Since the announcement of the PS5, many gamers have been calling for full backwards compatibility with PS3 games. However, Sony has so far avoided the subject, preferring to focus on cloud gaming via its PlayStation Plus Premium offer. Officially, the difficulty comes from the atypical architecture of the PS3, a system so complex that it continues to pose a problem more than a decade after its marketing.
But while this prospect seemed abandoned, a small team of independent developers has just revived hope: the PS5 can indeed run a PS3 game… in native version.
An independent company manages to launch a PS3 game on PS5
The name of this company? RedoApps. Specializing in compatibility technologies between hardware, it would have achieved a technical feat: running Cloudberry Kingdom, a PS3 game, directly on PS5, without going through streaming.
This little-known platform game, withdrawn from sale in most regions, thus becomes the very first PS3 title to run natively on the Sony console. “We plan to start by targeting indie titles, but ultimately we want to revive all games from the PS3 era. From indie titles like Cloudberry Kingdom to blockbuster AAA titles,” says Sayed Mahmood Alawai, founder of RedoApps. If the results can still be improved, the demonstration is there: PS3 emulation on PS5 is technically possible. It remains to be seen how far this technology can go.
A viable but still artisanal solution
Far from being a universal solution, the emulator developed by RedoApps requires specific adaptation for each game. Each title must be manually optimized, tested, adjusted. A titanic job, especially when we’re talking about complex AAA games, resource-intensive and often full of scripts specific to the PS3.
In an interview given to Digital Foundry, the team specifies that each game requires a case-by-case port to ensure a smooth experience on PS5. This involves months of development, even for modest games. For now, RedoApps says it has ten titles in preparation. But the objective is clear: “to revive all the games from the PS3 era”.
A snub for Sony… and a necessary wake-up call?
This unexpected success rekindles a debate that Sony carefully avoids. Emulating older PlayStation games is one of the biggest points of frustration for fans, especially compared to the Xbox Series which offers backwards compatibility all the way back to the first generation.
The RedoApps initiative acts as a revealer: the demand is real, the technology exists, and Sony’s inaction is becoming more difficult to justify. If independents can do it with limited resources, why not a giant like Sony?
While waiting for an official response or a strategic turnaround, you will have to be patient. And hope that this breakthrough inspires a broader movement towards true conservation of PlayStation video game heritage.