eli5 How can PC games from literally 1998 run from the PCs of today but you can’t play older console games from the current consoles?

Question

why is “backwards incompatibility” a problem on consoles and not on pc when they’re basically just the same electronic parts (cpu, gpu, ram)

In: 7

Answer 1

Windows machines have followed a single common processor architecture since the early 80s. It’s been extended multiple times, but it’s fundamentally the same architecture from back then. This means that fundamentally, a modern computer can still understand the instructions of ancient programs.

Consoles usually changed the architecture of the processor and graphics every generation. So the new console literally wouldn’t know what to do with the code written for the old console. To get an old game to work, it would have to be rewritten completely, as emulation required too much power.

The two most recent console generations (PS4/5, Xbox One/Series) share the x86 architecture with PC, which means there is (comparatively) little work to make a game which works on an Xbox One, an Xbox Series, a PC, a PS4, and a PS5. In fact, both Sony and Microsoft say that their PS4/XBO libraries work on the newest machines.