Sony has announced that they will be cutting PlayStation 4 games from its PlayStation Plus Essentials monthly rotations and games catalog starting in 2026, opting to begin solely focusing on PlayStation 5 titles.
A PlayStation Blog post that additionally revealed that the February titles for the service will include Payday 3, High On Life, and Pac-man World Re-Pac included this update to the service, as well as Sony’s Game Pass competitor subscription service. In it they stated:
As we shift to PS5, PS4 games will no longer be a key benefit and will only be occasionally offered for PlayStation Plus Monthly Games and Game Catalog.
We’ll continue to evolve the experience of PlayStation Plus and optimize the benefits you receive, including exclusive discounts, online multiplayer access, online game save storage, and more. As we shift our focus to PS5, we look forward to adding new PS5 titles monthly for you to enjoy.
It was made clear, however, that this change to the service will not affect games that have already been obtained by players via the service already. The PlayStation 4 was released in 2013, with its successor the PlayStation 5 being released in 2020, meaning it has remained viable for over a decade so far. The PS5 was billed as having backward compatibility, sharing an online store with its predecessor that makes access to all the games you owned or received in the service pretty easy to access.
One element that has marred this console generation, at least according to fans of the platform, has been the focus on former-generation hardware to make sales. Games like Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok were heavily billed as games that would take advantage of the PS5, which they do, but also saw release on PS4.
Usually, we can expect the former gen to be retired from a development standpoint within the first two years however games like Capcom Fighting Collection Vol. 2 will see release on the former gen, allowing for cross compatibility, in 2025. It remains to be seen if this move some some intent to begin phasing out the PS4 completely.
It was recently announced that Sony has topped the 70 million units sold mark of the PlayStation 5, a number that might indicate more confidence for the Publisher moving forward when it comes to sales goals for games released on the PlayStation 5.
Remember to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date on everything we have going on!
1 Comment
It is a very convenient way of serving a community. In other places it will take time to put it in practice.