It’s hard to imagine a company with a greater influence on consumer electronics than Sony. You can trace a direct line from the Walkman -- the first portable media player -- to the smartphone. Today Sony is a massive force in gaming, making the PlayStation and publishing games for it and other platforms. Sony image sensors are in iPhones as well as its own mirrorless cameras. Not to mention the OLED TVs; smartphones; noise-canceling headphones; music, tv, and film publishing; and, yes, robot dogs.
Interestingly, you can still only buy it direct from Sony as of today. Here’s our review, our Vergecast segment, and our thoughts on Horizon Call of the Mountain and Gran Turismo 7.
Some other easy day-one recommendations: What The Bat, Thumper, The Last Clockwinder... and for relaxing times, make it Tetris Effect.
Sony broke from tradition and didn’t announce new TVs at CES 2023. Instead, its keynote was used as a showcase for Afeela. But according to the company’s UK Twitter account, you can expect to get the full details for Sony’s latest Bravia XR lineup on March 1st. Prepare yourselves for some very nice screens.
Microsoft is hoping two gaming giants will help get its Activision Blizzard deal across the line with regulators in Europe.
[W]e’re excited to share that the rear buttons of the just-released PlayStation DualSense Edge controller will be supported soon, too!
Hopefully, the Stadia Controller will be next.
Console VR is back — and better than ever.
Finally, a Horizon VR you’ll want to hang out in.
Let Sean’s calming voice guide you through this unpackaging and setup experience. Ahhh.
We’re trying out Sony’s new PlayStation VR2 headset this week. The $549.99 headset is due to launch on February 22nd with an OLED screen, a 110-degree field of view, and 4K HDR support. Stay tuned for our full review soon, and until then check out our initial hands-on from September.
From Sony’s new PSVR2 Ultimate FAQ:
Yes, similar to the thousands of tiny PlayStation symbols we added to the surfaces of the PS5 console and DualSense controller, we also included tiny PlayStation symbols to the front and back bands of the PS VR2 headset. This adds a texture for a tactile feel for you to enjoy.
We put those tiny symbols under the microscope — literally! — in 2021.
While the $200 PS5 gamepad still uses drift-prone potentiometers for its analog joysticks and triggers, iFixit found they do have magnetic Hall Effect sensors instead of buttons for their full trigger press.
Oh, and the haptic motors are no longer soldered to the board. Add the modular thumbsticks, and this pad’s relatively repairable!
Artist Retroldtech produces and sells tiny scale models of retro gaming consoles, and they decided to take a crack at a model from Sony’s iconic video monitor line.
Is the screen real? Can you plug your MiSTer or old consoles into it? No, but it looks fun and comes with your choice of six swappable screens. Get this and save money so you can buy a VGA monitor and maybe a Retrotink 5x instead.
Slightly worse battery life aside, I’m a big fan of almost everything Sony did to improve on the already-great DualSense.
It’s easy to be cynical about Sony’s entry into the automotive world. Even the name — Afeela — evokes more eye rolls than serious expressions. But here’s why you should take it seriously.
“I have no use for a standalone music player, but both of these Walkmans are so pretty that I just want to hold one,” writes Ars Technica’s Ron Amadeo. Hard agree.
For CES 2023, Sony shared some footage of its virtual production tools, which include a giant “LED wall” that can display remarkably believable settings that are entirely digital. This type of technology isn’t new — The Mandalorian also uses similar tools — but it continues to blow me away.
At a show of wild concepts and far-out tech, this year’s best gadgets got real.
Sony is breaking from tradition this year and won’t be announcing any new TVs at CES 2023. So what’s left? Well, a teaser image from Sony points towards the PlayStation VR2 virtual reality device being part of the live event.
We’re also expecting more details on the Sony and Honda electric vehicle. You can tune into Sony’s live stream at 8PM ET / 5PM PT in the YouTube stream below.
In a 10th-anniversary celebration post to keep the hype train at a steady hum in anticipation of the HBO premiere of its The Last Of Us adaptation,
Neil Druckmann said that the multiplayer game will incorporate Naughty Dog’s signature approach to storytelling (so expect it to try to make you cry by killing a cute but fungi-fied creature) and that they would have more to share about the game later this year.
For now, fans can content themselves with The Last Of Us Part 1 launching on PC on March 3rd and The Last Of Us’ HBO premiere on January 15th.
I would have absolutely designed a PS5 controller with more battery life and Hall Effect joysticks, but I have no imagination. Instead, Sony crammed its own brand-new toolless hot-swappable joystick modules into a pad that already housed not one, not two, but four motors: two for haptic feedback and two for its amazing adaptive triggers.
Check out a stick swap at the top of our video below; after, watch TronicFix’s teardown of the original to see how little room Sony had to work with.
