Sony has recently had a lot of success publishing its first-party PlayStation 5 games to PC, but that doesn’t mean the company is going to become a PC company first.
In an interview with Japanese publication Nikkei (via Video Games Chronicle), Hideaki Nishino, head of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Platform Business Group, said that that Sony will continue to make content for PCs, but “there is no doubt” that consoles will continue to be the priority.
“We are trying to increase our share of the overall game market by developing content for PCs as well. There is no doubt that consoles will be at the core of our business, but by offering titles for platforms other than consoles, we will reach a wider range of customers,” Nishino said.
He continued to tout the value of consoles versus PC, saying that it eases the process of installing and setting up a game, and that consoles have native stores that streamline the process of buying games.
However, that doesn’t mean Sony won’t continue to invest in PC. Its current strategy involves releasing its AAA single-player games on PlayStation first, and then on PC later, while its live-service titles like the successful Helldivers 2 and the ill-fated Concord will be released on both PlayStation 5 and PC simultaneously. According to Nishino, this is a great way to gain players on other platforms.
You can see Sony’s continued investment in console hardware with the PlayStation 5 Pro announcement last week. The company revealed that it will have updated specs, including a bigger GPU, but won’t come with a disc drive or stand. It’ll cost $700 when preorders open up on September 26 and when it launches on November 7. This is a product specifically for console players who want the highest frame rates imaginable, and it’ll still cost less than some of the most expensive PC GPUs.
Nishino was one of two co-CEOs appointed after former head Jim Ryan departed earlier this year. He works alongside Hiroki Totoki, who is CEO of SIE’s business group.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.