Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has been shown in Sony’s State of Play to finally give us a release date, in fact, very close in time
Few games have left such a clear mark on an entire generation as Final Fantasy 7. It was responsible for popularizing J-RPGs, Final Fantasy, and Japanese games. Even today, it is remembered as a masterpiece, and its popularity has allowed it to have the largest remake in the history of video games. Divided into three parts, so far, we have only been able to play Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade, which covers approximately what happens at the end of the first disc of the original game. But that will soon change.
In today’s State of Play, Sony has given us a closer look at Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the second installment of the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy. Covering at least the first half of the original game, the trailer showcased the game’s system, characters, and some of the changes.
As we already knew from the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade, this remake will not follow the story of the original Final Fantasy 7 in the exact same way. In addition to many scenes that are not immediately recognizable in the trailer, there are characters who shouldn’t even be present at the point in the game where it takes place. This means we are looking at a very significant remake that will bring about a quite substantial change to the game, aiming to be more than just a modernized version of a cult classic.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is scheduled for release on February 29, 2024. Unlike the previous game, it will be released on two discs. Furthermore, you can already pre-order the game separately or in a bundle with Intergrade, which they’ve called the Twin Pack, ensuring that you don’t miss out on what is expected to be a strong contender for Game of the Year next year.
Sony has launched the “Aibo Foster Parent” program for its $2,900 robot dogs, allowing them to be donated to owners whose basic plans have been canceled.
Subsequently, the company will refurbish the Aibo as needed and donate them to medical centers, foster homes, and other organizations. The goal is to “make Aibo more sustainable,” says the company, by giving the units a second home where they can provide emotional support and more.
Every dog deserves a home, even robot dogs
The robot dogs in question, the ERS-1000 units from 2019, are still being sold and represent a reboot of Sony’s late 1990s “entertainment” robot dogs.
It’s not an entirely charitable project, as Sony will charge “foster parents” an unspecified fee for the service. They also note that, depending on their condition, some donated units may strictly serve as parts to repair other Aibo robots.
In caseyou don’t recall Aibo, these robots can perform a series of tricks like standing on their hind legs and greeting their owner at the door when they arrive home, and they are designed to “mature” over time like a real dog. They also offer a web interface that allows for custom programming of actions.
The units are equipped with a set of sensors and respond to voice and touch, and they can even recognize specific individuals, making them ideal as emotional support devices.
This means they can be used in facilities that don’t allow real animals, so the program appears to be a good way to make use of old units while reducing electronic waste.
The handheld device will stream PS5 games over WiFi and features an 8-inch LCD screen with a 1080p resolution at 60 fps. Sony states that the PlayStation Portal will be available later this year at a price of $199.99. In Europe, this will be 219 euros after taxes.
“PlayStation Portal will remotely connect to your PS5 via WiFi, so you can quickly switch from playing on your PS5 to your PlayStation Portal,” says Hideaki Nishino, Senior Vice President of Platform Experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
The peripheral will also be capable of playing multimedia content, as the “console” can mirror everything your PS5 plays, including the Netflix or HBO Max app. However, you won’t be able to run anything locally, so if you don’t have WiFi, the device becomes useless.
There’s no cloud or standalone game execution
Strangely, the over 200-euro console won’t work with Sony’s upcoming cloud streaming for PS5 games.
“Games that can be streamed on PS5 with a PS Plus Premium subscription are not compatible,” Sony states. So, the peripheral is actually a way to stream PS5 games you already have installed on your own PS5 to a portable console for remote play.
You’ll need an internet connection of at least 5 Mbps,and Sony recommends 15 Mbps for the best experience. In other words, if you want Full HD without interruptions or bitrate drops, you’ll need a decent WiFi connection.
IGN has been able to test the PlayStation Portal ahead of time, and in a preview video, Technical Editor Bo Moore states that he hasn’t noticed any latency while using the portable device. This will be a key part of the experience, as game streaming over WiFi networks is still not a perfect experience.
PlayStation Portal doesn’t have Bluetooth, so you won’t be able to connect it to wireless headphones or Sony’s Pulse 3D headset. Instead, it uses the wireless technology called PlayStation Link, a new proprietary standard for PlayStation devices.
PlayStation Link is designed to offer low-latency, lossless audio. Naturally, Sony is going to release wireless headphones and earbuds that are compatible with PlayStation Link.
You’ll be able to use these new headphones or headsets with a PS5 through a USB adapter, but with rumors of a “Slim” PS5 model on the horizon, it’s easy to imagine that PlayStation Link will be integrated into future PS5 models.
The PlayStation Link standard will also be available for third-party manufacturers to use, the question is how many companies will be willing to adopt it.
IGN reports that the battery size has not been finalized yet, so we still don’t know how long it will last. According to CNET, Sony’s idea is for it to last as long as a DualSense controller, which is between seven to nine hours.
Sony has not yet provided an exact date, but for now, we have a price of $199.99 in the United States and 220 euros in Europe after taxes. It seems that this might not be the peripheral we were expecting, especially at the price point compared to a Nintendo Switch Lite.
PlayStation Portal, the Sony device we knew as Project Q, has been officially confirmed with price and features.
Although PSP and PS Vita were considered failures by Sony’s standards, they were both resounding successes for the gaming community in terms of what portable consoles should be. These two devices, now considered cult classics, garnered the favor of an audience that, while they didn’t manage to penetrate the mainstream in the same way Nintendo’s consoles did, set a precedent for understanding portable gaming that paved the way for other devices, such as the Steam Deck.
Now, in an official post on the PlayStation blog, Sony has unveiled the details of its streaming console that, until now, we only knew as Project Q. Officially named PlayStation Portal, it will cost €219.99 and will be released at the end of the year. However, there is still no official release date or information on when pre-orders for the device will open.
For those who are not familiar, PlayStation Portal is a device designed for playing PlayStation 5 games that we own through streaming in a portable manner. These games will not function independently, so we will need both a PlayStation 5 and an internet connection to play them. Sony has referred to it as a “remote gaming device,” which is exactly what the PSP and PS Vita application was called that allowed us to play PS3 and PS4 games via streaming on portable consoles. This underscores the connection between both concepts.
In any case, its similarities are closer to the DualSense than to Sony’s much-missed portable consoles. With an 8-inch LCD screen, haptic feedback, and the same functionalities as the DualSense controller, it will run games at 1080p and 60 frames per second, as long as the game allows for it.
In addition, PlayStation Portal will come with two peripherals. On one hand, the Pulse Elite is a new version of the PlayStation 5 headset, now offering lossless audio and an integrated noise-reducing microphone. On the other hand, the Pulse Explore are in-ear headphones that will also feature microphones and noise cancellation, aiming to provide a premium experience on a portable system. Both peripherals will cost €149.99 and €219.99respectively. And, similar to the case of the PlayStation Portal, we still don’t have a release date for them.
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During EVO 2023, some PlayStation 5 consoles saw their USB ports literally melt, causing problems for gamers.
There is no greater enemy of modern technology than heat. Microchips and high temperatures are a bad combination, and if miniaturization isn’t progressing as expected, it’s partly due to limitations in battery size and the increasing need for efficient cooling. While elegant and intelligent design can often address these issues, it’s not always sufficient or properly implemented. Sony learned this the hard way over the past weekend.
The Evo 2023 event took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, this past weekend, marking the largest fighting game event in the US, and perhaps the world. This gathering brought together a massive number of people with a vast array of consoles in an enclosed space, which, even if well-cooled (and we assume Las Vegas is), ended up stress-testing the machines. So much so that many PlayStation 5 consoles revealed their limits.
EVO is proving that PS5 is NOT the answer. Usb ports are melting like craY. @Kyoku236HS usb on his controller melted. This is not isolated. We need to go PC or xbox atleast
Several professional players who made it to the third day of the tournaments have complained on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the PlayStation 5 consoles they were playing on were heating up to the point of damaging their USB adapters. This is a dramatic issue because, in fact, all professional fighting game players use wired USB controllers due to the lower reaction time compared to wireless connections. This means that, at best, they had an unusable cable for the remainder of the matches, and at worst, their means of continuing in the tournament had been completely destroyed.
While Sony has not officially addressed this matter, it’s a significant problem because the primary promoter of Evo is the Japanese company, which acquired the organizing company in 2021. In other words, only PlayStation 5 consoles are used for the tournament. Considering that the console only has one USB port on the front, if the heat damages the port – even if the connector remains intact – it renders the console unusable for the rest of the tournament until it’s fixed.
If this turns out to be more than an isolated issue, Sony should make a statement addressing the matter and explaining how they plan to resolve it. The integrity of Evo 2024 could be at risk due to this, but also the integrity of any other tournament and, of course, that of any PlayStation 5 out there. Because if heat affects it in this way, considering how climate change is only intensifying, Sony can’t exactly claim to have a minor problem on their hands.
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We’ve already seen many success stories on Kickstarter, but this spiritual successor to Patapon, the mythical PSP game, takes the cake and by far.
Sony has two of the greatest handheld consoles in history in its repertoire. PSP and PS Vita are true engineering masterpieces that, if they ended up failing, it was neither due to a lack of great games nor because the consoles were anything less than extraordinary in every way. The lack of support from the Japanese company had much more to do with it, something that becomes increasingly evident as we see how they are trying to (badly) resurrect that idea even today. It is not surprising, then, that games that lived and died on those platforms now return, embraced by the love of a passionate community.
That’s the case with Ratatan, a game created by Hiroyuki Kotani, the mastermind behind the cult PSP game called Patapon. In Patapon, players controlled a group of creatures through button presses that, when timed correctly, gave them different commands. To advance, attack, defend, or execute any tactical move, players had to follow a rhythmic composition using buttons and associated syllables, creating a unique and charming gameplay style.
Ratatan is the spiritual successor to Patapon, with a markedly more pop, animated, and beautiful art style. Recently announced, its Kickstarter campaign was launched on August 1st. As expected, the funding has been an absolute success.
Seeking 127,164 euros to fund their project, they achieved that amount within just 45 minutes of its launch. At the time of publishing this note, they have already reached 544,921 euros with still 30 more days in the campaign, ending on September 1st. A remarkable achievement!
For those curious, the rewards for backing the Ratatan Kickstarter campaign start at 44 euros, which grants access to the beta, the game’s Discord community, and a digital copy of Ratatan. For just nine euros more, at 53 euros, backers can get the physical edition as well. The highest reward tier allows backers to become an NPC in the game and costs approximately 4,133 euros. However, it seems that if you were considering this tier, you might be out of luck, as there were only two available, and they are already sold out.
With an estimated release date set for April 2025, there is still some time before we can play Ratatan. Nevertheless, its funding is already secured, and this spiritual successor to Patapon, one of the best PSP games and one of the most original games of its generation, will undoubtedly find its way to our PCs and consoles in the future.
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Today it is easy to get a PS5, but until not long ago buying a next-generation console from Sony was quite a feat, hence the merit…
If you have a PS5 in your living room, I’m sorry to say that you are no longer unique. There was a time when you were, as they were rarer to find than the Philosopher’s Stone, but now they are available in all stores worldwide, and it shows.
Sony has announced that it has sold over 40 million PlayStation 5 consoles, despite the “unprecedented challenges of COVID” and supply chain issues.
Unlike the press release shared when the PS5 surpassed 10 million units sold in July 2021, Sony did not qualify its flagship console as the “fastest-selling console in the history of Sony Interactive Entertainment,” indicating a slower sales pace even as supply problems eased.
PlayStation 5 shipments have started to increase this year. Sony nearly reached the milestone of 40 million consoles sold in early 2023 and tripled the number of consoles shipped from January to March 2023, with 6.3 million units.
During the same period last year, they had only sold 2 million PlayStation 5 units. “For more months than I can remember, we continue to thank our community for their patience as we worked through these issues,” says Jim Ryan, President, and CEO of Sony.
Even so, PlayStation 5 sales have dominated this generation (excluding Nintendo Switch, which sells like hotcakes), significantly surpassing both Xbox series consoles since all were launched in November 2020.
Sony and Insomniac Games insisted that the PlayStation 5 SDD was necessary for Ratchet & Clank, but its requirements on PC say otherwise.
Both Sony and Insomniac Games swore upon the release of Ratchet & Clank: A Dimension Apartthat it was an impossible game outside of PlayStation 5 because its transitions, integral to its gameplay, would be absolutely impossible without an SSD hard drive of the console’s integrated quality. We believed it because we have no reason to distrust it. Now, with the PC version very close to its release, we have the minimum, recommended and superior technical specifications of the game, which besides giving us the image of a very demanding game, also shows us that perhaps Sony and Insomniac Games did not tell us the whole truth.
Asking for a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or an AMD Radeon RX 470, an Intel Core i3-8100 or an AMD Ryzen 3100 and 8GB of RAM, and for a recommended NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or an AMD Radeon RX 5700, an Intel Core i5-8400 or an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and 16GB of RAM, these are relatively modest specs for gaming. Something similar happens as long as we want to stay in 4K 30FPs, with or without raytracing, for which the mid-high range will still be able to keep up, but if we want to play in 4K 60FPs with raytracing we better have a latest model computer and a good cooling system, both for the computer and for our room, if we do not want to end up living the end of Oppenheimer even before its premiere.
In any case, the striking thing is in what it asks for hard disk space. Particularly in minimum. Asking for 75GB of hard disk space, it demands only an HDD hard disk, although an SDD hard disk is recommended. This is doubly problematic. On the one hand, it shows that the SDD was not necessary to move the game. On the other hand, that there are no specifications for what the SDD should look like in higher configurations, shows that the importance they placed on its release on PlayStation 5 was perhaps not as much as they intended to sell us.
This is not a drama. In fact, it’s a good thing that you don’t have to upgrade your computer to play Ratchet & Clank: A Dimension Apart. But being a game that was used to sell the goodness of the PlayStation 5’s SDD, it’s questionable to say the least that the hard drive wasn’t really necessary to move it.
Ratchet & Clank: A Dimension Apart will be released on PC on July 26, 2023. And while you won’t need an SSD to play it, even if Sony and Insomniac Games said otherwise in the past, it’s still recommended that you have one.
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The Snitch has leaked more information about an important exclusive game for PlayStation 5 consoles with influences from big games
Although 2023 is not yet over, a year that has given us an enormous amount of games of incredible quality, that doesn’t mean we can’t start thinking about 2024. We already have some releases scheduled for next year, and some insiders have already begun leaking some details about those games that companies don’t want to reveal yet, especially given how packed the schedule is until November in the gaming world. This hasn’t stopped one of the most famous internet leakers, The Snitch, from commenting on new details about one of the most interesting games coming exclusively to PlayStation 5 consoles: Rise of the Ronin.
Developed by Team Ninja, the people behind the Nioh series and more recently the outstanding Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, the game first appeared in Sony’s State of Play event held in late 2022, showing us nothing more than a bit of gameplay, its setting based on 19th century Japan, and the promise of a release sometime in 2024. Now, thanks to The Snitch, we can add more details.
As hinted in the trailer, the game will be a mix of Assassin’s Creed, Ghost of Tsushima, and Dark Souls. This means it will be an open-world game where exploration and collecting collectibles will be of great importance, but the combat will be more similar to the studio’s previous titles, with a faster and more arcade-like style reminiscent of the Souls series. Of course, the influence of From Software doesn’t end there. It will also borrow from them highly detailed item descriptions with many references to the lore, providing glimpses of the surrounding world beyond what is told through the story. Similarly, from Assassin’s Creed, we can expect side missions with a sensibility closer to what we usually see in Ubisoft games, creating a very intriguing blend that could work wonderfully if they manage to make all the pieces fit naturally together.
On the other hand, The Snitch has also provided some other, perhaps minor, but equally interesting details. The game will have difficulty options, skill and ability trees, romance options, and we will be able to choose between quality and performance modes in the game. These additions may be less flashy, but they demonstrate the vast range they aim to achieve with Rise of the Ronin.
Furthermore, the grand finale is that The Snitch dares to provide a more specific release date than what Sony has given us. Rise of the Ronin will be published in the first quarter of 2024, between January 1st and March 31st. This means that if The Snitch is correct—and The Snitch has rarely been wrong—we could soon enjoy a game that seems destined to become the new obsession of many people.
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Like every end of the month, Sony offers us a series of free games for all those who subscribe to PS Plus: these are those games.
The list of games that will appear in PS Plus has finally arrived. July is historically a very quiet month for the world of video games, this year comes tasty, probably due to the influence of an August loaded with great releases. That’s why Sony has decided to bet big in order not to be left behind.
It is worth remembering that PS Plus games are always announced on the last Wednesday of the month and are available on the first Tuesday of the month. That is, although there is not much left for us to enjoy them on our consoles, we will still have to wait a little longer to start playing them. In the meantime, here are the games that will be added to PS Plus in July!
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (PS5 and PS4)
Neither the Second World War nor the present or the future. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War offered us an adventure in the 80s, with a very interesting campaign, where we faced against historical figures of the USSR, on the US side, in one of the most careful stories in the history of Call of Duty. With a multiplayer as fine as ever and with some very interesting additions, this will undoubtedly be the main course of the Plus games for many, many players.
Alan Wake Remastered (PS5 and PS4)
Alan Wake 2 has a release date of October 17 for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox X Series and Xbox Series S, so it’s only natural that Sony has decided to warm up the atmosphere with the remastering of the first installment of the game. Originally released on May 10, 2010, this incredible cinematic survival horror puts us in the shoes of a writer in search of inspiration, only to find himself immersed in a nightmare that seems to come out of one of his books. A cult game that will be back soon and that you don’t want to miss if you like adventure games.
Endling – Extinction is Forever (PS5 and PS4)
Herobeat Studios are an independent studio from Barcelona that with Endling – Extinction is Forever wanted to do something very difficult: to make us aware of the need to preserve the environment through the story of a mother fox who must protect her small litter of newborns. Having to explore a new and hostile environment, feed our cubs and also ourselves, is the perfect mix of adventure and survival in a game with a great narrative, an impressive artistic design and a final stretch capable of bringing tears to even the coldest heart.
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