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The PlayStation 4 will be able to play PlayStation 5 games remotely
Well, isn’t this a nice little surprise? This morning some PlayStation 4 owners are reporting the sudden and unexpected arrival of a new “PS5 Remote Play” app. While the app doesn’t do much yet (the PS5 isn’t out yet, after all), it seems meant to let you keep a PlayStation 5 in one room and stream it to (and control it from) a PlayStation 4 in another.
Now, that’s not quite the same as actually having another PS5 in that second room; Remote Play tends to introduce a little bit of lag into the mix, so you probably won’t want to turn to it for twitchy games where every millisecond counts. But given that last-gen’s console tends to eventually find itself gathering dust or tucked into another room as a wildly overpowered Blu-ray/Netflix player, this is a pretty great way to extend the PS4’s lifespan. IGN spotted the app this morning, and it appears to be rolling out to users in batches
Sony hasn’t said much about how it’ll all work, so there are still plenty of questions to be had about compatibility — will all games work, or just some? Will PS4 controllers work on PS5 games via Remote Play, whereas Sony has otherwise said they’ll only work on the PS5 when playing backwards compatible PS4 titles? An FAQ on the PlayStation blog does confirm that it’s meant for playing PS5 games on the PS4, but doesn’t go any deeper than that:
We’re updating PS4’s Remote Play feature. Now, in addition to being able to access your PS4 from a PC or a mobile device, your PS4 can access other consoles via Remote Play too, right on your TV. This includes the ability to connect to your PS5 and stream a PS5 game to your PS4 so you can play it there.
Sony also notes that Remote Play will now support multiple remote users simultaneously, allowing you to play local multiplayer games with friends who aren’t actually, you know, local.
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Review: Sony’s PlayStation 5 is here, but next-generation gaming is still on its way
The new generation of consoles is both a hard and an easy sell. With a big bump to specs and broad backwards compatibility, both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are certainly the consoles anyone should buy going forward. But with nearly no launch content or must-have features, they also fail to make a compelling case for themselves beyond “the same, but better.” What we’re left with is something more like a new iPhone: You’ll have to upgrade eventually, and it’ll be fine. Just don’t believe the hype for the new consoles… yet.
Disclosure: TechCrunch was provided consoles from both Microsoft and Sony ahead of release, as well as a handful of titles from first and third-party publishers.
In accordance with an elaborate (and ongoing!) series of embargoes for different features and games, impressions have been trickling out about the new platforms for a month now. For a launch that’s already lacking impact, this may have further blunted excitement: Few gamers will get excited when all anyone can write about is the exterior of the console itself, or the first level of the pack-in game. Some features wouldn’t even be available before launch, or are prohibited from coverage until long afterwards, leaving reviewers wondering whether day-one changes would make obsolete any impressions they had. (I’ll update this review when new information comes to light, or link to future coverage.)
But whatever the case, the shackles are finally removed and now we can talk about most (but not all) the new consoles have to offer. Unfortunately it’s… not that much. Despite the companies’ attempts to hype the next generation as a huge leap, there’s simply no evidence of that at launch and probably won’t be for many months.
That doesn’t mean the new platforms are a flop — or even that they aren’t great. But the new generation is a lot like the old one, and compatibility with it is actually the biggest thing the PS5 and Series X have going for them for the opening stretch. Here’s what I can tell you honestly about my time with the PS5.
The hardware: Conversation piece
As you can see, the PS5 is CONSIDERABLY larger than the PS4 Slim. Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
The PS5 is a strange-looking beast, but I’ll give it this: No one is going to mistake it for any other gaming console. Though they may think it’s an air purifier.
The large, curvy device likely won’t fit with anyone’s decor, so it may be best to just bite the bullet and display it prominently (fortunately it sits comfortably vertically or on a stand horizontally). I look forward to getting custom shields for the side to make this thing a little less prominent.
The console is fairly quiet while playing games, but you’ll probably want it at least a few feet away from you, especially if you’re going to play with a disc, which is much louder than normal operation.
As for performance, it’s really impossible to say. The only “next-gen” (really cross-gen) game I got to play much of was Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and while it looked great (more impressions below), it’s incredibly hard to make any substantive comment on the machine’s computing and rendering chops.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
The prospect of gaming in 4K and HDR, and of advanced techniques like ray tracing changing how games look, is an exciting one. But in the first place you need a TV setup that’s capable of taking advantage of these features, and in the second — to be perfectly honest, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. A high-quality 1080p TV from the last couple years will look very nearly as good despite not supporting Dolby Vision or what have you. (I know because I got a new TV during the review period. They both looked great.)
Load times — a factor of the much-lauded custom SSD in this thing — are similarly hard to evaluate, though certainly going from menu to game in Miles Morales was fast, fast-traveling faster, and the previous game was faster to load than on my regular PS4. This benefit will of course vary from game to game, however — some developers are announcing their performance gains publicly, while others with less impressive ones may just let sleeping dogs lie. Without more titles to get a feel for the console’s performance improvements, right now you’ll have to take Sony’s word on things.
The controller: DualSense makes sense
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey/TechCrunch
One place where Sony is attempting to advance the ball is in the new DualSense controller.
Not in the shape and color and slick, transparent buttons — those are not so hot. It feels like a DualShock that’s let itself go a bit, and I’m definitely not a fan of the “PS” shaped PlayStation button. This thing feels like a grime magnet.
And not in the built-in speaker and microphone, either; I struggle to think of any application for these that wouldn’t be better served by a headset or avoided altogether.
What’s actually a clear and impressive upgrade is the triggers, which feature incredibly precise mechanical resistance that serves all kinds of gameplay functions and sets the imagination running.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
The new triggers are connected to a set of gears that impart actual pressure against your fingers, from a very light tap to, presumably (though I haven’t experienced it), actually pushing your fingers back.
The range is wide and it can impart the pressure anywhere along the trigger’s range, giving interesting effects like (the obvious one in violent games) resistance while you pull a gun’s trigger, which then clicks and releases when it fires. In Miles Morales, the triggers act as a very sensitive rumble, but also give you tactile feedback when you’re swinging, telling you when you’ve made contact and so on.
Honestly, I love it. I want to play games that use it well. I don’t want to play games that don’t have it! Hopefully developers will embrace the variable-resistance triggers, because it genuinely adds something to the experience and, if I’m not mistaken, even has the potential to make games more accessible.
The UI: More is more
The PS4’s interface had the illusion of simplicity, and the PS5 continues that with two steps forward and one step back.
For one thing, separating out the “games” and “media” portions of the machine is a smart move. As OTT apps and streaming services proliferate, they take up more and more space and it makes perfect sense to isolate them.
As for the games side, it’s similar to the PS4 in that it’s a horizontal line that you click through, and when a game is highlighted it “takes over” the screen with a background, the latest news, achievements and so on. As before it works perfectly well.
Previously, when you pressed the PlayStation button, you’d return to the main menu and pause whatever you were playing. If you held down the button, it opened an in-game side menu where you could invite friends, turn off the console and other common tasks.
The PS5 reverses that: The long press now returns you to the home screen, while a short press brings up the in-game menu (now a row of tiny icons on the bottom of the screen — not a fan of this change).
The in-game menu now sports an in-depth “card” system that, while cool in theory, seems like one of those things that will not actually be used to great effect. The giant cards show recent screenshots and achievements, friend activity and, if the developer has enabled it, info about your current mission or game progress.
For instance, in Miles Morales, hitting pause told me I was 22% of the way through a side mission to rescue a bodega cat named Spider-Man, with an image of the bodega where I accepted it. Nice, but it’s redundant with the info presented in-game if I pause in the ordinary way. There’s more to it, though — the cards can also be used as “deep links” to game features like multiplayer, quests in progress, quick travel locations, even hints.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
Sony showed off these advanced possibilities in a video of Sackboy: The Big Adventure, but since that game isn’t yet available I can’t yet speak to how well it works. More importantly, I can’t make any promises on behalf of developers, who may or may not integrate the system well. At the very least it could be nice, but I’m afraid it will be relegated to first-party games (of which Sony promises many), and be optional at that.
It’s hard to call the new UI an improvement over the old one — it’s different, in some ways more busy and in some ways streamlined. Where it may improve things is in reducing friction in things like organizing voice chat and joining friends’ games. But that capability wasn’t ready for launch.
A couple nice things I want to note: Setting up the PS5 to your own preferences is super easy. I downloaded my cloud saves in a minute or two, and there’s a great new settings page for things people often change in games: difficulty, language, inverting the camera and some other things. There are also accessibility options built-in: a screen reader, chat transcription and other goodies I wasn’t able to test but am glad to see.
The games: Well… the PS5 is the best PS4 you can buy
The chief reason for buying a new console is to play the new games on it. When the Switch came out, half the reason anyone bought it was to play the fabulous new Zelda. Sadly, the selection at this launch is laughably thin for both Sony and Microsoft fanboys.
As I noted above, the only game I was provided in time to get any real impressions (that I’m permitted to write about) was Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Having recently completed its predecessor on PS4, I can say that the new game looks and plays better, with shorter load times, improved lighting, more detailed buildings and so on. But the 2018 Spider-Man still looks and plays very well — this is the difference you’d expect in a sequel, not from one generation to the next. (To be clear, the PS5 version does look considerably better, it’s just not the night and day we’ve been led to expect.)
As far as a review goes, I’ll just say that if you liked the first, you’ll like the second, and if you didn’t play the original, play it first because it’s great. I also want to hand it to the new game for its commitment to diversity.
But that will also be coming out on the PS4… and Xbox One and Series X… In fact, almost all the big games of the next year will be.
They will, of course, play and look better on the PS5 than the PS4. But it’s a hard sell to tell someone to pay $500 so they can play the next Assassin’s Creed or Horizon: Zero Dawn in 4K HDR rather than 1080p.
Meanwhile, the few games you can only play on PS5 are for niche players. Sackboy looks to be a fun platformer but hardly a blockbuster; Demon’s Souls is my most anticipated title of the season, but a remake of a legendary but little-played and controller-bitingly difficult PS3 game isn’t going to break sales records; and Destruction All-Stars, an online-only racing battle royale game, got delayed until February, which suggests it’s not playing well.
Adding them all up there really isn’t much reason in terms of exclusives to pick the PS5 over the Xbox Series X or, at least for 2021, a PS4 Pro.
The good news is that the PS5 is now without question the best way to play the huge catalog of amazing PS4 games out there. Nearly all of them will look better, play better and load faster. Sony as much as admitted this when they bundled a dozen of the best games from the last generation with the PS5. Honestly, I’m looking forward to finally playing God of War (I know… don’t hassle me!) on this thing more than I am Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.
Unfortunately I can’t speak to whether these PS4 games have much to speak of in terms of real improvements yet. As mentioned above, a lot of that depends on support from the developers. But as a simple test, loading the Central Yharnam area in Bloodborne took about 33 seconds on the PS4, and 16 on the PS5 (as you can see in the shots above, the game looks identical). I didn’t time them, but anecdotally other games showed improvements as well.
The verdict: The must-have console for the 2021 holidays
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
No, that isn’t a typo. The PS5 (and I am joined in this opinion by our review of its rival, the Xbox Series X) simply isn’t a console anyone should rush out and purchase for any reason. Not least of which because it will be near-impossible to get one in the next month or so, making the possibility of unwrapping a PS5 a remote one for eager youths.
The power of the next generation is not much on display in any of the titles I have been able to play, and while a handful of upcoming games may show off its advantages, those games will likely play just as well on the other platforms they’re being released on.
Nor are there any compelling new features that make the PS5 feel truly next-gen, with the possible exception of the variable resistance triggers (the Series X has multi-game suspension at least, and I’d be jealous if there were any games to switch between). For the next 6-8 months, the PS5 will merely be the best way to play the same games everyone else is playing, or has been playing for years, but in 4K. That’s it!
The rush by Sony and Microsoft to get these consoles out by the holidays this year simply didn’t have the support of the publishers and developers that make the games that make consoles worth having. That will change late next year as the actual next-gen titles and meaningful exclusives start to appear. And a year from now the PS5 and Series X will truly be must-haves, because there will be things that are only available for them.
I’m not saying buy your kid a PS4 Pro for Christmas. And I’m not saying the PS5 isn’t a great way to play games. I’m just saying that outside some slight differences that many gamers don’t even have the setup to notice, there’s no reason to run out and buy a PS5 right now. Relax and enjoy the latest, greatest games on your old PS4 in confidence, knowing that you’ll save $50 when a Cyberpunk 2077 bundle goes on sale in the summer.
So don’t feel bad if you can’t lay your hands on a PS5 to keep you entertained this winter — a PS4 will do you just fine for the present while the next generation makes its lazy way toward the consoles it will eventually grace.
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Sony’s PlayStation 5 won’t be available in-store at launch
A small wrinkle in the console wars. Sony took to Twitter today to note that the PlayStation 5 won’t be available for in-store purchase on launch day (November 12 or 19, depending on which part of the world you live in). Instead, users will only be able to buy it online at that date. The next-gen console went up for pre-order in mid-September, though a rush on purchasing caused a bit of a hiccup early on.
Sony specifies in a blog post that the decision was made — at least in part — over safety concerns surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Update: All PS5 console sales on launch day, November 12 or November 19 depending on your region, will be online-only. No units will be available in-store for purchase.
More info: https://t.co/SikqDMEW9X pic.twitter.com/zXDCppsWm6
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) November 5, 2020
“In the interest of keeping our gamers, retailers, and staff safe amidst COVID-19, today we are confirming that all day-of launch sales will be conducted through the online stores of our retail partners,” the company writes. “[P]lease don’t plan on camping out or lining up at your local retailer on launch day in hopes of finding a PS5 console for purchase. Be safe, stay home, and place your order online.”
Microsoft’s latest — the Xbox Series X/S — will launch globally two days prior. Lucas posted a review of the system earlier today. On the Sony side, Devin has thus far featured this hands-on with the console’s controller.
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Review: Microsoft’s Xbox Series X is ahead of its time
Arriving seven years after the Xbox One first launched, the new Microsoft Xbox Series X console lands in a different world and a very different Xbox ecosystem. Microsoft is embracing subscription bundling with its Game Pass service and cloud-streaming with xCloud; nevertheless, they are still committed to building huge metal boxes with tremendous power designed to carry new boundary-pushing gaming titles into consumers’ homes.
Right off the bat, I will say that the $499 Series X and $299 Series S were tough systems to review. Launch lineups for brand-spanking-new consoles always leave a little to be desired, but this generation has been particularly prone to launch title delays, and a handful of the launch-day Series X titles weren’t even available to reviewers ahead of launch. The former can be pinned on COVID-19-related delays impacting already aggressive timelines, but the latter seemed to be a bit of an unnecessary limit placed on reviewers.
Nevertheless, I’ll look to update this review next week when more of these titles are able to be played.
Image Credits: Lucas Matney
This thing has a lot of specs behind it. It’s got lots of cores and lots of teraflops. There aren’t any futuristic/gimmicky features that Microsoft is pushing; there’s no bundled Kinect, there’s no VR headset. The Series X is just a giant black box that plays games better than any Xbox before it.
Quickly, here are the high-level differences between the Series X and Series S (this review mostly focuses on the Series X):
- Series X
Plays titles in 4K at up to 120fps, with eventual 8K support at up to 60fps*
1TB storage
4K UHD Blu-ray drive
Very big
*developers decide how hard you can push their titles - Series S
Plays titles at up to 1440p at up to 120fps
512GB storage
No optical drive
Not nearly as big
This previous generation of hardware really shook up the idea of what a console generation actually was. In the past, mid-generation updates to hardware were largely cosmetic — slimmed-down packages with the same power — but with the Xbox One S and One X, Xbox delivered mid-generation console upgrades that improved performance, breaking the rules in an aim to steal users away from PlayStation with the promise that they could make the most of their brand new 4K televisions.
A result of that is that this doesn’t immediately feel like a mind-bending upgrade over Microsoft’s previous release, the One X. It’s twice as fast teraflops-wise, but there isn’t a title that really showcases those internals. It feels ahead of its time, and I think consumers that buy the device on day one will have to wait quite a while before they can harness its full capabilities.
While I’m not convinced that users are going to be staring mouth agape at a launch title that blows their mind graphics-wise, I think that all of this power will eventually go a long way to eliminating some huge annoyances that have been accepted as commonplace in the world of console gaming.
Image Credits: Lucas Matney
The load-time reductions that are largely thanks to the new SSD storage are very substantial and are probably the biggest thing you’ll notice off the bat. Another advantage of barely meeting its potential out-of-the-box is that I barely heard a peep from the Series X when I got into the thick of a game as the console’s fans were whisper quiet. Another big quality-of-life improvement is Quick Resume, which allows users to quickly hop back into a game they were playing a while ago without reloading the entire game and wandering through start menus. This feature is killer, and is one that PlayStation 5 users are missing, at least for the time being.
With all of this in mind, I’d say that the reality is — and this is on paper — there also isn’t a ton separating the Series X and Sony’s PS5 consoles in terms of playability. Both are getting much better internals, SSDs that will drastically reduce loading times, better UIs and newer controllers.
They definitely look different. The Series X itself is quite large (though not quite as hulking as the PS5) and will require plenty of prospective owners to bust out the measuring tape and check if it can even fit it horizontally in their media cabinet. It feels more like a well-designed gaming PC than a console. The chassis is very solid and dense — it’s one of the least-fragile designs I’ve seen on a console. On the note of hardware, I will also say that while the Series X/S controllers are very similar to the previous generation, I think that the subtle improvements, especially in regards to the feel and texturing of it, are going to be popular with users.
Most of the people reading this, I’m sure, already have a pretty solid idea whether or not they’re going to buy the Series X, and many of those people will buy it simply because it is new and they know that regardless of whether they currently need the power or are able to harness it with their other gear, they are getting access to new titles and future-proofing themselves. That’s certainly not a bad reason.
Image Credits: Lucas Matney
Others might be on the fence about getting a Series X/S or a PlayStation 5. Much like American politics, I’m not so convinced there are quite as many undecideds here as is believed. People have a good idea of which franchises are PlayStation exclusives and which titles are only going to ship on Xbox. There have been decades to drill down the flavors that both Sony and Microsoft are pushing, though Microsoft has been getting more aggressive about studio acquisitions over the past couple years, so that list of exclusives is likely going to start getting longer more quickly as they seek to build up a huge library of titles for their Game Pass subscription service.
But, yeah, most of the people on the fence end up going for the system that is going to have the games on it that they really, really want to play. But it’s a little harder to tell that right now because chances are there isn’t a launch title for the PS5 or Series X that you’re dying to play, or at least one that couldn’t also be played on a previous-gen console, albeit in less optimized fashion. The promised Series X holiday showstopper Halo Infinite was delayed until 2021, and the reality is a game that really shows off this hardware probably won’t be coming around until late next year.
Really most people won’t be able to take full advantage of the Series X until next year anyway. There’s an overwhelming chance that your TV or AV receiver are not positioned to maximize what the Series X can offer, namely 8K gaming or high frame rate (120fps) 4K gaming. Hitting the high end requires a technology called HDMI 2.1 which only a select few newer TVs have adopted. It’s likely to be more standard across the board come next year, but for the time being there aren’t many of these TVs or AV receivers that are actually in people’s homes. With HDMI 2.0, which your 4K TV does support, you can play Series X titles at 4K resolution at up to 60fps, closer to what the previous-generation Xbox One X was capable of.
Being super early to a technology as a consumer often leads to trade-offs, and that’s definitely the case with the Series X/S. While operating at the cutting edge of video standards will benefit the console’s longevity, it does mean that consumers might be in a less optimal spot for a bit if they don’t have the latest AV hardware. What will be more frustrating to day-one buyers is the generally light library of new content. There are some multi-platform hits that will be landing, but it doesn’t seem like there will be a must-play title that makes the most of its power. For consumers that are buying a system so focused on performance, that’s disappointing, but over time, I have few doubts that the Series X/S library will grow robust. The questions for consumers is whether all of the quality-of-life improvements are enough for them to take the plunge in 2020.
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Fortnite will be available for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S at launch
As ever, launch title choices are likely to be a concern for gamers plunking down cash on a next-gen console. They can, however, take solace in the fact that the immensely popular battle royale title Fortnite will be available for both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S when those systems arrive a couple of days apart next week.
Publisher Epic Games has detailed what the titles will look like for the new systems. It notes in a release that, “the Fortnite builds on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 aren’t simply tweaked last-gen builds but new native ones to harness the power of the new consoles.” Existing players will be able to pick up where they left off on the new systems, while taking advantage of some of that shiny new hardware.
The improvements look pretty similar, whether you’re a Sony or Microsoft enthusiast. Both the Xbox Series X and PS5 versions sport 4K resolution at 60 frames a second, faster match loading, split screens with a 60 FPS rate and improved physics and visuals that include features like trees that respond to explosions and better-looking weather effects. The Xbox series S also supports most of these things, but downgrades 4K video for 1080p.
The new Xbox and PlayStation arrive on November 10 and 12, respectively.
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Ubisoft’s subscription service comes to Stadia and Luna
Ubisoft originally announced its subscription service back in June. Today, the company is rebranding the service from UPlay+ to Ubisoft+. The service is also on its way to Amazon’s Luna and Google’s Stadia. Ubisoft is betting on a multi-platform subscription, which means that you’ll be able to subscribe once and play Ubisoft+ games on PC, Amazon Luna and Stadia.
Ubisoft+ is already available on PC. For $14.99 a month, you can download and play more than 100 games — the service includes both classics and newly released titles, such as games in the Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia franchises as well as the company’s upcoming releases. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion and Immortals Fenyx Rising will be available in the Ubisoft+ library on their respective launch days.
Ubisoft is trying to include premium editions of the games so that you don’t have to pay for game passes to access additional content. For instance, you can play the ultimate editions of Rainbow Six Siege, The Division 2, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, etc.
On November 10, you’ll be able to access Ubisoft+ games on Amazon Luna is you’re beta testing Amazon’s cloud gaming service. And Google will also let you connect your Ubisoft+ account with Stadia by the end of the year. Interestingly, you don’t need to pay for Stadia Pro to access Ubisoft+ titles.
Ubisoft is working on cross-platform progression, starting with upcoming titles. It’s a subscription focused on content, not platforms.
As you can see, Microsoft and Sony don’t support Ubisoft+. It means that you won’t be able to subscribe and play on your Xbox or PlayStation. Console manufacturers take a cut on game purchases. That’s why negotiations between third-party game studios and console manufacturers are more complicated.
Image Credits: Ubisoft
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Hands-on: Sony’s DualSense PS5 controller could be a game changer
After spending a few hours with the PlayStation 5 and its completely redesigned DualSense controller, I can say with confidence that the new haptics and audio features certainly work — and could become integral to the gaming experience. But only if — and it’s a big if — developers truly embrace the tech.
The DualSense controller replaces the extremely familiar and beloved design of the DualShock, which has remained largely the same shape since the first one shipped for the original PlayStation 25 years ago.
While the general layout is the same, the feel of the new controller is significantly different and the appearance is aligned with the PS5’s distinctive but questionable hyper-futuristic look. I’m not entirely sold on the new shape but I’ve also had a long time to get used to the old one, so I’m withholding judgment while I work on the full review.
I can tell you right now though that there indeed are tiny PlayStation symbols all over this thing:
I worry these will be grease magnets.
Shipping with every PS5 is Astro’s Playroom, which like Nintendoland and Wii Sports is intended to provide a reference experience for all the controller’s new features. It may not be quite as original or persistently enjoyable as Nintendo’s pack-ins (which still number among the best games for their platforms), but it’s a fun little playroom that does a good job showing off the DualSense.
The first and perhaps most immediately compelling feature is the haptic feedback on the trigger buttons, L2 and R2. It’s one of those things that when you feel it working, you immediately start thinking about how it could be used.
Image Credits: Sony
What it does is allow not just precision vibration but actual resistance to be added to the triggers, something that sounds vague in theory but is very easy to grasp, so to speak, in practice.
For instance, in the setup process for Astro’s Playroom the feature is introduced by simply asking you to pull the triggers and feel it. You’ll certainly have pulled them before that, so you know that they’re nearly frictionless normally. But suddenly they’re pushing back against your finger — then a click, and the resistance is gone.
“What is this sorcery?” I recall saying out loud at the time, or something like it but more profane. It really is that immediately compelling.
Image Credits: Sony
Later, in the first stage I tried of the game, your little robot jumps into a sort of spring suit (a metal spring, not a linen two-piece) and you have to pull the trigger to make it jump. The haptics in this case truly give a feel of compressing something (though, having played with springs before, I know they don’t feel like this), and importantly give you a non-visual, intuitive indicator of how far you’ve depressed the trigger. My brain was quicker to register how far I’d pulled it with the combination of sound, haptics and graphics than graphics alone. And because the feeling is localized to the trigger you’re using, there’s no confusion with the greater vibrations of the all-purpose rumble system.
The Switch’s Joy-Cons have a sort of precision haptics in them, and while the demo of that feature was interesting — feeling little objects rattle around “inside” the controller — it’s actually quite hard to think of ways it could be used in gameplay. And indeed few games have done so, though to be fair rumble in general is probably better because of it.
In the DualSense’s case, I was immediately thinking, “this would be great for…” and wishing I’d had it in this or that game in the past. It opens up possibilities I’ve never liked the idea of, like “pull the trigger halfway to do one thing, all the way to do another. It’s also potentially a great accessibility feature.
Having a speaker and microphone in the controller is nothing new, though they appear to have been upgraded for the DualSense. Few games have been able to use these features properly, and Astro’s Playroom resorts to the old “blow on the controller to make a propeller go” thing. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do that in any real game — but why can’t I yell “Go, cyberdog! Attack the monster on the right” to direct my (sadly fictitious) companion, or something like that?
Unfortunately that gets to the heart of what makes even the excellent haptic feature a potentially lost cause. Developers need to design for them in a big way, and that’s difficult when you can’t guarantee that people will want or be able to use them. Not only that, but if you want to release on Xbox and PC too, you have to remove them. So they become optional features… and since they’re optional, they can’t be integrated into the game as deeply to begin with, making them less compelling overall. It’s happened over and over with various innovations gaming companies have come up with over the years, and it may happen with this generation’s gimmicks as well.
Sony’s best bet is to make integration painless and highly incentivized, though it’s hard to imagine how multi-platform developers like Ubisoft can do much more than the minimum. Serious use will likely be limited to a handful of top-shelf Sony-funded PS5 exclusives that players will marvel at.
It’s an interesting new gameplay feature, but hardly one that screams “next-generation.” Indeed little about the next consoles from Sony or Microsoft screams that except the specs. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth buying — but don’t expect anything transformative.
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Facebook steps into cloud gaming — and another feud with Apple
Facebook will soon be the latest tech giant to enter the world of cloud gaming. Their approach is different than what Microsoft or Google has built, but Facebook highlights a shared central challenge: dealing with Apple.
Facebook is not building a console gaming competitor to compete with Stadia or xCloud; instead, the focus is wholly on mobile games. Why cloud stream mobile games that your device is already capable of running locally? Facebook is aiming to get users into games more quickly and put less friction between a user seeing an advertisement for a game and actually playing it themselves. Users can quickly tap into the title without downloading anything, and if they eventually opt to download the title from a mobile app store, they’ll be able to pick up where they left off.
Facebook’s service will launch on the desktop web and Android, but not iOS due to what Facebook frames as usability restrictions outlined in Apple’s App Store terms and conditions.
With the new platform, users will be able to start playing mobile games directly from Facebook ads. Image via Facebook.
While Apple has suffered an onslaught of criticism in 2020 from developers of major apps like Spotify, Tinder and Fortnite for how much money they take as a cut from revenues of apps downloaded from the App Store, the plights of companies aiming to build cloud gaming platforms have been more nuanced and are tied to how those platforms are fundamentally allowed to operate on Apple devices.
Apple was initially slow to provide a path forward for cloud gaming apps from Google and Microsoft, which had previously been outlawed on the App Store. The iPhone maker recently updated its policies to allow these apps to exist, but in a more convoluted capacity than the platform makers had hoped, forcing them to first send users to the App Store before being able to cloud stream a gaming title on their platform.
For a user downloading a lengthy single-player console epic, the short pitstop is an inconvenience, but long-time Facebook gaming exec Jason Rubin says that the stipulations are a non-starter for what Facebook’s platform envisions, a way to start playing mobile games immediately without downloading anything.
“It’s a sequence of hurdles that altogether make a bad consumer experience,” Rubin tells TechCrunch.
Apple tells TechCrunch that they have continued to engage with Facebook on bringing its gaming efforts under its guidelines and that platforms can reach iOS by either submitting each individual game to the App Store for review or operating their service on Safari.
In terms of building the new platform onto the mobile web, Rubin says that without being able to point users of their iOS app to browser-based experiences, as current rules forbid, Facebook doesn’t see pushing its billions of users to accessing the service primarily from a browser as a reasonable alternative. In a Zoom call, Rubin demonstrates how this could operate on iOS, with users tapping an advertisement inside the app and being redirected to a game experience in mobile Safari.
“But if I click on that, I can’t go to the web. Apple says, ‘No, no, no, no, no, you can’t do that,’ ” Rubin tells us. “Apple may say that it’s a free and open web, but what you can actually build on that web is dictated by what they decide to put in their core functionality.”
Facebook VP of Play Jason Rubin. Image via Facebook.
Rubin, who co-founded the game development studio Naughty Dog in 1994 before it was acquired by Sony in 2001, has been at Facebook since he joined Oculus months after its 2014 acquisition was announced. Rubin had previously been tasked with managing the games ecosystem for its virtual reality headsets; this year he was put in charge of the company’s gaming initiatives across their core family of apps as the company’s VP of Play.
Rubin, well familiar with game developer/platform skirmishes, was quick to distinguish the bone Facebook had to pick with Apple and complaints from those like Epic Games, which sued Apple this summer.
“I do want to put a pin in the fact that we’re giving Google 30% [on Android]. The Apple issue is not about money,” Rubin tells TechCrunch. “We can talk about whether or not it’s fair that Google takes that 30%. But we would be willing to give Apple the 30% right now, if they would just let consumers have the opportunity to do what we’re offering here.”
Facebook is notably also taking a 30% cut of transaction within these games, even as Facebook’s executive team has taken its own shots at Apple’s steep revenue fee in the past, most recently criticizing how Apple’s App Store model was hurting small businesses during the pandemic. This saga eventually led to Apple announcing that it would withhold its cut through the end of the year for ticket sales of small businesses hosting online events.
Apple’s reticence to allow major gaming platforms a path toward independently serving up games to consumers underscores the significant portion of App Store revenues that could be eliminated by a consumer shift toward these cloud platforms. Apple earned around $50 billion from the App Store last year, CNBC estimates, and gaming has long been their most profitable vertical.
Though Facebook is framing this as an uphill battle against a major platform for the good of the gamer, this is hardly a battle between two underdogs. Facebook pulled in nearly $70 billion in ad revenues last year, and improving their offerings for mobile game studios could be a meaningful step toward increasing that number, something Apple’s App Store rules threaten.
For the time being, Facebook is keeping this launch pretty conservative. There are just 5-10 titles that are going to be available at launch, Rubin says. Facebook is rolling out access to the new service, which is free, this week across a handful of states in America, including California, Texas, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia and West Virginia. The hodge-podge nature of the geographic rollout is owed to the technical limitations of cloud-gaming — people have to be close to data centers where the service has rolled out in order to have a usable experience. Facebook is aiming to scale to the rest of the U.S. in the coming months, they say.
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Sony’s PlayStation 5 arrives November 12, priced at $500
If in-person events were still a thing in 2020, there’s a pretty good chance we’d know a lot more about the PlayStation 5 by now. With tech companies setting their own event schedules, however, Sony and Microsoft have offered themselves a more leisurely schedule with which to portion out news. Microsoft struck first, with aggressive pricing, two different launch models and a financing plan.
Now it’s Sony’s time to shine. Today’s big event answered some of the lingering questions about the next-generation console. The company waited until the bitter end for the most important details. The PS5 will arrive in select markets on November 12 for $500, while the Digital Edition (sans-optical drive) runs $400.
On that date, the console will be available in North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. The rest of the world will get their hands on the console a week later, on November 19. The pricing keeps the PS5 plenty competitive with the new Xboxes. The Series X hits the same price point, while the lower-end Series S runs $299. Microsoft’s console launches a full two days earlier than Sony’s, so that should be fun.
Sony’s pricing was the source of a good deal of speculation and hand-wringing in recent months. But while Microsoft got the first salvo, the PS5 is going to be right there along with it — a fact that should be the source of a good deal of concern for Redmond’s gaming team. Pricing is going to be a big factor in decision making. While game spending has ballooned during the COVID-19 shutdown, many folks are cautious about pulling the trigger on big-ticket items amid such an uncertain economic slow down.
As ever, the event leaned very heavily toward trailers and gameplay demos, showcasing the titles the PS5 will have on offer. Things kicked off with some major franchise blockbusters, including Final Fantasy XVI and the best look yet at Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which featured an extremely compelling bridge battle.
The Spider-Man expansion is due this holiday, to coincide with the console’s launch. Ditto for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which got a brand new trailer, including some RC car action.
The long-rumored Harry Potter RPG finally got a name and official trailer. Hogwarts Legacy looks like an epic time in the Wizarding World. That’s due out at some point in 2021.
What’s this? A non-franchise game? Yes, it’s Bethesda’s Deathloop. The time-looping adventure game is due out in mid-2021. The sufficiently creepy trailer for zombie favorite Resident Evil: Village asked more questions than it answered. The title is also slated for next year.
Other titles include Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition (due at launch), Oddworld: Soulstorm and the Demon Souls remaster. Also a little time for Fortnite, which is set to be available for the console at launch.
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US gaming industry records another excellent quarter as pandemic fuels sales
The COVID-19 pandemic has utterly decimated a number of industries over the past several months, but the U.S. gaming industry continues to benefit as people continue to be stuck at home. Yet another report from NPD highlights an excellent quarter, with spending hitting a new Q2 record in the States.
According to the figures, gamers spent $11.6 billion, marking a 30% increase over a year prior. It was also a 7% increase over Q1’s 10.9 billion, as spending continues while the pandemic continues to rage.
Games themselves comprised $10.2 billion of that figure (itself a 28% increase y-o-y), with some familiar titles occupying the top spots, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The gaming hardware category saw a 57% increase from 2019, with Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One all seeing strong sales.
The Switch isn’t a surprise, given shortages experienced earlier in the year. Perhaps a bit more unexpected are continued sales on the PS4 and Xbox One, given that both consoles are set to be eclipsed by next-generation devices later in the year. Of course, those upcoming systems aren’t doing gamers much good during the current moment of stay at home orders.
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