With the growing number of games getting added to console libraries, it has become customary for console makers to offer a few titles for free on a rotational basis. For a subscription fee, of course. For July, Sony is adding two games to its PlayStation Plus portfolio and while the two couldn’t be farther apart in genres they are bound by a common theme: the need for speed.
Sony has confirmed US launch details for what could well be the company's most eagerly-anticipated smartphone in recent years, the Xperia 1, and it's sweetening the deal with a set of its flagship WH-1000XM3 headphones. Revealed at Mobile World Congress back in February, the Xperia 1 stands out first for the unusual shape of its 6.5-inch display.
Sony is back with another PS Store flash sale offering PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PS Vita owners the chance to get games at big discounts. This sale cuts game prices by up to 75-percent, giving customers titles like the PS2 classic Psychonauts for $1.99 and modern hits like Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration for $9.59 USD.
It’s a pretty exciting time for fans of video games. We’re coming off an E3 that was pretty successful despite the fact that a couple of major players - namely Sony - didn’t host press conferences this year. On top of that, we now know that the next generation of game consoles is nearly upon us, with both Sony and Microsoft sharing the first details about their next gaming machines.
Sony has been regularly criticized for its dismal cameras on its own phones while providing competitive imaging sensors to its competitors. Sony's top brass has promised things will change now that its mobile and imaging businesses are under a single roof. It seems that the company might go to the opposite extreme and equip its next phone with not four but six different cameras. With dual front cameras, that makes a total of eight sensors in one phone.
Would you believe it? The time has come to talk about next-generation consoles again. The PS4 and Xbox One have been in service for almost eight years and it’s time for a new phase of gaming machines. While Microsoft and Sony have been rather tight-lipped about their upcoming consoles, the recent E3 press conference in Los Angeles has brought us some exciting announcements.
Now that Sony and Microsoft have both talked about their next consoles to some degree, it's clear that the next generation is nearly upon us. That little fact begs the question of what's going to happen with the games that are launching on current hardware right before these new consoles release. Will those games make the jump to the new consoles as well? In the case of Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII remake at least, it sounds like there's a pretty good chance of that happening.
Since the dawn of the market, consoles have not been that friendly to their predecessors. In the beginning, it had more to do with technical limitations and incompatible advancements that made it nearly impossible to support games from older generations. These days, however, it's more about business considerations, partly to push sales of new consoles. The newly-minted PlayStation CEO says he wants to put an end to that practice and offer some compatibility between the current PS4 and its successor. That is if the company and the rest of the industry let him.
Naughty Dog has announced that the PlayStation 3 versions of some of its biggest games will soon have their multiplayer servers shut down. The games due for this multiplayer sunset include Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, and The Last of Us. If you're surprised to hear that PS3 multiplayer for these games is still up and running after all these years, you definitely aren't alone.
If you're a PlayStation 4 owner and you've ever wished that you could have more people in a party beyond the current limit of eight, then it looks like today is your lucky day. Sony has launched an expanded party feature into testing via the PlayStation Preview program, and you can sign up to get an early access look at how it works. Chief among the expanded party system's features is support for up to 16 participants at once.
Today Apple revealed a big update to tvOS, the operating system inside AppleTV. This update will roll with a new Control Center where users are able to switch - between you, me, and all the other people in this house. For the future of Apple TV and Apple Arcade, this next update is huge: Apple TV will soon be able to use Xbox One and PlayStation DualShock controllers.
The last few months have been relatively quiet in terms of the free games offered through PlayStation Plus, but that's all changing in June. Sony has revealed the games that will up for grabs through PS Plus next month, and both of them are excellent titles worth downloading. That's especially true if recent events have you feeling down about a particular blue hedgehog.