Sony has openly stated that PS3 stick support on PS4 is up to the developers. The port of Injustice did not bother to accommodate players coming from last gen, despite the possibility. At current, no stick support exists for PS4, though Hori has announced that a PS4 stick is in the works. Barring E3 surprises, we know GG Xrd is probably coming to PS4 before the end of the year and there are strong reasons to believe there will a PS4 port of Ultra. Certainly there will be many other fighters in the years to come.
So here’s my question:
What incentive to developers have to enable legacy stick support when they would be undercutting the stick manufactures they broker licensing deals with? Is “good will” enough when they know damn well every serious fan of the genre is gonna drop the cash when push comes to shove? Madcatz knows that their sticks could work on the machines and if they did they’d sell far fewer new sticks. Same with Hori. Will developers side with the stick manufacturers to maintain those relationships and the cross promotion? Or will they give players the option to use their old sticks to encourage the move to next gen? I know people who own both PS4 and PS3 who have said that if upcoming PS4 fighters don’t support their sticks then they’ll just stick with PS3 versions. No many people want to drop $150+ on top of a new game.
I think it’s already a problem that having these games release across 4-5 platforms seriously splits the player base. I’m hoping people do make the move to next gen, though, because the ease of recording/streaming/sharing and on-board editing of clips on PS4 is the best thing for the fighting game community.