PS4 and Xbox One: so why aren't they backwards compatible?

Once upon a time, when you bought a new games console, it was often possible to play most of the games designed for the previous machine. This was a handy feature for people who didn't want to have multiple plastic boxes under their television sets, or for those who didn't own the previous device, but did want access to its inevitably much larger and cheaper array of games. Now however, it seems that for Sony and Microsoft, backwards compatibility, is itself a relic.

[zeal0us]

Hardware would be the biggest factor/reason why they both aren't backwards compatible.

[Vojkan]

Nah they want you to buy PS3/360. That and to rebuy all of your games on PS4/X1.

Shame really that no one cared that much to complain.We just accepted it.

[theWB27]

Complain for what? Why do you have to rebuy anything? Why do you have to stop using your PS360 just because new systems are out?

Most of all...it would make the systems more expensive than the 400-500 dollars they already cost. It's just not smart to include such a minor thing especially when the PS360 are so cheap nowadays.

I'd rather find a cheap PS360 than have Sony or Microsoft charge the difference. Cause I bet it'd be more expensive if they built BC into the X1-PS4.

[Spinal]

No that's what they tell you. Is the Wii U more expensive cause of backward compatibility? No.

The 3DS is backward compatible nearly all Nintendo machines are backward compatible an still come with a competitive price.

They love making money from people by making them have to rebuy games cause some were foolish enough to sell their existing consoles.

[cesuf]

If were playing the what if and maybe game, maybe that's why the WiiU is so underpowered. They wanted BC.

[Johnny Jiron]

"Once upon a time, when you bought a new games console, it was often possible to play most of the games designed for the previous machine."

In the history of consoles how many were ever actually backward compatible? NES to SNES? Genesis to the Saturn? N64 to the Gamecube...?These articles and gamers seem to think BC was around for numerous generations when it was really only around for one or two I think...then again maybe Im just old now and most are too young to remember.

[KingDadXVI]

Your not old I remember it too. BC directly on the consoles can only be done by emulation as the architecture is different. Emulation requires a huge amount of processing power and memory. You could have a PS4 or Xbox One perform emulation if you were willing to pay a lot more for each console so that they had the extra power to do the emulation. This in turn would drop the number of people willing to buy a console. It would be cheaper just to go out and buy a last gen console if you don't already have one.

[cesuf]

This is very old news. They aren't BC because of the new x86 cpu architecture. Too much sacrifice in performance and/or cost would be have to made for BC to have happened.

One nice benefit to not having BC is that the price of these older consoles didn't bottom out, like they usually do with a new generation of consoles.