You can play PS4 games on PS5 with an external hard drive

(Image credit: Sony)

The PS5 will be capable of installing and playing PS4 games from an external hard drive containing the titles downloaded from the current generation console, Sony and PlayStation has confirmed.

The news was announced during today's Road to PS5 online livestream, in which the system's lead architect Mark Cerny provided a wealth of new information about the PS5 specs.

"Expandability of our [Solid State Drive] is going to be quite important," explained Cerny."Flash is costly and you may very well want to add storage to whatever we put in the console. 

"The kind of storage you need depends on how you're going to use it. If you have an extensive PS4 library [...] then a large external hard drive is ideal. You can leave your games on the hard drive and play them directly from there, saving the pricier SSD storage for your PS5 titles, or you can copy the PS4 titles directly to the SSD. If your purpose in adding more storage is to play PS5 titles, though, ideally you will add to your SSD storage." 

Cerny went on to stress that Sony "will be supporting certain M2 SSDs" (a.k.a. third party SSDs) to be compatible with PS5, explaining that "these are internal drives that you can get on the open market and can install on the day on the PS5."

You can find out more about how to watch the full PS5 reveal live stream, or stay tuned to GamesRadar for the lastest breakdowns and biggest info from the online event. 

For more, check out all the biggest new games of 2020 to keep an eye on, or watch our latest episode of Dialogue Options below.

Alex Avard

I'm GamesRadar's Features Writer, which makes me responsible for gracing the internet with as many of my words as possible, including reviews, previews, interviews, and more. Lucky internet! 

Latest in PlayStation
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
The Blood of Dawnwalker: A screenshot of the vampire Brencis holding up a crown during the trailer for the upcoming game.
The Witcher 3 devs created a Jekyll & Hyde-style character for their new vampire RPG "because nobody yet has done that"
Balatro screenshot showing an assortment of card packs
Balatro creator initially considered a Steam release in part to help "get a game developer job somewhere," and after 5 million sales I'd say he found one
Latest in News
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip