The major companies despite the PR spiel and half-hearted attempts at damage control will very likely DISCOURAGE backwards compatibility with most controllers. They have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the new consoles that they want to make back as soon as possible. They get nice licensing fees from third party controllers and peripherals. They will NOT collect that money if they allow or nudge software developers to put in code for past-gen controllers. They avoided this whole issue in the past by changing cord connectors between systems which is why Genesis controllers don't plug into Saturns or Dreamcasts and vice-versa.
MS doesn't really care, period... I'd say it's actually in Sony's best interests to NOT encourage backwards compatibility considering all the money that was lost on the PS3 and the cell processor. (I am NOT saying I would agree with that stance by Sony but seeing as how MS seems to get away with everything and the fanboys don't seem to mind taking it in the rear every time as long as they get their Halo...! There's more than a little hypocrisy in the gaming community there.) A very few end users -- the FGC is very small by comparison to the larger gaming community -- may not agree with that but they haven't seen the Sony balance sheets which from most reliable reports have not been pretty for years!
**And backwards compatibility has never been the big thing with consoles until Sony made a point of it with the PS2.** That point came back to bite Sony with the PS3 and its already exorbitant development costs. It would have been much better to NOT have included the PS2 chips in that system from the get-go. It's a safe bet that most of us who have BWC PS3's never seriously used them much to play PS2 games. For those of us who have import PS2 games, BWC doesn't help at all unless you have a launch Japanese PS3!
FYI, not all USB controllers from PS2 are generally useful on PS3, either. The Hori Flight Stick 2 that was marketed with Ace Combat 5 has NEVER been supported on PS3 flight games. You had to buy NEW flight sticks to play on PS3... The same Hori FS2 had to have custom drivers made for it to work on the PC as well so this business about every generic USB controllers working on all USB supporter consoles/computers is simply not true!
Go back and do some research before you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about! Very few consoles have made a point of backwards compatibility... MOST controllers only worked between different generations of consoles because some gamers who were electrical engineers/hobbyists developed replacement PCB's or cable converters to make them work. Cable converters themselves are NOT useful unless the control laws stay the same irregardless of physical changes in system connections. That's why PS1/PS2 games were able to work with USB converters on PS3. Heck, that's why most older system pads could work with the right electrical work... (Dreamcast pads excluded, though.)
BWC was used as a point of grasping straws for as big a consumer base as possible (Atari 7800) or PR move to get the consumers on-board with a new console and make them feel at ease, like any of these console companies gave a huge damn about the end-user or keeping their old games... That's never been their interest! The only recent console where the BWC helped was the Wii. In that case, most of the GOOD games really were from the Gamecube!
Now with the implementation of security chips, USB this-or-that is elementary B.S. ... The controllers will NOT work unless you have the security chip and the proper drivers for them if you want to use them on PC. That's a lesson the XBox fanboys had to learn over 3 years; some of them (and the PlayStation fanboys now with the PS4 and repeated warnings about the compatibility issues) are apparently still deaf because they haven't gotten the message despite being written in bold black for over 3 years now.
Again, do NOT expect the hardware companies to reward you by allowing you to use last gen's controllers -- especially joysticks(!) -- on current systems. You've just paid them $400 and $500 + tax to have the privilege of playing PS4/XBox One on launch day. You've proven the point that you're willing to pay for the experience ASAP... Why are they going to cut you a deal on controllers??? This is a kind of cock-eyed cheapness that I never expected to see from people who don't blink at paying several hundred dollars for used arcade game cabinets and PCB's but blanch when they're told a new joystick is going to cost them $150-$200! Hell, the wireless pads are $60!
really unfortunate this never happened...
