Is a PS4 Still Worth Buying? A Trophy Hunter's Answer

The straightforward answer is that most people should not buy a PS4. A PS5 plays the overwhelming majority of the PS4 library, and the price gap has closed to the point where the older console is a false economy.

There is one exception, and if you collect trophies it is a large one.

What a PS4 costs now

US prices verified August 2026.

Against a Sony-refurbished PS5 Digital at $499, a $120 PS4 is not the bargain it looks like. You are paying a quarter of the price for a console that plays a subset of the same games, worse, with no path forward.

Why most people should skip it

The PS5 plays PS4 games. Backward compatibility covers the vast majority of the library, and games generally run better — faster loading, more stable frame rates, and improvements in titles that received patches.

PS4 games are cheap on both. The back catalogue's low prices are not a PS4 advantage; those same discs and digital sales work on a PS5.

Support is winding down. New releases increasingly skip the platform. Buying in now is buying the end of a curve.

Storage and speed are dated. A mechanical drive in a base PS4 is slow in a way that is genuinely tiring after time on an SSD.

The exception: separate trophy lists

Here is the part no mainstream buying guide mentions.

The PS4 and PS5 versions of a game usually have entirely separate trophy lists. Not shared progress, not a synced list — two independent sets of trophies, each with its own platinum.

For a trophy hunter that changes the arithmetic completely. Owning both consoles means a game you enjoyed can be completed twice, legitimately, for two platinums and two full sets of XP. On games with an efficient completion path, this is one of the most effective ways to build a collection that exists.

It works because of how PSN treats releases as distinct products. The same logic drives regional stacks — some games ship separate lists per region, and hunters chase those too.

A few things to know before leaning on this:

• It is not universal. Some games use a shared list across both versions. Check before you commit.
• You often need the right version. A PS5 upgrade of a game may not grant the PS4 list.
• Cross-save is not the same as cross-progress for trophies. Transferring a save does not transfer trophies; you still have to earn them on the second list.

If you want to see how this compounds, the profiles at the top of our platinum leaderboard are almost universally people who stack.

The PS3 case is stronger than it looks

A PS3 at around $150 is a harder sell than a PS4 in every practical sense — no backward compatibility from newer hardware, an ageing online component, and genuine reliability risk on old units.

But it is the only way to earn a substantial body of trophies. A large catalogue of PS3-era games never received a remaster, and their trophy lists cannot be earned on any current console. Those trophies count toward your level exactly like any other, and they are permanently out of reach without the hardware.

For someone deep enough into trophy hunting to care about completion breadth, that is a real argument. For everyone else it is a $150 nostalgia purchase, which is fine as long as it is an honest one.

Buy a PS3 used with care — the older fat models have a poor reliability record, and later slim revisions are the safer bet.

When a PS4 is the right call anyway

• Hard budget ceiling. If $499 is genuinely out of reach and $120 is not, a PS4 plays a decade of excellent games. That is not a bad outcome.
• A second console for another room where nobody needs current releases.
• You already own a PS4 library on disc and want a machine in a second location.
• Trophy stacking, as above — the strongest reason on this list.

What to check on a used PS4

The same discipline as any used console, with two additions: listen to the fan, because late-life PS4s are notorious for noise as dust accumulates, and test the disc drive thoroughly, since drive failures are the most common fault on these units. The full checklist is in our refurbished vs pre-owned guide.

The short answer

If you want to play games, buy a PS5 — a refurbished Digital at $499 does everything a PS4 does and everything it cannot. If you specifically want to stack trophy lists, a $120 PS4 alongside your PS5 is one of the highest-value purchases available to a hunter, and it pays out in platinums rather than pixels.

Frequently asked questions

Can a PS5 play PS4 games?

Yes, the overwhelming majority of them, usually with better performance.

Do PS4 and PS5 versions share trophies?

Usually not — they are typically separate lists with separate platinums. Some games share one list, so verify per title.

Is it cheaper to buy a PS4 than a PS5?

Up front, considerably. Over the life of the console, the gap narrows quickly once you account for a shrinking library and no upgrade path.

Do PS3 trophies still count toward my level?

Yes. PS3 trophies award XP identically. See our trophy level breakdown.

Is trophy stacking against the rules?

No. Earning separate lists on separate releases is entirely legitimate and always has been. It is unrelated to the cheating our cheater detection flags, which concerns trophies that were never earned at all.