Sony confirmed on Monday that PlayStation Store access for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable will end this summer. From a report: The PS3 and PS Vita stores close Aug. 27, 2021; the PSP's remaining purchase functions will end on July 2, 2021. PS3, Vita, and PSP owners will still be able to re-download and play any games they've purchased through the PlayStation Store. Users can still redeem voucher codes for games and PlayStation Plus, too. Additionally, multi-platform cross-buy purchases are still possible, meaning users can still buy content made available to both PlayStation 4 and PS3, PS Vita, and/or PSP. Players can still access their content by way of the Download List, on their respective device. Sony also specified that these store closures will not affect any user's PlayStation Now subscription, or their access to PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita titles they claimed through their PlayStation Plus subscription.

As VGC notes, the preservation group Hidden Palace has obtained 752 PS2 game prototypes and demos from collectors, shuttered developers and defunct media outlets as part of a Project Deluge initiative. Engadget reports: The mix includes prototypes of classics like God of War II, Katamari Damacy, Okami and the Ratchet & Clank series. There are also E3 demos, including big titles like Shadow of the Colossus, as well as very rough alpha previews for titles like Def Jam: Fight for New York and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. It's not a complete look at the PS2's history, but it could easily make you nostalgic. Hidden Palace stressed it checked for differences from retail versions, and that most of these prototypes will run in emulators.

There's no tentative release date. Another batch is coming "real soon," though. If nothing else, this is already useful as a snapshot of gaming culture in the early 2000s. You can see breakthrough games before they were finished, or remember just how many extreme sports games were on store shelves.

Long-time Slashdot reader theshowmecanuck writes: A grandmother let her 13 year old grandson use her credit card to buy added content for one of his games for which she thought would be a $15 charge. After the account opened up because of the credit card on it, he started downloading other things not realizing they were adding substantial charges to her credit card. She asked Sony to refund the charges, it's not like they can't disable the added content if they wanted, but they told her basically too bad so sad.
From the article: When CTV News Toronto reached on to PlayStation on Liscoumb's behalf a spokesperson said "We reviewed this case at your request and determined that it did not qualify for a refund as outlined in our terms of service and user agreement."

"I'm just heartbroken and Visa said they can't do anything, because I'm the one that put the credit card into the system," [the grandmother, Diana] Liscoumb said... Liscoumb said it will be difficult to pay back the $1,400 in charges and says her grandson is upset too. "He even offered to get a job when he turns 14 to help pay for it."
This story drew a range of reactions from Slashdot readers:

• "This was a $1400 lesson that hopefully they both learned. Never trust a corporation to do the right thing."

• "This is not on the vendor it is on the grandson, his parents and his grandmother... This should not be a news story at all. This should be a private learning lesson for the child, and his guardians."

• "The real problem is still that companies are putting addictive gambling mechanics into games."

• "Someone at Sony should fix the problem."

Sony is revealing its new VR controllers for the PS5 today. The Verge reports: The orb-shaped controllers look more like typical VR controllers than existing PlayStation Move motion controllers, and they also include the same adaptive trigger technology found on the DualSense PS5 controller. Each controller has tensions in the triggers, and Sony is aiming to use this tech in future VR games. The controllers also have haptic feedback, and finger touch detection that will let them detect fingers without having to press areas where you rest your thumb, index, or middle fingers.

Naturally, these controllers will also include tracking to Sony's new VR headset via a ring at the bottom of the controller. These certainly look far improved over what's currently available on the PS Move controllers, with better ergonomics, too. Sony hasn't shown off the design of its next-gen VR headset for the PS5 just yet, but the company did reveal it has an improved field of view, resolution, and even a single cord to make it easier to use. Sony isn't planning to launch its VR headset for the PS5 in 2021, but it's clear the company is getting ready to test it with game developers soon. Don't expect an Xbox virtual-reality headset anytime soon. Yesterday, a Microsoft representative reiterated that "VR for console is not a focus for us at this time."

On Friday, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella tweeted that the PS5 is currently the fastest selling hardware platform" in U.S. history, in terms of total dollar sales. CNET reports: Piscatella didn't share an exact dollar amount for the PS5 but noted that consumer spending across video game hardware, software and accessories has already totaled $9.3 billion this year. Sony didn't include specific sales figures in its earnings report last month, but the company did indicate it shipped 4.5 million PS5 consoles in 2020 alone. Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said at a February news conference that Sony is aiming to sell upward of 14.8 million units in the coming fiscal year, which begins this month.

The PS5 did fall to second place for the month of February, according to NPD. It was superseded only by the Nintendo Switch, which may have seen a sales boost on the heels of Super Mario 3D World -- Bowser's Fury, the latest Switch title, released last month.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Have you ever bought a movie or TV show through the PlayStation Store? Me neither. As a result, Sony announced today it will remove them, starting August 31, 2021. "We've seen tremendous growth from PlayStation fans using subscription-based and ad-based entertainment streaming services on our consoles," Sony wrote in a post over on the PlayStation Blog. "With this shift in customer behavior, we have decided to no longer offer movie and TV purchases and rentals through PlayStation Store." As a multimedia company producing movies and TV alongside music and games, it made sense for Sony to sell all of it through various iterations of the PlayStation's digital storefront, in theory at least. In practice, it seems like console owners were mostly just interested in buying games, especially following the rise of Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The tech giant likes to test and tweak. Stadia promised to change the industry and failed to deliver. From a report: Google's streaming video game service Stadia had ambitious plans to disrupt the gaming industry, which is dominated by consoles. The tech giant had planned to pack Stadia with original content, announcing two years ago that it was hiring hundreds of game developers and starting studios in Los Angeles and Montreal. But those teams barely had time to get started before they were dismissed earlier this month as Google shut down in-house game development. From the beginning, Google's approach to video games wasn't very Google-like. The Alphabet company tends to launch bare-bones products and test them as they grow. With Stadia, it came out big. Flashy press conferences and ad campaigns promised high-quality games with innovative features playable on Android smartphones or on the TV through Chromecast. Gamers would have access to a library of exclusive titles and well-known favorites like Assassin's Creed without having to dish out $500 for Sony Corp's PlayStation or Microsoft's Xbox.

So when Stadia launched in 2019, gamers were expecting the complete package, not the beta model. While the cloud streaming technology was there, playing to Google's strengths, the library of games was underwhelming and many of the promised features nonexistent. Other platforms offer hundreds of games a year, but Stadia offers fewer than 80, according to Mat Piscatella, an analyst at the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales data. Players also didn't like Stadia's business model, which required customers to buy games individually rather than subscribe to an all-you-can-play service a la Netflix or the Xbox's Game Pass. Paying as much as $60 for a single game, for it only to exist on Google's servers rather than on your own PC, seemed a stretch to some. After all the hype, gamers were disappointed. Stadia missed its targets for sales of controllers and monthly active users by hundreds of thousands, according to two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. A Google spokesperson declined to comment for this story. "I think it would be fair to say the messaging leading up to and around the launch was inconsistent," with the final product, Piscatella says. Further reading: Stadia Leadership Praised Development Studios For 'Great Progress' Just One Week Before Laying Them All Off.

Sony is winding down original game development at its oldest first-party developer, Japan Studio, game news outlet VGC reported, citing sources. From the report: The iconic developer behind Ape Escape, Gravity Rush and Knack has seen the vast majority of its development staff let go, the sources said, after their annual contracts were not renewed ahead of the company's next business year, which begins April 1. Localisation and business staff will remain in place and ASOBI Team -- the group responsible for the Astro Bot games -- will continue as a standalone studio within Sony Japan, it's claimed. Some Japan Studio staff will join ASOBI, we were told, while others have followed Silent Hill and Gravity Rush director Keiichiro Toyama -- who left Japan Studio last year -- to his new studio Bokeh. It's not entirely clear if the restructure has affected the studio's External Development Department, which collaborated on games such as last year's Demon's Souls, but one person VGC spoke to suggested it would continue.

Koreantoast writes: With the number of carjackings more than doubling in the city of Chicago during 2020, one lawmaker knows who to blame: the video game "Grand Theft Auto." According to Chicago ABC 7, Democratic State Representative Marcus Williams believes the video game is causing the rise in carjackings, stating that "Grand Theft Auto' and other violent video games are getting in the minds of our young people and perpetuating the normalcy of carjacking. Carjacking is not normal and carjacking must stop." He plans on introducing a bill to ban sales of the game in the state of Illinois.

Some are skeptical of Rep. Williams claims however. Columnist Joe Jurado of the Root points out that the franchise is hardly new and widely distributed, with the latest iteration, GTA V, released eight years ago and having sold 130 million copies. He adds that attempting to ban the game would be incredibly difficult writing, "Let me entertain this stupid-a** notion for a second. Say they're successful and get the game off store shelves in Illinois. What are you going to do about digital sales? You're telling me that the state of Illinois is willing to expend the time, money, and technical know-how to block the game off of PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, Epic Games, and the Rockstar storefront? I've worked for the state government, and I know damn well those Windows XP-using a**es ain't built for this life."

CD Projekt SA said Wednesday it will delay a promised update to the much-criticized role-playing game Cyberpunk 2077, pinning the blame for its slow progress on a recent security breach. From a report: What the Polish publisher didn't say is that most of its employees have been locked out of their workstations for the past two weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. The work stoppage is the result of a ransomware attack disclosed on Feb. 9. The extent of the disruption, which hasn't been previously reported, poses a major setback to CD Projekt's attempt to rescue a game in desperate need of repairs. CD Projekt has said it refused to pay a ransom to the hackers. As a result, employees remain unable to log onto the company's virtual private network, making it impossible to access the systems and tools needed to do most of their jobs, said the people, requesting anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly. Although some CD Projekt employees are working from the headquarters in Warsaw, the majority are at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The PlayStation 5 will have its own virtual reality headset, however, consumers may face ongoing difficulties obtaining a PS5 console given a supply chain shortfall. From a report: Ryan revealed both developments in a Monday interview with The Washington Post. Ryan said developments kits for the PS5-specific VR headset will be sent out soon, though the company isn't ready to talk about the device's horsepower or specs. He did say the next headset will be considerably less cumbersome, as opposed to the current PSVR setup that requires wires running through a PlayStation 4, the TV and a separate black box called the PSVR processor. "Generational leaps allows you to sweep up the advances in technology that have taken place," Ryan said. "Given this was our first foray into virtual reality, it gives us a chance to apply lessons learned. One of the very vivid illustrations of that is that we will be moving to a very easy single-cord setup."

The next version of PlayStation VR will also borrow from its groundbreaking DualSense controllers, which debuted with the PS5 and provide super specific haptic feedback from the game to the palms of a player's hands. "One of the innovations we're excited about is our new VR controller, which will incorporate some of the key features found in the DualSense wireless controller, along with a focus on great ergonomics," Senior Vice President, Platform Planning & Management Hideaki Nishino wrote in a post on PlayStation's website Tuesday. There's no set launch date for the new VR device, according to Ryan. In an October 2020 interview with The Post, Ryan said while Sony was still very much interested in VR, any more news about the company's VR investments may not come in 2021.

Similar to Nintendo's "Joy-Con drift," Sony's PlayStation 5 DualSense controller is apparently suffering from drift: movement on-screen that doesn't correspond to any button press or input. ExtremeTech reports: Users have reported DualSense drift as quickly as 10 days after purchasing a PlayStation 5, which tracks with some of the shorter reports we've heard about Nintendo as well. We can assume that some DualSense controllers will suffer drift because no consumer company can guarantee that literally 100 percent of its products will not contain a defect of some kind. One key factor to look for when judging the seriousness of claims like this is how many people encounter the same issue repeatedly. [...] Kotaku reports that Sony is honoring requests to repair DualSense controllers under warranty, but you'll have to pay the shipping fee to send your controller to the company. Return shipping and the cost of repairs or replacement will be covered by Sony. According to IGN, the U.S.-based law firm of Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP has set up a questionnaire page on its website, allowing PS5 owners to report problems with their DualSense controllers.

No action has been take yet, but CSK&D stated that it is "investigating a potential class action based upon reports that Sony PS5 DualSense controllers for the PlayStation 5 console can experience drift issues and/or fail prematurely," reads the page introduction. "Specifically, it is reported that the joystick on certain PS5 DualSense controllers will automatically register movement when the joystick is not being controlled and interfere with gameplay." The firm was one of the firms that handled the Nintendo "Joy-Con drift" situation last year.

Sony shipped more than 4.5 million PlayStation 5s from the console's Nov. 12 launch to the end of the year, but it took a loss on those sales because the PS5's "strategic price point" is lower than what it cost to manufacture it. From a report: The disclosure was part of Sony's quarterly report to investors, delivered in Japan earlier today. The losses on PS5 sales were not specifically broken out -- and they were part of an overall Game & Network Services Segment that saw a 26.7 billion yen ($2.5 billion) increase in operating income over the same quarter in 2019. Sony's PlayStation revenue from game sales (both PS4 and PS5, add-on content included) plus larger profit margins on the outgoing PlayStation 4 more than made up any shortfall, the company said. By comparison, the PlayStation 4 sold more than 4.2 million units from its November 2013 launch to the end of that year. The company in November said the new PlayStation 5 is facing "unprecedented" demand, making its availability scarce, even though more PS5s have been available, in whole numbers, than their predecessor. Microsoft's Xbox Series X has faced the same issue, with the company's chief financial officer telling investors back in November that a console shortage could last until April.

Apple's first crack at a headset is designed to be a pricey, niche precursor to a more ambitious augmented reality product that will take longer to develop, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: The initial device has confronted several development hurdles and the company has conservative sales expectations, illustrating how challenging it will be to bring this nascent consumer technology to the masses. As a mostly virtual reality device, it will display an all-encompassing 3-D digital environment for gaming, watching video and communicating. AR functionality, the ability to overlay images and information over a view of the real world, will be more limited. Apple has planned to launch the product as soon as 2022, going up against Facebook's Oculus, Sony's PlayStation VR and headsets from HTC, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing private plans.

Apple's typical playbook involves taking emerging consumer technology, such as music players, smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, and making it reliable and easy to use for everyone. This time, though, Apple isn't looking to create an iPhone-like hit for its first headset. Instead, the company is building a high-end, niche product that will prepare outside developers and consumers for its eventual, more mainstream AR glasses. The plans suggest that Apple's first headset will be far more expensive than those from rivals, which cost about $300 to $900. Some Apple insiders believe the company may sell only one headset per day per retail store. Apple has roughly 500 stores, so in that scenario, annual sales would be just over 180,000 units -- excluding other sales channels. That would put it on par with other pricey Apple products, such as the $5,999 Mac Pro desktop computer.

CD Projekt Red is still trying to contain the damage from widespread reports of major technical problems in the versions of Cyberpunk 2077 released for the PS4 and Xbox One last month. From a report: To that end, studio co-founder and CEO Marcin Iwinski today tweeted a video message seeking to explain the internal situation leading up to the problematic launch. "Despite good reviews on PC, the console version of Cyberpunk 2077 did not meet the quality standard we wanted it to meet," Iwinski said in the message. "I, and the entire leadership team, are deeply sorry for this, and this video is me publicly owning up to that." The core of the problem, Iwinski said, was the "in-game streaming system" that Cyberpunk 2077 used to "feed" content and game mechanics to the engine without frequent breaks for loading. That system had to be "constantly improved" for last-gen consoles during development, Iwinski said, in order to keep up with the "epic" look of the PC version (which saw its graphics and other assets scaled down to work on more limited, older console hardware).

"Things did not look super difficult at first, [but] I think that time has proven we underestimated the task," Iwinski said. "Because the city is so packed and the disk bandwidth of old-gen consoles is what it is, it constantly challenged us." winski was less direct about why these problems with the console versions weren't discovered and either fixed or delayed before launch. "Every change and improvement needed to be tested, and as it turned out, our testing did not show a big part of the issues you experienced while playing the game," Iwinski said. He added that communication problems caused by the team working from home amid COVID-related restrictions meant some issues got lost over video calls or emails. "We saw significant improvements each and every day leading up to release [and] really thought we'd deliver in the day zero [version on consoles]," he said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The "instant on" feature that's activated by default on new Xbox Series S/X consoles could suck up a total of 4 billion kWh -- the equivalent of a year's operation for a large power plant -- from US owners alone through 2025. That's according to a preliminary report released this week from the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmentally focused nonprofit advocacy group. As the name implies, the "instant on" feature of the Series S/X (and the Xbox One before it) lets users skip the usual startup time when turning the console back on. That saves about 10 to 15 seconds of waiting per power cycle on the Series S/X, down from about 45 seconds on the Xbox One.

"Instant on" standby also lets the system check periodically for system updates in order to download and install them in between play sessions. But leaving the "instant on" feature active means the Xbox Series S/X draws nine to 10 watts of power 24 hours a day -- even when it's not being actively used -- compared to less than 1W if the standby settings are switched to "energy saving" mode. The Xbox Series S/X initially drew 25 to 28W of "instant on" standby power at launch, but a recent firmware update caused a dramatic reduction, placing the new systems below the ~13W drawn by the Xbox One's "instant on" mode. The PlayStation 5, by contrast, uses between 1 and 2 watts when sitting idle in "rest mode."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Somehow, it's already been two decades since Microsoft first announced the Xbox, its foray into console gaming. Specifically, the Xbox was unveiled at CES in 2001 -- to commemorate that launch, Bloomberg has published an in-depth oral history of how the console came to be. It's a fascinating read, but one particular passage stands out: details on Microsoft's efforts to secure games for the brand-new console. While the company implored third-party developers to work on the Xbox, Microsoft also considered using its considerable financial might to buy developers. And Microsoft set its sights high, approaching Nintendo about an acquisition. Microsoft was laughed out of the room, says Kevin Bachus, a director for third-party relations on the Xbox project. "They just laughed their asses off," Bachus said to Bloomberg. "Like, imagine an hour of somebody just laughing at you. That was kind of how that meeting went."

Microsoft's specific pitch did make some amount of sense. At the time, Nintendo was lagging behind Sony badly from a hardware perspective. So Microsoft figured it could take on hardware production and leave Nintendo to focus on the software. "We actually had Nintendo in our building in January 2000 to work through the details of a joint venture where we gave them all the technical specs of the Xbox," said head of business development Bob Mcbreen. "The pitch was their hardware stunk, and compared to Sony PlayStation, it did. So the idea was, 'Listen, you're much better at the game portions of it with Mario and all that stuff. Why don't you let us take care of the hardware?â(TM) But it didn't work out."

It might have taken more than 20 years, but a game intended for the original PlayStation has at last made its way into the world. Engadget reports: A group of Japanese developers worked on Magic Castle for eight months in the late '90s. They used Sony's Net Yaroze, a system with which hobbyists could make games for the console. The team sent the RPG to several publishers, but most didn't bite. Sony showed interest, but it wanted the developers to ditch their game and move to a different project. The team rejected the offer and later disbanded. And so the unfinished Magic Castle stayed on the shelf for over 20 years. Until now.

One of the developers, who goes by PIROWO, rediscovered the Magic Castle source code a while back. They decided to finish and release it, four console generations later. Magic Castle has some interesting tricks up its sleeve, as EuroGamer notes. It features dynamic music and you can customize the position of the user interface. There are four character classes to choose from and 20 floors with randomized elements to make your way through. You can download the game from the Internet Archive and play it with an emulator.

Discovery+, the new streaming channel from Discovery, is officially available in the U.S.. "The list of places where you can download Discovery+ is extensive, with almost every popular platform but the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 included in the company's launch slate," reports Engadget. From the report: Most notably, you can access the app through Amazon Fire TV streaming devices and Fire Edition TVs -- with support for Prime Video Channels coming at a later date. At launch, Discovery also supports Roku devices and 2017 and later Samsung Smart TVs. Typically, Amazon Fire TV and Roku are left out of streaming launches. Of course, you can also access Discovery+ through Apple TV and Android TV if you have those instead.

Discovery+ will set you back $5 per month for the base tier. It's an extra $2 every month if you don't want to see any ads. At launch, you'll find content from channels like HGTV, Food Network, Animal Planet, TLC and of course Discovery. The $5 and $7 price tags put Discovery+ in competition with other specialty services like Peacock and Disney+, which may make it a tough sell for some people.

Phoronix reports: It's been a turbulent year and 2020 is certainly ending interesting in the Linux/open-source space... If it wasn't odd enough seeing Sony providing a new official Linux driver for their PlayStation 5 DualSense controller for ending out the year, there is also a new Linux port to the Nintendo 64 game console... Yes, a brand new port to the game console that launched more than two decades ago.

Open-source developer Lauri Kasanen who has contributed to Mesa and the Linux graphics stack took to developing a new Nintendo 64 port and announced it this Christmas day. This isn't the first time Linux has been ported to the N64 but prior attempts weren't aimed at potentially upstreaming it into the mainline Linux kernel...

This fresh port to the N64 was pursued in part to help port emulators and frame-buffer or console games.
And also, the announcement adds, "Most importantly, because I can."