Sony is Set to Release More Games for PC

Sony’s full year corporate report was published over the weekend. Due to the global pandemic Sony estimates a ¥68.2 billion loss (£484 million) in revenue. Despite this Sony's gaming sales have done well. The PlayStation business now generates more sales and operating income than any other part of Sony:

Sony has announced that they want to gain a growth in active users and this means expanding more into other territories: 

"Targeted outcomes include growth in active users, stronger retention and a shorter cash conversion cycle, from which expanded cash flow can be expected. We will explore expanding our 1st party titles to the PC platform, in order to promote further growth in our profitability."

The company also stated that it's largest competition is the PC gaming market.

"Competition from online PC games and players from other industries is expected to continue to intensify. The fundamental growth strategy will be to innovate and evolve the PlayStation Platform. To this end, SIE intends to make proactive investments to reinforce content IP, and work to raise brand value, foster communities and user engagement, while enhancing DTC services that get closer to users." 

Exclusives are still at the heart of Sony's interest but it is possible that we will see titles like Spider-Man and God of War probably hitting the PC to gain a further revenue boost from non PSN gamers.

There Will Be No Delays...

 

There has been no light shed yet on what the PS5 will cost or its exact release date. In a new interview Sony with executive Eric Lempel stated that despite the Covid-19 Pandemic, the company hasn’t changed it's plans to launch the console in November.

“We will launch this year – that will happen – and from my end we will absolutely make sure that we will bring all of the magic and all of the excitement of launches that we have had in the past,” Sony Interactive Entertainment’s SVP of marketing explained. “We are still committed to doing that. It’s more challenging than ever, but our gamers expect a lot from us.”

Even though Microsoft have delayed the launch of Halo Infinite they also have stated that their console will not be held back and has a launch date of November. 

Let us hope we see both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 launch within November.

Sony to Pay $3.5 Million AUD in Fines

Today Australia’s Federal Court announced that it’s ordering Sony to pay $3.5 million AUD in fines for breaking the country’s consumer law by misleading people about video game refunds.

“Between October 2017 and May 2019, Sony Europe’s Terms of Service implied that users did not have consumer guarantee rights regarding the quality, functionality, completeness, accuracy or performance of their purchased digital games,” reads a press release on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website. “This was false as these guarantees cannot be excluded, restricted or modified.”

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The case has revealed that Sony Europe made four players in Australia think they only had 14 days to return a digital game. Another person was also informed that they could only get a refund in PSN store currency rather than having their money back.

“Consumer guarantee rights do not expire after ad digital product has been downloaded and certainly do not disappear after 14 days or any other arbitrary date claimed by a game store or developer,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said in a statement. “What Sony told these consumers was false and does not reflect the consumer guarantee rights afforded to Australian consumers.”

Sony is not the first to be hit with such fines. Valve was previously hit by a lawsuit which made them streamline their refund system back in 2015. Hopefully now Sony will do the same. 

PlayStation Donate $10 Million to Indie Devs

PlayStation has launched a corona virus support initiative designed to keep people indoors and indie studios in business.

Announced by PlayStation president Jim Ryan, the Play At Home Initiative includes a $10 million creative fund for indie developers experiencing financial difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Sony had already previously opened a $100 million fund to help those affected by the spread of Covid-19. 

"Independent developers are vital to the heart and soul of the gaming community and we understand the hardships and financial struggles that many smaller gaming studios are facing," Ryan explained.

Many gaming giants have now donated a huge amount to relife funds all over the world, a full article can be seen here over at Gamesindustry.biz.

PS5 Deep Dive

For those of you that didn't watch the PS5 Deep Dive video with the consoles Lead System Architect Mark Cerny or tuned out early on as you (like me) hoped to see footage, here are the PS5's specs:

CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)

GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)

GPU Architecture: Custom RDNA 2

Memory/Interface: 16GB GDDR6/256-bit

Memory Bandwidth: 448GB/s

Internal Storage: Custom 825GB SSD

IO Throughput: 5.5GB/s (Raw), Typical 8-9GB/s (Compressed)

Expandable Storage: NVMe SSD Slot

External Storage: USB HDD Support

Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive

The countdown and music was a nice touch.

If you are like me and somewhat technically ignorant, the main gist of the talk was as follows:

The loading time and processing power will be one-hundred times faster than the PS4.

In theory all PS4 games will be backwards compatible in time but the top 100 titles should be on release, however this will be done on a case by case basis.

All PS4 titles will be graphically boosted, much like PS4-PS4 Pro, but the difference will be pretty extreme compared to the original game.

Every aspect of the console will be far superior to anything the current consoles have to offer.

Overall in some areas the Xbox-X outstrips the PS5 specs, but as they are so similar, there is much to look forward to. We are entering the next generation and hopefully it will blow our minds. 

PS4 is Ahead of the Console Race

God of War by Atlantisframe

In October I turned away from the Xbox after nearly ten years of owning one. I wasn't keen on losing the few hundred games in my online library or starting a fresh but Playstation was just too tempting. Most people I was speaking to on Instagram played on the PS4 and also there was so many juicy exclusives with a photo mode. I traded in my console, a small collection of games and sold an old Pokemon game through my friend on ebay. 

That was the day I made the exchange for my PS4 Pro from CEX. It was also the day my gaming time doubled...

Spider-Man by Aj Gaming Captures

It was no surprise to me to learn that the new sales figures suggest that the PS4 is significantly widening the gap on the Xbox One. There are so many tantalising exclusives, four titles you will see represented in shots by two talented virtual photographers throughout this article. 

At a recent financial briefing, AMD said that their sales for both consoles was around 150 million units. By the end of 2019 it is estimated that 109 million PS4 units have been sold. Therefore it can be assumed that the sales for the Xbox would be around 41 million. Of course Microsoft have released no figures, but this is understandable when you are at such the tail end of the competition.

Uncharted 4 by Atlantisframe

Console sales are far from the only revenue the companies get but it is still a good indicator of how much both companies are achieving.

The future is bright for Sony. With titles like Last of Us 2, Godfall and Ghosts of Tsushima, it is no wonder the PS5 is looking so strong. 

Last of Us by Aj Gaming Captures

(Statistics sourced via Push Square)