Playstation Gaming

[Silverwing]

HUGE NEWS.

Sony is dumping Cyberpunk 2077 from the Playstation store and giving everyone a full refund.

Article

[Silverwing]

Everyone giving that girl a hard time at Gamespot for her review... well she might have been more right then people wanted to believe.

[MasterXtreme]

A lot of Gran Turismo 7 news.  PS5 exclusive with a 2021 release date planned.

Article: Playstation Lifestyle

Gran Turismo 7 Will Be More Like Classic GT Titles Rather Than Taking After Gran Turismo Sport

Gran Turismo 7 will mark a return to the classic games in the series. In an interview with Octane, Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi stated that while e-sports will factor into the game, they won’t be as big a focus as they were in the last title, Gran Turismo Sport.


As Yamauchi explained, Gran Turismo Sport “took on the challenge of full-scale e-sports” in a move away from the traditional model of previous games. The problem is it didn’t sell as well. The game did manage to attract 9.5 million players in the end, but “it didn’t sell explosively from the beginning“. The reason for this was seemingly because it “may have seemed quite outlandish for some people”. As such, Gran Turismo 7 will keep some e-sports elements, like the FIA-certified Gran Turismo Championships, but the game will return to the classic and nostalgic feel of games like Gran Turismo 1-4. It will “provide the best Gran Turismo experience at present”.

The development of the game has been very drawn out. First teased for PlayStation 4 back in 2013, everything went quiet as GT Sport was released instead. The title was then leaked for a 2020 release before being officially unveiled for PS5 last year. Developing the title for the latest PlayStation console will mean it can make use of many of the console’s features, like fast loading, 3D audio, haptic feedback, Adaptive Triggers, 4K support, HDR, and a target frame rate of 60 frames-per-second. Ray tracing will especially make a large difference to the game’s visuals.  Yamauchi failed to be drawn on the future of the franchise once Gran Turismo 7 has been released. However, he did imply the franchise wouldn’t be ending anytime soon.

GT Sport Tops 9.5 Million Players.

General GT7 News.

[MasterXtreme]

PlayStation 5 Sells 4.5 Million Units in Its First Seven Weeks on Sale

GT Planet / Feb 3, 2021

Sony has released its Q3 2020 financial report, and it provides some astonishing sales figures for the new PlayStation 5 console. In total, between its launch day on November 12 and the quarter’s end on December 31, customers bought more than 4.5 million PS5s.

That figure matches the success of the PlayStation 4. The PS5’s predecessor also recorded 4.5m sales in the first quarter, from November 15 to December 31 2013, and went on to be the fastest home console to reach 100m sales. However, there’s a slightly different atmosphere to the 2020 console launch.

A global shortage of flash memory has somewhat stymied Sony’s ability to supply consoles. Both Sony and Microsoft faced shortages, in part thanks to ongoing global issues but also the mobile phone market; suppliers simply couldn’t make chips fast enough to accommodate both markets. Sony ramped up production, but still hasn’t been able to satisfy an enormous demand for the consoles — also driven by the same global crisis.

That’s lead to a lot of dissatisfaction among the gaming public. The initial release of console pre-orders was overwhelmed in seconds, leading to Sony to apologize for how it handled the event, and stores have experienced the same issues with further batches of consoles.

Scalping groups — collectives which attempt to buy out stocks of in-demand products to deny genuine customers, then sell at grossly inflated prices — claimed to have ordered tens of thousands of consoles from under-prepared retailers, leading to further shortages. A recent batch of consoles sold in a store in Japan led to borderline rioting.

However, as further tranches of PS5s make their way into stores in the next few weeks, Sony is expecting the console to beat the PS4’s first financial year sales of 7.5m, and its second year sales of 14.8m too.

PlayStation 4 continued to sell too, adding another 1.4m units to reach almost 113m lifetime sales. In addition, Sony reported that PlayStation Network now has 114m subscribers, with 47.4m players on PlayStation Plus — including some 87% of all PlayStation 5 owners.

[MasterXtreme]

Some more info and more wombat girl!

[RainySunshine]

Gran Turismo will be featured as an Olympic competition this year

Article

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced a new series of virtual sporting events that will take place ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, called the Olympic Virtual Series. No, this doesn’t mean that League of Legends just became an Olympic sport — what’s happening is that the IOC is partnering with five international sports federations to host virtual competitions in games featuring their sports.

The Olympic Virtual Series will kick off on May 13th and will run through June 23rd. Here’s the lineup of federations and what games they’ll be hosting events for, as we know it so far:

Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile will host a Gran Turismo competition
Union Cycliste Internationale will host a competition for Zwift, which offers virtual cycling and running courses to use with indoor exercise
The World Baseball Softball Confederation will host a competition for Konami’s eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020
World Sailing will host a competition for Virtual Regatta, an online sailing and regatta sailing simulation game
World Rowing doesn’t officially have a game attached to it yet; a press release only said vaguely that there would be an “open format.” A PR spokesperson tells The Verge that details about the World Rowing competition are forthcoming
There are still many things we don’t know about the Olympic Virtual Series. It’s still unclear who will be competing, how you can try to sign up to compete, what prizes will be offered (will somebody become a Gran Turismo gold medalist?), and which events will happen when. The IOC promises that more details will be announced soon.

More sports could get involved in future virtual series. FIFA, the International Basketball Federation, the International Tennis Federation, and World Taekwondo have “confirmed their excitement and commitment to exploring inclusion in future editions of the OVS,” the IOC said.

[Grapefoot]

Good for GT! It's weird to see anything "non athletic" be in the Olympics, even if it is a pre-Olympic sanctioned event.  I mean these are esports.  Not really real sports like the others.  But it is a different kind of "event" for sure.  These driver train too.

[Darrin]

So this kinda shocked me.  Despite all the problems of the PS5 roll out and people not being able to buy them, the PS5 is outselling the PS4 within the same time period.  Wow. 

PS5 Ships 7.8 Million Systems, Outpacing PS4 Despite Shortages
PS5 is outselling the Xbox Series X|S by a 2:1 margin.

Article

[Umbreon]

That's actually pretty surprising because I haven't been able to get hold of one but I managed to get one of the xbox series s though don't use it much, I still use the ps4 days of play edition tbh I still like my current system and no plans of getting the ps5 until they release a slim model if ever planned on that, I need to learn what games there is that's decent to play.

[MasterXtreme]

It's happening.

Sony is now officially publishing PC games under PlayStation PC LLC
Article

Sony is renaming its PC publishing label on Steam to “PlayStation PC LLC.” This reflects its intentions to put even more of its games on Valve’s platform in the future.

The name “PlayStation PC LLC” is popping up in place of “PlayStation Mobile” on various Steam pages. At the time of writing, you can find that label on all of the Steam pages attached to its various games — although it took a while for the change to roll out for some games.

PlayStation recently announced that former exclusive God of War will release on PC next January. A two-game Nathan Drake game collection called Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is due sometime in early 2022. Sackboy: A Big Adventure is also allegedly on the slate for a PC release, as implied in the GeForce Now leak and a new listing on SteamDB.

Various PlayStation execs have reiterated their plans to bring more games to PC later in their lifecycles. PlayStation head Jim Ryan said in an interview with GQ earlier this year: “There’s an opportunity to expose those great games to a wider audience and recognize the economics of game development, which are not always straightforward. The cost of making games goes up with each cycle, as the calibre of the IP has improved. Also, our ease of making it available to non-console owners has grown.”

NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella pointed out in a tweet that there is little overlap between the two audiences: “According to The NPD Group’s PlayerPulse, only about 1/3 of PC players in the US owns a PS4, and only 8% own a PS5. That leaves a huge PC audience that can be reached, and is also why releasing ports on PC is not likely to impact content sales on the consoles.”

As for what PlayStation games could conceivably end up on the platform in the future, Bloodborne, both Last of Us games, Ghost of Tsushima, Returnal, and the remaining Nathan Drake titles seem possible. Clearly, PlayStation can get a lot more juice out of moving older titles to PC.

[Grapefoot]

It's happening.

Sony is now officially publishing PC games under PlayStation PC LLC
Article

I hope that Gran Turismo is one of those games eventually.

[Silverwing]

It's happening.

Sony is now officially publishing PC games under PlayStation PC LLC
Article

I hope that Gran Turismo is one of those games eventually.

With Sony's amazing lineup over the years on the Playstation console, I hope they take this opportunity to really release some of their great catalog of games.  And not half-ask do it, but make sure it runs well and properly for the PC/Mac. 

They have a few games already out there, including their excellent MLB The Show game.  But they got things like Uncharted, God of War, Gran Turismo, etc. 

So much possibility.

[MasterXtreme]

[RainySunshine]

Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6 billion
Article

Not many expected to see the original makers of Halo be bought out by Sony.  It appears Sony says they want them to remain independent in their purchase, but use their popular brands in future games, shows, movies, etc.  Sony also says they plan to allow them to sell games on all consoles still.  Not limited to Playstation.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has agreed to acquire privately held video game developer Bungie for $3.6 billion, adding to a flurry of industry consolidation this month.

Bungie is the company behind the multiplayer shooter games Destiny and Halo, the latter of which it developed until 2010. Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000 and split from that company in 2007.

[Anyponedrawn]

WOW.  That is shocking. All the companies keep buying each other up.