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.
We know the PS5 Pro is real and developers have been getting ready for it for months, but now Dealabs claims to have seen the packaging for the new console. It has created a sketch that shows it’s similar to the PS5 Slim, and this particular PS5 Pro model lacks a disc drive. An announcement is rumored for next month.
If you know anything about the PS5 Pro you can reach me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01
Sony is raising PS5 prices in Japan on September 2nd. Both models are going up by 13,000 yen (nearly $90). This is the third PS5 console price hike in Japan since the console’s launch in 2020. The yen has weakened against the dollar in recent years, and Sony blames “fluctuations in the global economic situation” for this latest PS5 increase.
[PlayStation blog (Japan)]
This post by Obsolete Sony is my favorite thing on the internet right now.
Though Sony’s upcoming Kraven the Hunter feature probably won’t feature any Spider-Man cameos, the movie’s latest trailer is a reminder that at the very least, we’ll be seeing another Rhino variant when the movie hits theaters on December 13th.
The infamous horror game collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro drummed up enormous hype before the project was cancelled amid game developer Konami’s fallout with Kojima.
PS4 owners who managed to install P.T. before it was removed in 2015 can still enjoy playing the demo while we mourn what could have been the best Silent Hill game released since 2001.
⭕ If you’ve got USB-C on a reference design GPU, you may not need the adapter at all. Some report you can plug the headset right into certain cards once you install the app.
❌ Sony’s dongle doesn’t have Bluetooth; I’ve spent hours trying to get PS VR2 controllers to work well on desktop, despite using a Sony-approved Bluetooth dongle.
The new Aibo Kinako Edition is the first to feature a two-tone finish on its face and will include two new eye color options.
It will be officially available starting tomorrow in Japan, but Sony has also announced a ¥55,000 (about $374) price increase for its already pricey robot dog, citing the rising costs of raw materials.
The Japanese entertainment giant is reporting an operating profit of 279.11 billion yen ($1.9 billion) for Q1 2024, up 10 percent year-over-year.
Most of that growth comes from its music and gaming software segments, the latter of which was driven by first-party games and PlayStation Plus subscriptions. Meanwhile, Sony sold just 2.4 million PS5 console units compared to the 3 million it previously estimated.
As spotted by Boing Boing, David L. Farquhar shares the details of the largest CRT TV ever produced. The Sony PVM-4300 “weighed about 450 pounds, stood about 27 inches tall,” and was too large to squeeze through a standard door frame.
Built by hand, only 20 were exported from Japan to the United States where they were sold with “a significant markup.”
[The Silicon Underground]
If you want to be technical about it, 8K was never especially viable on the PS5 to begin with, but when the system launched in 2020 TV makers were heavily pushing 8K as the next big thing and Sony wanted to futureproof its pricey platform.
With a PS5 Pro coming soon, and likely supporting more robust 8K, removing 8K claims off the PS5 box isn’t a surprise.
[Video Games Chronicle]
Here we go again. Sony just announced Ragnarök for PC, but in a video and accompanying blog post it says the game will require a PlayStation Network account. It’s not clear why, and comes weeks after Sony had to back down and reverse plans for a PSN requirement for Helldivers 2 after blistering player reaction.
Earlier today Destiny 2 players were able to access The Final Shape expansion early through Sony’s PS5 cloud streaming service. Now Bungie has responded, confirming the leak and saying “it’s always extremely difficult when our team’s hard work is leaked early, but we are still excited for everyone to experience the full release on June 4th together.”
