishino adds, suggesting that third-party studios are encouraged to develop for both systems. For that reason, it's probably safe to assume that most next-gen exclusives released in the next three years will be coming from first-party studios.

Here are all the upcoming PS5 games we can't wait to play.