Developer Sony Santa Monica is porting a handful of popular PlayStation 3 titles to the next-gen PlayStation 4, and if you own them on Vita or PlayStation 3, you already own them on the upcoming console.
Sony revealed that it is moving Flower, Flow, Sound Shapes, and Escape Plan to PlayStation 4. Previously, these were all downloadable PlayStation Network titles for the PS3 and Vita systems. With Cross-Buy, Sony’s program where you buy it once and own it on multiple devices, anyone who owns those games will get them automatically on the next-gen console. Microsoft currently has no similar program, and Nintendo famously continues to resell its older titles.
Flower and Sound Shapes will both debut alongside the PlayStation 4 on Nov. 15. Flow and Escape Plan will follow on Nov. 29. Some of the games will see minor improvements. For example, Flower will run in a full 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second.
This announcement is notable because the PlayStation 4 is not backward compatible with PlayStation 3 games. That includes the digital titles customers purchased and locked to their PSN accounts. Sony fans will have to hope that the company continues moving titles like these over if they want to play those older releases on their new console.
Flower and Flow are from indie developer Thatgamecompany. Flower puts players in control of the wind and has them using motion controls to blow flower petals around a world. Flow is a psychedelic, Pac-Man-style game where a tiny creature eats things around it to grow larger.
Sound Shapes is a musical platformer from Queasy Games. Players can create different tunes while playing through the levels. Escape Plan, from Fun Bits Interactive, is a black-and-white survival game where players must figure out how to break out of rooms filled with traps.