After tearing the PlayStation 5's guts apart earlier this week, Sony confirmed nearly everything we'd like to know on Friday about how its new console, launching November 12, will interface with PS4 games via backward compatibility. We should probably start with the big news that Sony has not cleared up just yet. Today, we received our first indication that PlayStation 5 will ship with something known as "Game Boost," which its Friday news post suggests "may make [select] PS4 games run with a higher or smoother frame rate." This suggestion doesn't come with a handy footnote pointing us to a list of affected games or features, however. Sony did not immediately respond to our request for clarification, so I'm left pointing to my recent deep dive with Xbox Series X's backward compatibility suite. What I found there was compelling: Most games play nearly identically on Xbox Series X as they do on Xbox One X, since console games are typically coded with hard limits on technical aspects. But in the case of games that launched on PS4 with "unlocked" frame rates and dynamic resolutions, well, the sky might be the limit. Will PS5 let those older, uncapped games tap into the full PS5 architecture or will certain CPU and GPU aspects be limited for compatibility's sake? I found that Xbox Series X was generally quite generous to the minority of games that could tap into increased horsepower, but there's no guaranteeing Sony will treat its older games the same way, in order to prioritize compatibility over upgrades. Additionally, will current-gen PlayStation VR games see their own boosts? "PSVR" is referenced repeatedly throughout today's new document but not in the brief mention of Game Boost. Existing PlayStation VR hardware seems to be entirely compatible with PS5, with Sony confirming once again that users will need a PlayStation Camera adapter to connect to PS5—and that those adapters will be free. How exactly PSVR owners will get those adapters remains to be seen. The matter of PS5 controller compatibility is a bit more complicated than Xbox Series' pledge of total forward and backward compatibility (with the exception of Xbox One Kinect, RIP). As has previously been hinted, PS5's new DualSense controller will work with older games, but PS4's DualShock 4 gamepad will not work with PS5 games. (Yes, you can still connect a PS4 DualShock 4 to play PS4 games on PS5. Whew, that's a mouthful.) In good forward-compatibility news, if you already bought an expensive add-on controller, Sony assures you that "specialty peripherals [from the PS4 era], such as officially licensed racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks," will work with PS5 software. When playing the PS4's library of PSVR games on PS5, Sony encourages users to stick with DualShock 4 as a gamepad, suggesting that the older gamepad offers the "best experience" in PSVR. This implies, but doesn't confirm, that DualSense will not work the same way as a DualShock 4 in PSVR games like Astro Bot, which relies heavily on gamepad motion sensing via tracking elements like its "light bar." You can also use existing PlayStation Move wands in PSVR games on PS5. Certain PS4 system features have been scrapped when moving forward to PS5. The DualShock 4's "share" button now brings up the PS5's built-in "create" menu, which appears to do all the stuff that "share" did on PS4 but with a few additional button shortcuts. And PS4 social features like tournaments, "in-game live," and second-screen app functionality have all gotten the axe. Complete details are posted on OUR FORUM.