Sean Hollister
You can’t convince me otherwise: this cable is the coolest part of Sony’s 30th Anniversary PlayStations.
“Unfortunately sick as hell” describes the whole package, but I’d even buy this cable solo.
PlayStation
For more than 25 years, Sony’s PlayStation has been synonymous with gaming. It’s given players experiences like God of War, The Last of Us, and Final Fantasy VII alongside technological innovations from CD-ROMs all the way up to 4K, VR, and cloud gaming. There have even been attempts at portable gaming with the PSP and Vita. Across multiple generations the company has been a pioneer, starting with the original PlayStation and continuing with the PS5.
PSA: Both the PS5 Pro’s USB-C ports are now in front.
Sean Hollister
Jay Peters
Andrew Webster
Some retro reading.
If the announcement of the 30th anniversary edition PS5 has you feeling nostalgic, we have just the thing. Five years ago, when PlayStation turned 25, we put together a special issue looking at everything from the environmental impact of a PS4 to the influence of the original DualShock controller. There’s even a science story.
Andrew Liszewski
Your aging Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita deserve a case upgrade.
WaterField Designs has expanded its gaming case collection to include new “retro” options for the 3DS and the PS Vita. Two case styles are available for each handheld including one with a magnetic closure and one made with full grain leather.
They range in price from $69 to $79 but will only be available until September 22nd, 2024, as part of a limited run.
Sean Hollister
The PS5 Pro makes Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth look so much better.
Blame hardware, blame Square Enix — either way, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth forces you into a big graphical compromise on the PS5. It’s the one game I’d desperately like to play on the $700 PS5 Pro instead. Now, thanks to Digital Foundry, we all can.
Richard Lawler
Ash Parrish
David Pierce
Will a 10MB screenshot help you justify a $700 purchase?
Sean Hollister
Jay Peters
The people want disc drives.
Wario64 spotted that the $79.99 PS5 disc drive is sold out on Amazon and Best Buy (via shipping). I’m seeing that it’s sold out at Target, too.
I’m guessing people are stocking up on the drives because the $700 PS5 Pro doesn’t come with one. But we also don’t know how many drives the retailers actually had on hand — perhaps it was just a few.
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Richard Lawler
Locked in for the debate.
No, not that one — this is the discussion about Sony’s newly-announced PS5 Pro, as the folks at Digital Foundry are breaking down what Mark Cerny & Co. did and did not reveal about the $699.99 disc drive-less console.
Sean Hollister
You can stop sharing leaked images of the PS5 Pro; real ones have arrived.
Here it is in Sony’s gallery-full of images, including some on the optional vertical stand — and one that shows how it attaches to the also-optional, not-included Blu-ray disc drive.
1/6The new PlayStation 5 Pro, next to the current standard PS5, and a DualSense controller. Image: Sony
Richard Lawler
Remember the first PS5 Pro leak?
After Sony revealed the look of the PS5 in 2020, there were some jokes.
Ash Parrish
Destiny 2 is charting new frontiers.
Bungie has shared a new content roadmap for Destiny 2. Going forward, expansions will be much smaller and released every six months. The D2 team also plans on streamlining the game’s UI and reward offerings in order to make the notoriously newbie unfriendly game a bit more approachable.
Hopefully the new strategy can right the Destiny 2 ship after layoffs, underwhelming content, and project cancellations rocked the studio.
Bungie
[www.bungie.net]
Tom Warren
Sony’s PS5 controllers get a $5 increase.
Sony has quietly started increasing the price of its DualSense PS5 controllers by $5 at many retailers in the US. Wario64 first spotted the price increases at Best Buy, before noticing the DualSense has gone up at Target, GameStop, and Sony’s own PlayStation store. It comes after recent price increases for the PS5 console in Japan, but there are no signs console prices will increase in the US.
PlayStation shop
[direct.playstation.com]
The sequel to a simple pack-in game is a flawless love letter to both PlayStation’s history and video games in general.
Ash Parrish
Tom Warren
Astro Bots, roll out.
Astro Bot just launched on the PS5 with a cute little countdown party inside Astro’s Playroom. If you’re going to watch the clip below, please adjust your volume accordingly because, well, you’ll see.
Andrew Webster
Sean Hollister
Bye-bye Concord, hello Deadlock and Spectre Divide.
Now that even Sony has admitted its new hero shooter was an failure, you might be wondering: are there just too many of those games?
Well, Valve’s Deadlock just peaked at 170K concurrent players this weekend and is sitting at nearly 120K right now.
Spectre Divide launched an hour ago and already has 30,000 concurrents. It feels fresh, despite its familiar underpinnings:
Tom Warren
Is this the PS5 Pro?
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
Tom Warren
PS5 prices are going up again in Japan.
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.
日本国内におけるPS5®および関連周辺機器の希望小売価格改定に関するお知らせ
[PlayStation blog (Japan)]
Jay Peters
Antonio G. Di Benedetto