It's safe to say that for old school gamers like myself the transition from PS4/XBONE to PS5/Xbox Series has been unique among console generations. To put it simply, we've never seen the lines between generations blurred to the extent they are now nor for as long as they have been. We are coming up on the 4th year the newer consoles have been out and we're still seeing big games being released and even announced in the future for the older consoles. I'm not just talking indies and 2D stuff but games like Street Fighter, Armored Core, and The Crew: Motorfest. Games that try to push the boundaries of modern graphics but can still run, though not always well, on hardware that is nearly 10 years old. It would be like if PlayStation 2 launch games also had SNES versions, just a crazy idea that shows how much hardware development has slowed down.

Further complicating things is backwards compatibility. Not only do the old machines run many of the games on the new machines but the new machines run virtually the entire library for the older ones. This has led to the odd situation where some new games ONLY come out on Xbox One and PS4 because those versions will work fine on the newer machines, and if you're making an indie game with 2D graphics or simple polygons that run flawlessly on something like the Switch there's not much point in making a PS5 specific version when a PS4 version will work just as well.

Except that companies are doing that too.

Now when it comes to new games I kind of understand it. It seems a little weird to release a game on PS4 only in 2023, and with modern game engines and publishing tools it is not a lot of work to also produce a PS5 version alongside it. I don't know the exact cost but I can't imagine it's much at all. And of course when it comes to older high budget games that pushed the PS4 it can also make sense. Often there are higher fidelity assets already made for the PC version that can be slotted in easily enough, but even if there aren't you can at least gussy things up with faster loading times, better frame rates, or some Dualsense gimmicks and maybe try to squeeze a few new sales out or at least get people talking about a franchise with a new release on the horizon, as a form of marketing.

But what I don't understand is when games where the PS4 version was running great get a new PS5 version that frequently seems to do...nothing. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge launched only for PS4 on the PlayStation family of systems. It then later got a PS5 port that added...nothing. Seriously, the developers admitted that literally nothing was upgraded in the game. It was just a version that could not run on PS4. And it wasn't even a free upgrade, you had to pay full price if you wanted to get the PS5 version (though now it has become a free upgrade for owners of the PS4 version.)

Why does this exist?

And it's not the only game like this. There are a fair number of titles, including older titles, that got the same treatment. Again I am not talking about games where the PS5 version is better in some way, even if it's just faster loading times or some Dualsense nonsense. That makes sense, of course. I'm talking about games where they've added nothing at all. And there are a fair number of them. From FMV games like The Late Shift to indie platformers like Rain World, there are a lot of these ports out there. I really did enjoy Night in the Woods but it never occurred to me in 2017 that I would need a new version. I now have Crimson Land on PS Vita, PS3, PS4 and PS5. That's a lot of Crimson Land!

I have a few theories as to the point of these versions. One is that some developers are just testing the PS5 publishing process with an older game because why not? If they intend to keep developing on PlayStation it makes sense to get familiar with the newest system.

Another is trophy stacks. There are some people so obsessed with trophies that they might be willing to buy a game twice to get trophies on two systems even if it's the same game, or if the PS5 upgrade is free they might be more interested in a game with 2 stacks than one with just 1.

There's also the though that maybe PS5 games just sell better because people think they have additional features or just subconsciously associate them with higher quality? I will admit that if given a choice between PS4 and PS5 versions I often go with PS5 even though for my purposes PS4 is probably better because I have my old PS4 hooked up in another room and sometimes like to play things on both systems. I have gotten a bit better about that though.

Is it possible there are people who don't know about PS5's backwards compatibility? That seems kind of unlikely to me but I guess there may be some?

My final thought is that maybe releasing a PS5 version is a way to get a bit more attention and also get back on the "new releases" lists on PSN for a few extra sales. The trailer for Shantae, Risky's Revenge on PS5 hints towards this. It features absolutely zero new benefits for the PS5 version except it's...on PS5. To me that suggests that it's just a chance to drop another trailer and get a tiny bit more attention for what may be a practically free conversion.

Anyway it's just something that bugs/interests me. On occasion I see a random "Free" PS5 version of a PS4 game I already own and I invariably grab it even though I will probably never play it since saves between PS4 and PS5 versions are not compatible and I don't really like multiple trophy stacks of the same game (though I will put up with them for an actual upgrade to a better version, especially if there is a way to transfer the save.) I just always wonder what made a developer want to put any time into making a specialized version of a game for a console that game already runs on just as well as the new version, and then frequently give away that new redundant version to people who already bought the first version. How is this profitable?

The only one that I've known so far is Gran Turismo 7.

As I know, this game was intended to be released on PS5 only (As of June 2020), but somewhere in 2021, it got delayed, due to COVID-19 and the developer decided to port it to PS4, because by that time, PS5 consoles are hard to purchase one, just like Xbox Series X, due to component shortages in their respective production, while a lot of players wanted to play these games.

I don't mind if games are shared with other platforms, so all I care is about what genre & sub-genre it is (Regardless of their party) and this is why I prefer Assetto Corsa Competizione over the entire Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport series.

Given how it seems like Sony is ready to make a PS5 Pro already, its looking like the difference between the PS5 and PS4 wasn't as distant as we were led to believe. As someone who upgraded from a based PS4, not a PS4 Pro, I quickly noticed the improved gameplay on many PS4 games, especially ones with unlocked frame rates. The difference in Days Gone is night and day between both consoles and that is one example. They recently gave The Order 1886 a PS5 upgrade and I plan to go back and play it again, as I'm one of the few people who liked that game. And now we have so-called AAA games that are now back to running at 30fps, and developers aren't even bothering with a performance mode anymore. I believe this is one of the reasons were are still seeing games being released for both consoles still, as its now possible to walk into a store and buy both a PS5 or Series X these days. So at this point, the PS4 should be left behind.

Then again, we are living in a time of bad inflation. Almost everything costing twice as much as it did before, and there are a lot of other stuff people are worried about besides gaming. This could be another reason why developers haven't abandoned the PS4 completely. People today still can't afford to get a current-gen console. People talk about the negatives of the Series S, but it really is a great deal, especially these days, even though I personally don't have one.

@av_gamer: Sorry to bring some bad news, unless you do have a modded PS5, but The Order 1886 patch was an unofficial one.

The specs have never been a secret. Tech wise, the PS5 is a pretty big jump even over the PS4 Pro, especially the CPU. No one was "led to believe" anything, you can just look at the spec sheet.

I imagine it is just done to put the game in front of the new eyes of PS5 owners who didn't own a PS4. It's not no work to do, but probably easy and cheap enough work to generate some new buzz and juice some more sales out of something like Shantae as opposed to just letting the PS4 version sit buried on a digital storefront and hoping someone finds it.

@ll_exile_ll: I was talking about how far developers could take game development compared to the PS4 when it comes to massive AAA games. And yes, many people believed that they'd be playing 4K games at 60fps at least, with 120fps being for special cases, and the mandatory 30fps thing that is making a comeback wouldn't happen, or at least not happen for a long time. Even the fast, instant, SSD loading of the PS5 is starting to fade, as proven by Jedi Survivor, which loads like a normal game. Fast, but normal. Overall, tech wise, the PS5 is a huge jump which I pointed out by upgrading from a based PS4 and using Days Gone as an example. It still doesn't change the fact the tech seems to quickly becoming out of date, hence why this PS5 Pro might be happening. Game development is becoming bigger and more expensive every year. So console life spans likely will become shorter and shorter as time goes by, not to mention more expensive.

@glots: Ah, thanks for letting me know.

@brian_: I thought about that but it doesn't really make a lot of sense for something like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, which is a high profile game that came out after the PS5 was already on the market. Maybe it's still worth it just to get a little bit more attention but I don't feel like there was a huge part of the market for a retro beat em up that didn't know about Shredder's Revenge.

@av_gamer: "Console generations are getting shorter and shorter" is a counterfactual claim. The PS4/Xbox One have been out for 10 years and you can still buy many AAA games on them today. Even Fallen Order is getting a PS4/XBONE port. Console generations have never been this long. Additionally it's not like PC gaming has made a quantum power leap in the last 3 years. A lot of the newer cards have been seen as disappointing and while SSDs have gotten much cheaper it's not like their speed has skyrocketed.

If we see a PS5 Pro, which we might, it will be because Sony thinks it will be profitable to sell new machines to the hardcore crowd, not because the PS5 as it stands is struggling. PS4 Pro was driven by 4K TVs, and there's nothing like that happening now.

30 FPS is happening not because the PS5 is underpowered but for the same reason it always does. Developers think that most gamers don't care about FPS in most genres and they'd rather have flashier graphics. Some hardcore gamers disagree but this is a compromise that gets made over and over again, generation after generation, because it seems to be what the market prefers.

@bigsocrates: When they can get Cyberpunk 2077 running smoothly on a PS4/Xbox one, let me know. There is a reason they pulled that game from being sold to those consoles and why the story DLC release is current gen only. You point out how the 30fps is happening because developers keep pushing the envelope with the graphics over framerate, but that is the point. The PS5/Series X was supposed to be able to handle this and still have games played at 60fps with room to spare. I have no doubt that the PS5 Pro, which will happen, is for profit. But I also have no doubt that its also because they underestimated how demanding some of these games would be for their console. Don't get me wrong, I'm having a blast playing my PS5 and do so hours a day, but can clearly see how the lasting power of the console is no where near that of the PS4 or even the PS3. And PC might not have made a huge leap, but one thing it did do was made it clear that when it comes to graphics to framerate ratio, PC is still king. Starfield is much better to play on PC than a Series X.

@av_gamer: Cyberpunk 2077 is an exception, not the rule, but of course there are going to be games that don't work on 10 year old hardware. But there are plenty that still do.

The 30FPS thing is not about developers "pushing the envelope" it's about a tradeoff. It will always be possible to crank up various graphical aspects enough that a machine can't hit 60 no matter how powerful that machine is.

Developers haven't really been reporting that the current generation is underpowered (except for the Xbox Series S, which was designed to be underpowered) in comparison to the Xbox One and PS4, which infamously were CPU throttled.

Cutting edge PCs will always provide a better experience than consoles that cost like 1/3 to 1/4th as much. And Bethesda has always been a PC first developer (which hasn't changed with their purchase by Microsoft, which is also, obviously, a PC company as well as a console maker)

PS5 and Series X are fine. If there are half-step consoles it will be for the same reason that Apple keeps making new phones every year even though the current phones are more than adequate. Because there are people with disposable income who will pay more for a premium experience even if what they have now is okay, and having multiple SKUs also allows you to do price differentiation so you can drop the price of the old model to try and get more budget minded gamers while still having the expensive version for people willing to pay more.

@bigsocrates: Shredder's Revenge was ported just a few months after the initial release, wasn't it? I imagine that was a case where that version just needed some more time. I mean, I don't really know how long it takes to spin up a port of something like that if they weren't already working on it.

@brian_: It was something like that by my impression from some statements the devs made was that they didn't actually intend to make a PS5 version (since the PS4 version had all the features that they wanted in the game) and then decided to for...reasons. It might have been fan feedback that they wanted it but again I ask...why? Possibly some less aware fans who think "PS5 version must be better than PS4" even if it's...not. But they also didn't give it away for free like many PS5 up-ports (and almost all Xbox up-ports) so maybe they were hoping to sell multiple versions to one person for trophy stacks?

It's just strange to me, especially in that case.

"You bought Shredder's Revenge for PS4 and it runs flawlessly on PS5. Now buy the PS5 version with no additional new features too!"

If that was the plan it appears not to have worked because now they are giving away the PS5 port for free if you own PS4, but the whole thing just confuses me.

@bigsocrates: In that case, I'm sure there's probably some number of people who only want to buy a "PS5 game" for their PS5, brushing off anything that's a "last gen" game, or trying to get people to double dip, even if both versions are exactly the same. It's probably also another way to capitalize off the positive buzz for an audience that might not have been paying attention to the game pre-release but have heard good things about this Ninja Turtles game. If it's cheap enough work to do, I'm sure someone probably said "Why are we not doing this?", even if it's just a few dollars to be made from these weirdo edge cases.

The almighty dollar

I agree that part of it is probably due to the ability to filter games by console on the ps5 storefront. Whenever I enter the PS5 shop, I immediately check the box to only show me ps5 games because I have owned a ps4 basically since launch and have bought all the games I wanted to during that consoles main lifecycle. I don't really want the "On Sale" list to be bloated with that gen's games, but by doing so, I was obviously missing some of the newer games that didn't bother with a separate ps5 version.

yeah, i presumed it was a backend tags/discoverability thing. charting too, i imagine.

when you browse by category there's curated collections that get prime placement- you probably want a version of your game that can appear in 'Top PS5 Picks' since the store managers might be disinclined to surface straight back-compat games.