Current-gen PSN games won't transfer to PS4

Current-gen PSN titles and save data won't transfer to PlayStation 4, Sony has revealed.

Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida confirmed this earlier today when speaking to Endgadget. While the PS4 will have limited backwards compatibility via the console's cloud-streaming services, it won't transfer your game data and thus you won't be able to transfer your library of PSN games.

This realises a fear many consumers have had over the past several years as the digital marketplace has become an increasingly accepted means of purchasing goods - many of which are only available as downloadable content. This raises concerns regarding how long PS3 - and Vita - titles will be available on the PlayStation Store once the current-gen consoles are phased out.

So say your PS3 dies in seven years and you buy a new one to play all your older games on. Would you still be able to reclaim all your lost content tied to your PSN account for a console that's no longer being manufactured? Or would you have to buy, oh let's say Journey, again on PS4, despite having already purchased it before?

This could be a major issue as over the last half decade we've seen a lot of classic games get the HD treatment and collectors have taken to bulking up their libraries with these upgraded definitive versions of their favourite games. If all these titles are tethered to a console that may or may not still be supported in a few years it could really put a damper on the whole prosperity thing.

We've posed these questions to Sony and are awaiting reply. We'll update as we learn more.