Backwards compatibility will be a big part of the upcoming battle between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X. We know that the Xbox Series X will run almost all Xbox One games, but Sony is a bit tight-lipped about the PS5's capabilities, stating that "the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles We are "confident" that the overwhelming majority of the more than 4,000 PS4 titles will be playable on the PS5, but they have been a bit tight-lipped."

However, if popular streamer Lance McDonald is right, it appears that the PS5 will work with any PS4 game. It just may not work well.

In a deleted tweet captured by ResetEra, the streamer wrote: PlayStation 5 can run all PlayStation 4 games without a per-game whitelist. Sony continues to test titles but cannot run untested games"

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Assuming this was the case at launch, and I will explain why later, this is a huge problem. Sony would essentially be leaving it up to the users themselves to determine if the game works as expected without any additional patching. This is in contrast to how the Xbox One currently handles Xbox 360 games.

McDonald's justified its removal of the tweet in another tweet." We deleted the tweet out of respect for the platform holder." How one interprets this is open to interpretation.

So will backwards compatibility work this way for the PS5, which will be released later this year? Assuming that McDonald's is not pulling our leg, it appears so at this point, but given that the PS5 is still pre-launch, this could be the situation in pre-launch hardware. That would make sense, given that Sony says it is in the process of testing thousands of games.

It is quite possible that Sony decides to lock down the PS5 so that it only runs games that are whitelisted at release, and there are pros and cons to this approach. The pros include the (virtual) guarantee that there will be no game-breaking bugs after the first 30 hours of game play.

Of course, in the cons column is the fact that Sony and its partners will be deciding which games will work and which will not. And while Sony has stated that "nearly all" of the PS4's top 100 playable titles will be available at launch, your favorite niche indie game may not be available, even if it works perfectly.

Time will tell; the PS5's release date is still undecided, but we should know in the near future, along with pricing and pre-order information.