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.
Sony shipped 8 million PS5 consoles over the recent holiday quarter. While that’s down 16 percent year-over-year, it’s still nearly the same amount of PS4 shipments Sony managed during the same period of its lifecycle. In fact, VGC points out that the PS5 has been pretty much aligned with Sony’s PS4 shipments in the months since its launch.
Just a few years after Overwatch 2’s free-to-play 5v5 replaced the original, Blizzard announced it’s dropping the “2.” There’s been a steady flow of other changes lately (like the return of 6v6), but the plan for this next year includes 10 new heroes (Domina, Emre, Mizuki, Anran, and Jetpack Cat arrive when S1 launches February 10th), new maps, menu updates, a Conquest meta event, Reign of Talon narrative arc, and more.
Sony has started rolling out a new system update for the PlayStation 5 today that includes the ability to turn on read receipts to let gamers know you’ve read their messages. The update also improves navigation between the Friends Activity widget and the Welcome Hub, as well as the usual “performance and stability” improvements.
We knew that Obsidian’s fantasy RPG was getting a major update soon, and during the New Game Plus livestream the studio also confirmed a nice surprise: the game is coming to the PS5 on February 17th. You can check out the full reveal below.
Afeela cars will get themes featuring Sony franchises like Gran Turismo and Astro Bot, including custom wallpapers and e-motor sounds. Driving with the delightful sounds of Astro Bot does feel like it could be fun.
Last month, Sony Honda Mobility also announced that you’ll be able to stream PlayStation games to your Afeela via Remote Play.
Naughty Dog asked staffers to work overtime to complete an internal demo of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. The game is scheduled to launch in mid-2027, Schreier reports, though Sony hasn’t publicly announced a release window yet.
Saros will now launch on April 30th, 2026, a slightly later release than its previously planned March launch. In a new trailer, it looks just as intense as the excellent Returnal, and I’m counting the days until I can play it.
Ahead of The Game Awards, Compulsion Games has announced that South of Midnight is going multi-platform. The southern gothic action-adventure game, first released on Xbox earlier this year, is coming to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch 2 in spring 2026. Come for the incredibly cool southern folklore inspired narrative, but stay for your adorable companion Crouton and the yarn-spinnin’ Catfish.
Your Wrap-Up summary will show you how many hours you clocked on your PS5 this year, along with stats showing the number of games you played, which ones you played the most, and how many trophies you earned throughout the year. You can view your recap on PlayStation’s website until January 8th, 2026.
Early Sony PlayStations doubled as high-quality CD players, but the PS4 and PS5 removed the feature. Yet the PS5 can technically play MP3s off discs if they pretend to be USB flash drives! Will It Work?, a fantastic concept for a YouTube channel, walks you through it:
[YouTube]
The company announced its new $219.99 wireless controller for the PS5 and PC last month but it wasn’t immediately available in the US due to “pending regulatory clearance” as a result of the government shutdown. A few weeks later it’s finally available for purchase through Razer’s website.
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Horizon Steel Frontiers has yet to be announced, but it appears it will imminently be so — and here’s a copy of that 10-minute video we mentioned.
The ¥55,000 (about $355) console is approximately 25 percent cheaper than the standard discless edition, but requires a Japanese PlayStation account, is region-locked, and only offers the Japanese language too. Still, all that money saved will go a long way towards buying a cheaper Japan-only version of the Switch 2 to go alongside it.
Despite a $50 price hike to offset Trump’s tariffs, Sony shipped 3.9 million PS5 units globally in the recent quarter (up slightly from 3.8 million last year) with help from Ghost of Yōtei sales that reached 3.3 million after just one month. Lifetime shipments now sit at 84.2 million consoles after five years, putting it roughly in line with the PS4.
[Sony]
Sony announced that its next State of Play livestream will air tomorrow, this one focused on “games created in Japan and across Asia, alongside a few other exciting updates.” It’ll last around 40 minutes and will stream on November 11th at 5PM ET.
[PlayStation.Blog]
Halo Studios has rebuilt Combat Evolved for a new generation of players.
