PS5: Can I delete PS4 version of games after PS5 upgrade?

Can you delete the PS4 version of games after a PS5 upgrade? Being in the early days of the new generation of consoles means there are a lot of cross-generational games being released. In some cases, these are games which are initially released as a PS4 game, with a promised upgrade to the PS5 version when it becomes available.

But for some reason, after you receive the upgrade to the PS5 version, you can actually find yourself saddled with two versions of the same game. This leaves you with two versions of the same game, eating into precious storage space. So the big question is, can you actually delete the PS4 version of the game, without it causing problems?

Can I delete the PS4 version of games after PS5 upgrade?

The straightforward answer is yes, you can. Deleting the PS4 version will not interfere with the PS5 version of the game. It will also, just as importantly, stop your hard drive getting clogged up with enormous duplicate game files.

For instance: A redundant PS4 version of Spider-Man: Miles Morales will take up 40GB of space. That's in addition to the 50GB for the PS5 version. So one game can easily, but needlessly, occupy far more of your hard drive than it needs to.

There isn't really any good reason to retain both copies of the game. The PS5 copy will be a superior version. So yes, start checking those games, and get rid of all those PS4 duplicates that you no longer need. You're on the PS5 now. Enjoy a more elegant game, for a more civilized age.

Now that we know we can delete these games, how exactly do we go about doing so? We'll cover that next.

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How to check for and delete the last-gen version

There are plenty of ways to check whether you have the PS4 version of a game lurking in your console storage like a smug toad. Arguably the simplest way to do a thorough inventory check is as follows:

• Go to Settings
• Go to Storage
• Select Games and Apps
• Next, select Delete Content
• In this menu, scroll through and look for any games that are duplicates. Last-gen games are marked as PS4, games are marked as PS5
• Highlight the version you want to get rid of, and select Delete
• Watch that available storage space increase dramatically, smile, thank the good people at Stealth Optional and enjoy the rest of your day.

Credit: Sony

Do You Need The PS4 Version Installed To Play The PS5 Version?

By now, the answer will hopefully be pretty clear. But we'll answer it anyway, just to put minds at ease: no, you don't need to keep the PS4 version of a game in order to run the PS5 version on your PS5.

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Keeping both games means that you effectively have two, slightly different version of the same game installed at once. They don't need one another in order to function.

So if you've got a hard-drive that's choc-full of duplicate games, start clearing the decks!