Forwards Compatibility

This is a new term that has recently come into my vocabulary and the whole idea of it feels odd.

Backwards compatibility is when you have a current system that will run stuff that was designed for the old system.

Forwards compatibility is when you have stuff designed for the current system that will run on the old system.

So to put that slightly confusing fact into context.
The PlayStation3 is backwards compatible, so it will run run PlayStation2 games.

And forwards compatibility then would be running PlayStation3 games on the PlayStation2 hardware. Which might mean that the games themselves and not the console would be backwards compatible, but I am not so sure.

A good example of forwards compatibility would be USB because you can use USB2.0 devises in USB1.0 ports. This is because USB is a standardised protocol.

See that wasn't so difficult.