Sony Worldwide Studios Head, Shuhei Yoshida, admitted that Microsoft surprised them when it announced that Xbox One will get backward compatibility with Xbox 360 games.
"It was surprising," admitted Yoshida. "I didn't think it was possible. There must be lots of engineering effort. They talked about 100 games, but what kind of games will be included? Is it smaller games or big games? We don't know."
Technically, Xbox One isn't getting updated to support Xbox 360 game. Instead, Microsoft is converting some Xbox 360 games to Xbox One compatible versions which are made freely available for download to their owners.
Currently, 22 Xbox 360 are available for users participating in the Xbox One Preview program and Microsoft is asking gamers to vote for the next titles to receive the backward compatibility treatment.
Unfortunately for Sony, the unique and overly complex architecture of the Cell processor used in PlayStation 3 makes porting its games to PlayStation 4 a daunting task.
"PS3 is such a unique architecture," explained Yoshida. "And some games made use of SPUs very well. It's going to be super-challenging to do so. I never say never, but we have no plans."
Currently, PlayStation 4 owners can play PS3 games using PlayStation Now streaming service for around $15 per month. In comparison, Microsoft's solution is free of charge and it doesn't require internet connection once the game is downloaded.
