A lot of gamers on a budget will sell their previous generation console to offset the cost of a new one. In the past, this meant going to a retailer or a known dealer of second-hand consoles, selling your consoles and maybe some games and then going to pick up your new console. With the PS4, and during the launch of the Xbox One, backwards compatibility wasn’t a thing, so you really didn’t need to worry about playing your old games on new hardware. However, things have changed this past generation. The PS5 (review) and Xbox Series X/S, both offer backwards compatibility. If you have your old and new console in your house at the same time then transferring data is an easier process. But what if you are one that’s going to sell your console first to get some cash to invest in the new console? Well, in that case, here are three things you must do on your PS4 before you sell it to get a new PS5.
This may sound like a no-brainer, but it's something you must do. Unlike the Xbox Series X/S which has a more seamless approach to syncing your saves across the console generation, on the PS5 you need to back up your saves. You can either back up your save files to the cloud if you are a PlayStation Plus member, or you can copy your save files to a pen drive and copy them back to your new console. This will ensure that when you play your PS4 games on the PS5, you can pick up right where you left off. You can check out our step-by-step guide to transferring save files from the PS4 to the PS5 here.
The PS5 allows you to play PS4 games off an external drive. This will leave the valuable SSD space of the PS5 for native PS5 games. Before you sell your console, it is a wise decision to get an external hard drive and copy your games to it. It's a simple plug and play procedure on the PS5 to play PS4 games. You can also use the external drive to be the default location to install PS4 games, in case you decide to get some games you may have missed out on. You can learn how to transfer your games from your PS4 to the external drive here.
It is important to “factory reset” or format your PS4 before you sell it. This will ensure all your data like your PlayStation account, linked social accounts, games, etc. will be deleted. After the process, the PS4 will boot up like a brand-new console. The process is similar to factory resetting your smartphone. So, ensure you have backed up your games and save files as mentioned above.
To factory reset your PS4, go into settings, then “Initialization” then select “Initialize PS4”. After this, you will be presented with 2 options. To do a quick format or a full format. The full format will take longer, but ensure none of your data is recoverable from the storage.
On a PS4 Pro that we initialized, the process took almost 2 hours. So, ensure you have that much time on hand.