Tag: playstation

Microsoft And Sony Join Hands For Cloud Gaming Service

Microsoft has yet to give out any set specifications or details regarding its new cloud gaming service, xCloud. The software developing company has been testing the service with its employees as of late, letting them stream Xbox games anywhere. Microsoft is currently in the process of setting up multiple servers required for xCloud across the world.

The company revealed today that the service is capable of streaming more than 3500 game titles all without ever needing their respective developers to make any optimisations. Capcom and Paradox are one of the game developers that are testing their games on xCloud. Microsoft has confirmed that it has sent Project xCloud to data centres encompassing 13 Azure regions, focusing on a few key locations in the world, not just the US, for its launch. The public trials are set to start later this year.

The service has prompted many game developers to tweak their games for smaller displays in compact devices (namely text sizes and fonts) and to add the ability to host multiplayer games. More information on xCloud is claimed to go public at E3 2019 in the following month. The service will face Google’s Stadia and Sony’s PlayStation Now head on. Interestingly enough, Sony is working in conjunction with Microsoft for future cloud game streaming services.

Microsoft and Sony in a groundbreaking new move shook hands for collaboration, something that the gaming community thought was impossible. The companies would still operate separate services for their respective Xbox and PlayStation customers, but Sony has reached out to Microsoft for their Azure Services. Sony lacks an integral part of the service which is cloud computing.

Excited about the opportunities ahead with @Sony for us to pursue our mutual gaming ambitions and delight players around the world. https://t.co/3vBuQiruiR
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) May 16, 2019

Azure by Microsoft is a cloud computing service that allows first and third-party developers to put out their proprietary services through Microsoft’s data centres around the globe. Sony and its PlayStation Now is severely underequipped in comparison to either Google or Microsoft. Sony has never taken stream service into account as its PS4 Remote Play only supports limited devices that are streamed through the consumer’s PlayStation console. PlayStation Now so far is only confirmed to be able to stream to PC and PlayStation.

Also Read: Google Trained Its AI To Learn Depth Perception From YouTube’s Mannequin Challenge

Cloud game-streaming is not intent on overthrowing the console or PC markets. Many would claim that it would ‘kill’ the hardware breed as cloud-based service does eliminate the need for a console or PC, but most forget it is not a zero-sum game. Sony assured that the PlayStation brand is here to stay and the company will take it forward for the foreseeable future.

Sony with Microsoft Azure’s technology showcase a healthier trend of business rivalry, this benefits both in the long run. Cross-Play in consoles comes to mind when talking about healthy relations, that may arrive soon maybe with the launch of the new generation consoles.

May 25, 2019
The Console That Redefined Gaming

PlayStation turned 20 this month and it has come a long way. With the first console launched in 1995, PlayStation has come to define gaming experience. As a nostalgic homage we will look at how the original console redefined the way games would be played in the years to come.

Future of Gaming

Prior to its launch, people would have only been familiar with the Sega and Nintendo consoles. The PlayStation introduced CD based gaming in a huge way. Not that CD games didn’t exist before, but it was the PlayStation that used CDs in a big way instead of the cartridges used by Nintendo and Sega. The cartridges were more expensive compared to CDs and was more limited in terms of space. The PlayStation arrived at an important time. 1995 saw the beginnings of the World Wide Web and CD-ROM technology that allowed games to include real videos and music soundtracks.

Since CDs were cheaper and could hold a lot more data, Sony was able to attract more third-party publishers. Developers such as Squaresoft (Final Fantasy VII) and Enix (Dragon Quest VII) left Nintendo and joined Sony to release their games in CD format. The success of the PlayStation is widely believed to have cause the demise of the cartridge-based consoles.

The Definitive Controller

Sony PlayStation

Nintendo 64

Nintendo may have popularized the four-faced diamond shaped buttons, the analogue stick, and the shoulder buttons, but the PlayStation set the standard for controllers.

The PlayStation had four shoulder buttons (L1, R1, L2, and R2) rather than the traditional two found in Nintendo. Moreover, it also introduced the Dual Analogue Controller, where Nintendo had one one, allowing for greater camera and action controls. And this has become the standard controller for gaming since.

Narrative Gameplay

Another significant change were the games themselves. Before the PlayStation, Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog were the most popular names in the gaming world. Yet these games offered a simple, linear gameplay where story did not matter. However, Sony wanted more out of games and with the CD-ROM technology at its disposal, it had the power to add more to gaming than ever before.

The PlayStation brought in story-driven games that had a narrative structure to it. Games had an entire movie-like experience with major action moments and cutscenes. The idea of playing a game that was like a story in itself was quite exciting. And over the years the stories grew bigger, more engrossing, and more intricately woven.

These are only some of the major features that changed and defined the way games would be played in the years to come. And it all started 20 years ago.

For nostalgia sake, here is a video showing some of the most popular games from the first PlayStation, and we’re sure they’ll will bring a smile to your face (except for Silent Hill). How many of them have you played? Let us know in the comments below.

September 13, 2015
After The Predator, Jason Voorhees Enters as a Playable Character in Mortal Kombat X

Jason Voorhees is one of the scariest characters that have been created. Though fictional, the chief antagonist of Friday the 13th has undoubtedly raised eyebrows with his mass murder spree series of films. Now, imagine playing with him against a group of equally proficient fighters. That’s right, Mortal Kombat X now has Jason Voorhees as a playable character, with his set of combat moves and fatalities. The character unveiled before Jason is the Predator, a well known fictional character from the Alien Vs Predator franchise.

Jason was inducted as a character on May 5th if you have purchased the Kombat pack for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. Most of Jason’s moves include a standard line of attacks and if executed correctly, a clothesline. One important skill of this character is that it can become unstoppable, which means nothing would be able to escape his special moves.

In addition to Jason, the pack also includes characters like Vampiress Mileena, Kraken Reptile, and Pharaoh Ermac horror-themed skins. For players who have not purchased the package, Jason Voorhees will be available from May 12^th for $7.99. Today is also the official release of the game on Android devices.

May 6, 2015
Sony Reportedly Shifting its Focus to PlayStation From TVs and Smartphones

According to recent reports, Sony is in the process of shrinking down its TV and smartphone business to focus more on gaming consoles. With PS4 sales reaching a 13.5 million milestone, it’s apparently the only division that is generating profits for the company. Following a recent forecast that predicts 30 percent downfall in Sony’s mobile division by next spring, the Japanese giant is now making the PlayStation brand its utmost priority.

A recent report from Reuters revealed that Sony has devised a 3-year plan for a shift that will focus primarily to boost the sales of PlayStation division by 25 percent, while reducing support for its mobile and television divisions. Thanks to the PS4, the company has generated a $265 million profit which compensated for the loss from its television and mobile business.

The Japanese electronics giant has been posting yearly losses that have eventually resulted in the fall of its share price. The PlayStation 4 sales have been so strong that despite facing losses in other divisions, the company’s revenue grew by 7.2 percent. Let’s see how beneficial will this step be for the company.

November 27, 2014
Gestures, Voice Controls and HDMI Capture of Games Confirmed by Sony for the PlayStation 4

Sony on August 20 at Gamescom revealed the launch dates for the PlayStation 4, which will launch in North America on November 15 and in European regions on November 29.

The Sony’s Keynote at the Tokyo Game Show cleared some of the question related to the the PlayStation 4, to start with, the PS4 Camera will support voice and gesture controls with its dual cameras and built in four mics. The PlayStation 4 will allow unencrypted HDMI output for games which can be used to record your games and will be great for recording game-plays in iGyaan style for you guys to watch.

I think we just announced that we’re going to allow video capture of games over HDMI! “Details will follow soon.” said Sony’s representative Brad Douglas.

September 19, 2013
The Last Of US For PS3 Review

While Sony may be busy announcing its next generation console, their present iteration is still doing strong. The Last of Us is a Sony exclusive title developed by company’s Naughty Dog studios, for the PS3. The game plays on the zombie apocalyptic post world era, that we all have come to love and expect, yet there are some exciting new additions to the overall storyline and gameplay experience.

Joel and Ellie

Storyline

The Game begins with the normal life of main character Joel, and how it suddenly gets affected an outbreak that causes the Zombie Fungus Cordyceps to start spreading like wild bushfire. The gameplay is set in the United states and shows how everywhere, post this outbreak, there is utter pain and chaos. The character, like any hero is destined to help end the problems of the world by delivering a solution, where he needs to travel across the badlands of the United States.

Unlike any other Zombie game the Last of Us is designed in a different manner, and you simply cant expect instant hardcore action from the game. The game storyline is slow and progresses as the character fights various kinds of zombies, human enemies known as hunters and the government which basically controls everything. The story as it progresses reminds you from time to time the hopeless situation of the world and how the Joel fights on despite that. The game essentially takes off from the typical end of humanity scenario, but chooses to tell a story about the two people that travel across the pain stricken world in an attempt to revive humanity.

The gameplay is full of beautiful backdrops, amazing sceneries of the untouched wilderness and the post fungus cities which are destroyed and collapsing. The game developer has ensured that each scenery and backdrop shows the status of the world and each new backdrop tells a brand new story about what has happened.

As the game progresses the secondary character Ellie starts to take limelight as she becomes closer and closer to Joel. Their relationship is strengthened by Ellie’s constant need to oppose the exacting situation and Joel constant efforts to keep things under control. Ellie has been born into this world and has no idea what the real world is like, her constant need and discussions to find out what the world was, make for some of the best ingame scenarios.

The story line is beautifully presented and ensures that you build a relationship with the characters as the game progresses. The game defines what possibly is the best ever story written for the Playstation.

Post World Cities

Gameplay

What the storyline builds, the gameplay delivers! With a vast variety of interesting elements that make it a truly exciting and entertaining experience. Despite the fact that the game has many enemies throughout the story, the major focus remains on the infected. Cordyceps infested humans become rage hungry monsters that don’t eat or kill, they simply bite and infest others. The main elements of the infected are the runners that are basically the pawns of the enemies, the clickers are the bishops, blind yet brutal and many other higher ups that define the bosses of the infested chains.

Infected Clicker

Gameplay becomes intense and inflicts a sense of fear in the gamer as the infected arrive, while Joel has a vast majority of mainstream weapons to his disposal including pistols, automatic guns and even crossbows, the most interesting element of the gameplay is the characters ability to forge destructive weapons from the post world scavenging. While ammo is mostly scarce, hard to find and carried in a limited quantity, the handcrafted grenades, smoke bombs and throat slitting shivs are manufactured from items found on the map, including broken scissors, alcohol and pieces of cloth. All this crafting happens real time and the gamer is in constant stress especially when the threat is nearby.

Nearby Hunter

While the gameplay is close to perfection it may lack the certain finesse and responsiveness that users may expect from a actions scenario game like the Last of Us. The progress is slow and the expansive storyline, mixed in between intense gameplay, tends to take from the mood of the excitement. There are also stages where the characters are simply walking while figuring out their path, which may truly frustrate some.

Multiplayer

Although the Last of Us was not designed to be a multiplayer, the game does a wonderful job of that as well. Making you the leader of a group of survivors, scavenging and fending off enemies, you have to constantly explore the map and ensure that you are on top of the situation and in control of your team that often finds itself surrounded by problems. The multiplayer may not be the main concept but is a well appreciated addition to the overall experience of the Last of Us.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the Last of Us is possibly the most beautiful game on Playstation 3, and the extensive work behind the tile truly shows from the start to the finish. The story is involving and creates a sense of relation and there comes a point where you actually start to feel bad for the state of the situation. The gameplay adds a lot of action and thrill, and literally keeps your heart pounding, especially when the higher-up infected are around. There is really nothing more you could ask for from a game.

If you own a Playstation 3 and are looking for a game that will keep you busy for hours and days, while making your heart pound and your thumbs smashing the controller, look no further.

Video Review

(Coming Soon)

Buy Now

July 12, 2013
Sony PS4 Interface video shows off the new connectivity, sharing and community

Sony has officially shown off the new interface and does it look impressive. The double tap multitasking is a feature people were asking for for a long time and looks like Sony may have just pulled it off.

Within games you can now switch over to your messaging and switch back to the game, alternatively you can be on voice chat throughout, while downloading a game in the back ground.

The promo shows off a man trying to play knack but he is stuck in one area of the game, he then watches a video uploaded by a friend to clear that area. While another friend is asking him to join him on Killzone, which he must download from the Playstation store.

The video also shows off micro management, where you can use your smartphone to download games ota to the PS4. Now if only sony could implement it like they show it off, we could very well have the next gaming console.

June 20, 2013
Nvidia Announces PhysX And APEX Support For AMD-Powered PS4

Nvidia Corp. on Thursday announced support for Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation 4 with the popular Nvidia PhysX and Nvidia APEX software development kits (SDKs). While Sony PS4 will not use Nvidia’s chips, it will still rely on development software designed by Nvidia.

PhysX and APEX technologies are used by developers for collision detection and simulation of rigid bodies, clothing, fluids, particle systems etc on pretty much every current platform. Nvidia PhysX and APEX technologies are designed to run on a variety of CPU architectures and can be accelerated by any modern Nvidia GPU, GeForce 8-series or higher.

[quote]Mike Skolones, product manager for the PhysX at Nvidia, said: Great physics technology is essential for delivering a better gaming experience and multiplatform support is critical for developers. With PhysX and APEX support for PlayStation 4, customers can look forward to better games.[/quote]

Both PhysX and APEX are already integrated into a handful of games. NVIDIA boasts that PhysX alone is featured in more than 150 games, and is used by over 10,000 developers. Some games that are taking advantage of NVIDIA’s technologies include Borderlands 2, the Batman Arkham series, Mirror’s Edge, and Metro 2033.

The Sony PlayStation 4 is based on a semi-custom AMD Fusion system-on-chip that integrates eight AMD x86 Jaguar cores, custom AMD Radeon HD core with unified array of 18 AMD GCN-like compute units (1152 stream processors which collectively generate 1.84TFLOPS of computer power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mixture of the two), various special-purpose hardware blocks as well as multi-channel GDDR5 memory controller.

The PS4 will come with 8GB of unified GDDR5 memory sub-system (with 176GB/s bandwidth) for both CPU and GPU as well as large-capacity hard disk drive. Sony PS4 will be equipped with Blu-ray disc drive capable of reading BDs at 6x and DVDs at 8x speeds, USB 3.0 connectivity in addition to a proprietary aux port, Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR wireless technology as well as HDMI, optical and analog outputs. The new system will also utilize new DualShock 4 game controller with integrated touchpad as well as better motion sensing thanks to new PS4 Eye tracking cameras.

March 8, 2013
Sony To Release ‘Smart Glass’ Like PlayStation App For Android & iOS

And shortly after the event, it added to the day’s announcements by unveiling its official PlayStation mobile application. The app, which will land on both iOS and Android, will expand PS4 gameplay by offering a ‘second screen’ experience…

Here’s Sony’s press release on the app :

[quote]“A new application from SCE called “PlayStation®App” will enable iPhone, iPad, and Android based smartphones and tablets to become second screens. Once installed on these devices, users can, for example, see maps on their second screens when playing an adventure game, purchase PS4 games while away from home and download it directly to the console at home, or remotely watch other gamers playing on their devices.”[/quote]

Sony boasted that the PS4 will feature integration with third-party services, phones, and tablets that will allow players on mobile devices to view gameplay videos and challenge friends in head-to-head play.

There will be no actual gaming available on the app, rather it’s meant to be a companion for the consolem kinda like the Smart Glass app. The PlayStation Vita, however, has gained a “Remote Play” feature that allows gamers to pull PS4 games from their TV and play them on the 5-inch device.

It is currently unknown if the app will be similar to Microsoft’s Smart Glass Xbox app that allows users to view the stats of other gamers. Sony has yet to announce a release date, but the console is scheduled to arrive during the 2013 holiday season.

The PlayStation 4 was the highlight of Sony’s media event, with a PC-style architecture, an eight-core x86 processor and 8GB of RAM, the new Dualshock 4 controller with touchpad and new social layers for a better gaming experience.

February 21, 2013
Crysis 3 teaser-trailer almost makes you weep : Video

Electronic Arts and Crytek announced the highly anticipated sequel of the Crysis franchise earlier last week, and the companies have now released the first Crysis 3 teaser. The new version has a new defined engine that will have more intense graphics and a better standard for the usual questions “Will it play Crysis 3?”.

Crysis 3 is a thrilling mix of sandbox gameplay, advanced combat and hi-tech human and alien weaponry that shooter fans will love, Leveraging the latest CryENGINE technology, we’re able to deliver seven unique themes that offer stunning and visually loaded gameplay experiences. We cannot wait until people get their hands on the game.”

Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said in a statement

April 23, 2012
Assassin’s Creed III Trailer Shows Wepons

There is a new teaser trailer of Connor from the Assassins Creed 3, showing off new gist of weapons for the next generation game. With dual pistols, a tomahawk and the very favorite hidden blade. The next game looks promising, does it not?

March 27, 2012
Sony to intro PS4 in time for Xbox 720

So we all have heard news that the next version of Microsoft’s gaming console will come next year around E3 time. Sony’s gaming division is also tracking the growing rumours of a new Microsoft console, with the aim being to release its PlayStation4 .

PlayStation Europe president Jim Ryan, said it would be “undesirable” for Sony to launch a new console “significantly later” than the next version of the Xbox, to avoid handing Microsoft another huge lead. This makes Sony’s plans clear to announce the PS4 sooner and not later than the launch of the Xbox 720.

November 28, 2011
Xperia Arc and Arco Get Playstation Certification in Japan

Sony Has awarded PS certification to the Xperia Arc and never seen outside Japan- Arco. These are the only other two phones apart from the Xperia Play to win the Sony playstation certification. These phones will now be able to access and download PS certified games from the Sony-Android Marketplace which was earlier limited to the Xperia Play.

If you missed it you can catch the full review of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc Here.

[Sony Ericsson Japan]

November 10, 2011
Sony PS Vita announced, with live Augmented Reality Gaming and 3 Hour battery

Yes it has been days since the new Sony PS vita was announced to be launched in December in Japan, then came the news of Reality Fighters, a game exclusive to the Sony Playstation Vita that uses real time Aug reality to form players and scenarios for gaming.

But the low down that has come today is the battery life f the new PS vita. where most PSPs of today rake in about 3.5 to 5.5 hours of play time depending on game type and battery size. The PS Vita (has the same processing abilities as a full blown PS3) will have a gaming battery life of 3-5 hours a 10-20% lower life than the previous model.

Game On?

September 17, 2011
Sony Playstation 4 coming in 2012 ?

CONCEPT PS4 Image

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f a report from market hardware news watch website Digitimes reports that, Sony’s manufacturing partners will begin building the Playstation 4 by the end of this year for a launch schedule of quarter 2 2012. There are no specific details , but most rumors talk about a kinect type motion sensing technology to replace the current generation PS3 Move.

Sony has always held in strong opinion that physical controls are essential for gaming. Dropping that claim would be very convenient for the company and possibly beneficial. Foxconn and Pegatron, the two manufacturing firms charged with assembling Sony’s PlayStation 3, will build the new console according to DigiTimes’ sources. Also mentioned in the report, shipment volume for 2012 is set at 20 million.

With the Wii U and the next Xbox coming next year, if was only expected that the third giant upgrade their flagship console.

July 6, 2011