Owners of Sony’s PlayStation 4 hoping the company would follow in Microsoft’s footsteps and add backwards compatibility to allow PS3 games to be played on the newer console shouldn’t hold their breath, as executives for the electronics company say they have no immediate plans to implement the technology.

The declaration came during a Eurogamer interview from Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida, who expressed his surprise that Microsoft announcement of backwards compatibility during E3.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” he says. “There must be lots of engineering effort.”

Prior to Microsoft’s announcement that it would provide an update to include backwards compatibility on the Xbox One by the upcoming holiday season, owners of the gaming system had to use an older console to play their previous Xbox 360 games. The situation is the same for owners of Sony’s gaming systems.

So, the biggest question amongst gamers – especially owners of the PS4 system – is whether or not Sony would move to include the capability to the PS4. To that, Yoshida says probably not – or at least not anytime soon.

“PS3 is such a unique architecture, and some games made use of SPUs very well,” Yoshida tells Eurogamer. “It’s going to be super challenging to do so. I never say never, but we have no plans.”

While it doesn’t appear that owners of the PS4 will be able to shove a disk of their favorite PS3 game into their system just yet, they can still stream the older games via PlayStation Now. But that, of course, comes at an extra cost.

Don’t hold your breath for PS4 backwards compatibility [Eurogamer]
[H/T Mashable]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.