PS5 players look set for a major backwards compatibility update

PlayStation 3 games have started showing up across the PlayStation 5 store, fuelling speculation that Sony will begin making the games available for consumers across the platform in the near future.

As originally spotted by VGC, the PS5 currently supports backward compatibility on PS4 titles, however, only allows access to certain PS3 games via Sony's PlayStation Now service. For the moment, any PS3 games on the PS5 store similarly direct players towards the PlayStation Now version of the game, like Bejeweled, Dead Or Alive 5 and Prince of Persia. 

Each game has its own price tag as well, though purchasing them via this method is currently unavailable. This is now being linked to a recent patent from PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny, hinting at the possibility of the feature being rolled out to all consumers.  

Last week it was reported that Sony has begun removing PS Now retail cards ahead of launching its new games service, codenamed Spartacus. The aim would be to combine PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now in an attempt to challenge the offering from Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass. 

PlayStation Now launched in January 2014 and has yet to set the world on fire, with the Japanese games maker confirming last year that 3.2 million people currently subscribe to the service. It offers access to over 800 games across PS5, PS4 and PS3 but only 300 of them can be downloaded, as the remaining need to be streamed. 

This patent and listings could similarly be part of Sony's new plan for Spartacus, or it could just simply be an error. A number of users across social media have pointed out that a visual bug like this one has happened in the past. Still, we'll likely hear more whenever the next PlayStation event lands and if rumours can be believed, we won't have long to wait.