It’s hard to imagine a company with a greater influence on consumer electronics than Sony. You can trace a direct line from the Walkman -- the first portable media player -- to the smartphone. Today Sony is a massive force in gaming, making the PlayStation and publishing games for it and other platforms. Sony image sensors are in iPhones as well as its own mirrorless cameras. Not to mention the OLED TVs; smartphones; noise-canceling headphones; music, tv, and film publishing; and, yes, robot dogs.
⭕ If you’ve got USB-C on a reference design GPU, you may not need the adapter at all. Some report you can plug the headset right into certain cards once you install the app.
❌ Sony’s dongle doesn’t have Bluetooth; I’ve spent hours trying to get PS VR2 controllers to work well on desktop, despite using a Sony-approved Bluetooth dongle.
The new Aibo Kinako Edition is the first to feature a two-tone finish on its face and will include two new eye color options.
It will be officially available starting tomorrow in Japan, but Sony has also announced a ¥55,000 (about $374) price increase for its already pricey robot dog, citing the rising costs of raw materials.
The Japanese entertainment giant is reporting an operating profit of 279.11 billion yen ($1.9 billion) for Q1 2024, up 10 percent year-over-year.
Most of that growth comes from its music and gaming software segments, the latter of which was driven by first-party games and PlayStation Plus subscriptions. Meanwhile, Sony sold just 2.4 million PS5 console units compared to the 3 million it previously estimated.
As spotted by Boing Boing, David L. Farquhar shares the details of the largest CRT TV ever produced. The Sony PVM-4300 “weighed about 450 pounds, stood about 27 inches tall,” and was too large to squeeze through a standard door frame.
Built by hand, only 20 were exported from Japan to the United States where they were sold with “a significant markup.”
[The Silicon Underground]
If you want to be technical about it, 8K was never especially viable on the PS5 to begin with, but when the system launched in 2020 TV makers were heavily pushing 8K as the next big thing and Sony wanted to futureproof its pricey platform.
With a PS5 Pro coming soon, and likely supporting more robust 8K, removing 8K claims off the PS5 box isn’t a surprise.
[Video Games Chronicle]
Here we go again. Sony just announced Ragnarök for PC, but in a video and accompanying blog post it says the game will require a PlayStation Network account. It’s not clear why, and comes weeks after Sony had to back down and reverse plans for a PSN requirement for Helldivers 2 after blistering player reaction.
Earlier today Destiny 2 players were able to access The Final Shape expansion early through Sony’s PS5 cloud streaming service. Now Bungie has responded, confirming the leak and saying “it’s always extremely difficult when our team’s hard work is leaked early, but we are still excited for everyone to experience the full release on June 4th together.”
It’s no secret that the PS5 has entered the “latter stage of its life cycle” with Sony resetting sales expectations in February. Today’s earnings report shows it just missing that revised 21M target by selling 20.8 million consoles for the fiscal year.
We’ll see if the rumored PS5 Pro helps change the trajectory before the year is done.
Aibo — Sony’s “Four-Legged Entertainment Robot” — hit the shelves in 1999, to the utter horror of parents (like my own) who had barely recovered from Furbies launching the year prior.
Happy 25th birthday you old dog! My inner child is heartbroken to have never owned you, but my now 30-year-old self will happily skip the current model’s near $3,000 price tag.
Sony’s plan to force PlayStation Network accounts on PC players of crossplatform hit Helldivers 2 went over terribly. On Steam, it received 84,000 negative reviews in one day.
But now Sony says the update that would’ve implemented the requirement on May 6th is not going forward and “we’ll keep you updated on future plans.”
Paramount has formally begun negotiating with the company as the “period of exclusive talks with the Hollywood studio Skydance lapsed on Friday night,” according to The New York Times today.
Sony, which signaled its interest in buying Paramount last week, would reportedly hold controlling shares, while Apollo would have a minority stake, if the deal goes through.
