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PlayStation keeps making money, Sony phones keep losing it
The most interesting part of cracking open a fresh financial report from Sony is seeing whether the momentum behind the PlayStation 4 shows any signs of slowing down. Sony kinda spoilt that for us just after the new year, though, announcing that the PS4 was closing in on the 100 million milestone with 91.6 million consoles sold as of December 31st. The holiday season was appropriately busy for the PlayStation division. From October through December, aka the third quarter of Sony's fiscal year, 8.1 million PS4s found loving homes, compared with 9 million the previous year. Not bad considering the slowdown in sales that's a natural part of a console's lifecycle has been prophesied for some time now.
PlayStation 4 sales are actually speeding up
Sony's nothing if not consistent. The company's latest financial results released today show everything's as it should be six months after new CEO Kenichiro Yoshida took the helm. Sony recorded nearly $19.6 billion in revenue for the three months ending September 30th, of which almost $2.2 billion was cold, hard profit. Those numbers are slightly better than last year's and last quarter's, meaning Sony's books aren't just stable, they're healthy. Predictably, the PlayStation division was responsible for the most revenue, pulling in more than double any other department barring financial services. Just as unsurprising is that mobile remains the only loss-making part of Sony's business.
Sony can't stop making money from PlayStation
Sony's new CEO Kenichiro Yoshida has been at the company's helm for just a few short months now, but fortunately, former chief Kaz Hirai left him an already successful company to run. Yoshida has his own designs for Sony, with a three-year plan to focus primarily on the entertainment and imaging businesses. It's important not to take the favorable position the company is in for granted, though, so we imagine Yoshida is pleased with Sony's latest financial results released today. There's nothing too extraordinary about the numbers, but Sony did record $17.9 billion in revenue for the three months ending in June, from which it extracted nearly $1.8 billion in profit. And yes, no points for guessing PlayStation is responsible for the bulk of that.
PlayStation’s updated VR headset arrives in Japan tomorrow
You may want to hold off buying the current-gen PSVR, as its successor is imminent. We already knew the updated headset will come with integrated headphones and HDR passthrough support (courtesy of a new processor unit). And, now Sony is blessing us with a release date -- for Japan, anyway. The company's native home will be the first to get the refreshed VR device when it lands there on Saturday. Meanwhile, everyone else will have to wait. At 44,980 yen ($401), the new headset will match the starting price of the original (although, its older sibling now comes bundled with the PlayStation Camera at no extra charge).
Pacifist RPG 'Undertale' heading to PS4 and Vita
If you've never looked at a PC as a gaming device, you might have missed one of 2015's best, most unexpected RPG hits: Undertale. It is a quirky, independent game that billed itself as "the friendly RPG where nobody has to die," but it is more than a pacifist adventure -- it's a role-playing game that made every encounter a puzzle, a joke and a moral choice. Sound like your jam? Worry not: Sony just announced at E3 that the game is coming to PlayStation 4 and PS Vita.
Zombies aren't the only threat in 'Days Gone'
They're called "infected" in The Last of Us, "feral ghouls" in Fallout and "unmentionables" in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. But put aside labels and physical differences, and they're all the same: terrifying horde monsters. In Days Gone, they're called "freakers," and there are a lot of them. This open-world survival game made its debut at E3 2016 with an action-packed trailer that took zombie hordes in gaming to a new level, but left us wanting for details. The gameplay looked great, but the demo lacked something of a human connection. Today, Sony showed us a bit more: a taste of the game's open world as Decon St. John's human rides his motorbike across the game's vast landscape on a quest to rescue a friend. Not from freakers, though -- from other people.
PlayStation Now's subscription option hits the UK for £13 per month
PlayStation Now still hasn't managed to shake its open beta label in the UK, but today it's moved into what could be its final phase, with Sony adding a new subscription payment option for its game streaming service. Previously, early adopters were only able to rent titles for two- or 30-day periods at a cost of between £3 and £10, depending on the game. As of now, though, you can sign-up to an all-you-can-play subscription for £13 per month, which could be right up your street should you have an appetite to explore the whole library. The subscription model was an inevitable addition that's been available since the start of the year in the US, where you can also make a longer-term commitment to get a slightly discounted rate. Now that the subscription model has come to the UK, interested users can also opt-in to a seven-day free trial to see what all the fuss is about, provided they own a PS3, PS4 or compatible Sony Bravia TV or Blu-ray player.
Media Molecule's 'Dreams' is for YouTubers and Twitch streamers
When Alex Evans, co-founder of Sony PlayStation first-party studio Media Molecule, announced Dreams onstage at E3 this week, there was a lot of confusion in the audience and on social media. And that's okay, according to Evans. "What we wanted to do was get it out there and get people talking about it. And your staff are right to be scratching their heads. ... If it's on your radar, fantastic. Because it is hard to take it in. The main confusion I've seen reading on the net does seem to be that people are like, 'Is it a movie maker? Is it a game maker? What is it?' The communities will probably define that. But it's absolutely a game. We are making games with it. What you will choose to make with it, what the community will choose to make with it -- that's the cool thing. We don't know."
An intimate chat with Sony PlayStation's Shuhei Yoshida
Sony PlayStation's Shuhei Yoshida is the best kind of corporate executive. The Worldwide Studios head is affable, open-minded and, best of all, he embraces competition from rivals. I'm speaking, of course, about Microsoft's recent move to partner up with every other company working on virtual reality that's not Sony, of which Shu (as he's commonly referred to) says is no concern. At E3 this week, I had a chance to sit down with the friendly face of PlayStation to pick his brain about making Morpheus more social, embracing crowdfunding to revive cult classics and just what is going on with The Last Guardian.
Sony shifts to pricey game rentals in UK PlayStation Now beta
Sony kicked off closed beta testing of its PlayStation Now game streaming service in the UK a couple of months ago, and now it's time to talk turkey. Beta participants previously had unrestricted access to the PS Now streaming catalogue, but Sony's just started experimenting with rental pricing. A full-fat PS3 title now costs £5 to rent for two days, or £10 if you want to stretch that to a 30-day term; PS3-era PlayStation Network games are slightly cheaper at £3 and £8 for two- and 30-day rental periods, respectively. Bear in mind, PS Now is still in the early stages of beta testing in the UK, and Sony's made it clear that it'll be playing around with "different rental options at different price points."
You can buy a PlayStation 4 for £300 right now
New consoles are never easy on the wallet, so anything to take some of the sting out of that purchase is always appreciated. Case in point: well-known retailer ShopTo has just dropped the price of a brand-new PlayStation 4 to a penny under £300, which is quite simply the lowest price we've come across yet. That's basically a £50 saving compared with almost every other retailer (barring one that's selling the console for £325 via Play.com). This particular deal is only available through ShopTo's eBay storefront, and we've no idea how long the discount will be in effect for, so you might wanna ride that impulse straight to the checkout to be sure you don't miss out.
PS4 owners will be able to play 'FarCry 4' with friends who don't own the game
Looking forward to playing FarCry 4 with your friends? Sony says if you buy it for the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 3, you'll only need one copy between you. Taking the stage at the company's E3 2014 PlayStation event, Sony VP of developer relations Adam Boyes explained that folks playing the game on PSN would be able to invite their friends to play with them even if they don't own the game. How is this possible? Boyes didn't say, exactly, but it sounds like an ideal use case for PlayStation Now -- Sony's Gaikai-sourced cloud-streaming service. Sony doesn't say how many of your friends you can share this gratis multiplayer experience with, but as a Sony-exclusive feature, it's a pretty killer draw for folks on the fence about what platform to buy for.
Sony E3 2014 PlayStation liveblog!
With the Xbox One taking center stage this morning at Microsoft's press conference, Sony's trying to own the evening with its own PlayStation-focused event tonight. What's in store from the folks behind the PlayStation 4? We'll find out soon enough, but allow us to venture some educated guesses: a new God of War? Perhaps an update on the long-in-development The Last Guardian? A PlayStation Vita/PlayStation 4 bundle? We'll find out starting at 9PM ET!
Watch this: Sony demos two new augmented reality tricks
No, Sony's not coming out with a new augmented-reality toy just yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't working behind the scenes to make its graphics look a little more... believable. The company just posted two videos out of its PlayStation lab in Japan, both of which hint at what it could be like to play future PlayStation Move games. In the first, we see a man holding two three-dimensional boxes, one of them with water inside (Sony's signature rubber duckie is there too). As he pours the water back and forth from one box to the other, we see the water splash up onto the floor and sloshing back and forth, sometimes even covering the duck. Not "believable," you say? Check out the second video, which shows someone casting a flashlight on a dinosaur in a darkened room (just go with it, OK), with the shadows changing as the light moves on and off the subject. We've embedded both vids below, though you might still want to check out Sony's PlayStation blog post -- there's reference to some new trading-card recognition feature, though there's sadly no video demo to go with it.
Should you buy the new, slimmer and pricier PlayStation Vita?
Decisions, decisions, decisions. Saying it three times won't make things any easier, but that's where we come in. Sony's latest iteration of the PlayStation Vita handheld, which we're going to call the Vita Slim from now on (as seems to be the fashion), is coming to the UK, having previously only been available in Asia. It's up for pre-order right now and will launch a week from today -- so, do you want one? The choice is ultimately yours, of course, and it's a delicate one, but if the pressure is too much to bear, then head past the break where we explore how the Slim stacks up against the Vita of old, and whether it's really worth the extra £50 (or roughly $80, in US terms) for a console that delivers essentially the same experience.
Sony's slimmer PlayStation Vita coming to the UK for around £180, pre-orders start today
Alright, so perhaps we took Sony's invite to its London PlayStation event a little too seriously when we speculated Vita TV news was on the agenda. Although it's not technically the "slimmest" PS device, Sony's brought us here to welcome the late-2013 PlayStation Vita iteration (aka the PCH-2000) to UK shores. Thinner, lighter and with better battery life than its predecessor (partly due to the use of a new LCD panel instead of the older OLED one), this is the first trip for the new Vita outside of Asia. That plane ride ain't free, though, as the £180 price tag (around $300) is a significant mark-up on the cost of the handheld in its homeland (18,980 yen; around $185), and it's also a tenner more than the original Vita model currently being sold by Amazon UK. Pre-orders for the device start today, with the proper launch penned in for February 7th.
Hands-on with the new PlayStation Vita (update: video!)
Just like the PlayStation Portable before it, the PlayStation Vita comes in iterations. There's the standard, original Vita, and then there's the new, even nicer version. Sony unveiled that new iteration recently at a Japanese event, and we got our first hands-on with it today at Tokyo Game Show 2013. So, what's different? Not too much. As it turns out, it's still a Vita. The good news is that it's a far lighter, more comfy version of the Vita you already know and (maybe) love. Rounded edges make holding the Vita distinctly less abrasive -- the sharper angles on the original Vita were pretty from a design perspective, but not so much from an ergonomic standpoint. The buttons have been rejiggered as well, with a solid click for each (the start / select / PS Home buttons are also all now circles instead of ovals). And hey, the micro-USB port for charging is an unbelievably welcome addition. Gone are the days of your proprietary Vita charging cable (though there's still a port for it as well, should you refuse to change). And that's not the only ergonomic improvement: the new Vita is dramatically lighter than its predecessor, making it all the easier to take on-the-go. We're told that its battery life is also much improved, but we've yet to see that play out in real life, so we'll reserve judgment for now. Update: We've added video just below walking through the new Vita -- please excuse us, as we called the new Vita's LCD screen an LED in the video. Chock it up to jet lag! Check out all our Tokyo Game Show 2013 coverage right here at our hub!
Live from Tokyo: Watch PlayStation's Japan-centric livestream right here!
Unless you're reading this in the Land of the Rising Sun, you may not have been aware of Sony PlayStation's Tokyo press event. Well, it's happening right now. According to the US PlayStation blog, the event was put together to make "some announcements of interest to Japanese gamers." We're guessing that means a local release date for the PlayStation 4 -- house cleaning to make way for the company's announcements at Tokyo Game Show next week. Of course, there's always a chance the firm could sneak in a few game reveals, too. Curious? Don't worry, we've got a man on the ground just in case Sony decides to unexpectedly redesign the PlayStation Vita. You'll find the livestream (starting at 2:00 AM ET) embedded after the break, too.
Engadget and Joystiq's Sony PlayStation pre-event broadcast: live from E3
Been aching to find out what Sony's PlayStation 4 actually looks like? So have we. Fortunately, Engadget's Ben Gilbert and Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski are right outside of the company's E3 press event, happily speculating on the box's potential shape -- not to mention what games we might see for it today. Head past the break to hear the pair's predictions for the show -- and of course, you can always follow along on our liveblog when they're finished. Update: You can find an archived video of the stream after the break!
