PlayStation has revealed the free games coming to PlayStation Plus Essential in March 2023.
The three games in question are first-person shooter Battlefield 2042 (PS4/PS5), dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons (PS4) and action-RPG Code Vein (PS4). All three titles will be available through PS Plus from March 7th to April 4th.
PlayStation Plus Essential costs $11.99/month or $69.99/year.
PlayStation’s Holiday Sale is offering hit titles up to 75 percent off. You can get Game of the Year winner Elden Ring, NBA 2K23, Horizon Forbidden West, Gotham Knights, Sonic Frontiers and more at a discounted rate.
Microsoft has confirmed that its last-gen Xbox One console sold less than half of what Sony’s rival PS4 did.
The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant noted the sales data in a broader filing to Brazil’s national competition regulator about its pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
“Sony has surpassed Microsoft in terms of console sales and installed base, having sold more than twice as many Xbox in the last generation,” Microsoft wrote in the documents, as translated from Portuguese by Game Luster.
This is particularly notable because Microsoft stopped sharing Xbox One sales data in 2016. Therefore, while it’s been clear that the PS4 had been performing better than the Xbox One, analysts have only had to estimate a more precise margin.
For context, the PS4 topped 117 million units sold as of March 2022, which would work out to Xbox One sales of fewer than 58.5 million. This is in line with Ampere Analysis’ report that the Xbox One reached 51 million units sold as of Q2 2020.
That said, Microsoft still doesn’t reveal Xbox hardware sales data, even in this new console generation. However, Ampere Analysis reported earlier this year that “Sony ended 2021 with PS5 cumulative sell-through reaching 17 million units, around 1.6 times the performance of Xbox Series sales,” suggesting that Xbox is closing the gap. In Microsoft’s most recent quarterly earnings call, company CEO Satya Nadella also claimed that Xbox has “been the market leader in North America for three quarters in a row among [current-gen] consoles.”
It should be noted, though, that Microsoft and Sony’s hardware strategies are somewhat different, as there are two different current-gen Xbox consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S. The former is a beefier, 4K-capable model, while the latter is a lower-cost, smaller hardware upgrade over the Xbox One. Naturally, the Series S’ price point of $379 positions it as an affordable entry point into the current generation, especially when the Xbox Series X and standard PS5 cost $599 and $629, respectively.
Of course, it’s still early in the consoles’ lifecycles, as both families of devices launched in late 2020. There’s also a global semiconductor shortage that has constrained the supply of all of the consoles, an issue that the PS4 and Xbox One generation didn’t have to deal with. Therefore, it remains to be seen how this generation will play out in the years to come, especially as Microsoft further dives into a more platform-agnostic approach which includes Xbox consoles, PC and streaming.
Microsoft’s long-awaited admission of the Xbox One’s sales comes as the company is working to get its Activision Blizzard buyout deal approved in Brazil and other markets. As part of that process, the company is arguing with Sony over various aspects of the gaming industry, particularly whether Microsoft owning Activision’sCall of Duty series would be anti-competitive and unfair to PlayStation.
Thursday morning, PlayStation Indies revealed new trailers, release date reveals, gameplay debuts and more for seven upcoming games coming out for PS4 and PS5.
Inscryption is a creepy roguelike deck-building game developed by Vancouver-based Daniel Mullins Games and published by Devolver Digital. The title was originally released on PC. Sony says that the game will now have PlayStation-exclusive features and is coming to PS5 and PS4.
The game is described as part deck-building roguelike but also part escape-room puzzler and part psychological horror, which is a pretty interesting mixture.
The next is another Canadian game, Sea of Stars, from Quebec’s Sabotage Studio.
This is a retro-inspired turn-based role-playing game with seamless transitions from navigation to combat, no random encounters, no grinding and very interesting combat. This “actual turn-based” fighting has no time bars to reduce pressure when making decisions. It also features timed hits, combo moves, the ability to boost your characters, swapping characters without any penalties and more.
Sea of Stars will also reportedly feature a “sometimes epic, sometimes silly, and other times emotional” story.
That’s it for the Canadian games, but we also got more information about Cult of the Lamb. The title, coming out on August 11th, has players fighting through hordes of monsters and false prophets in order to find new followers and resources to bring back to their cult.
The game has players finding followers, customizing them, building new structures, and performing sermons. In order to run a great cult, you need to have your followers healthy and keep their faith high. Build homes, grow crops, cook meals and more.
Signalis is a survival game with psychological and cosmic horror elements.
The game is set in a retrotech sci-fi world with concrete walls, CRT screens and a totalitarian regime. It’s underlined by a Cold War-inspired setting, and fans of cassette futurism will like handling floppy disks, self-developing photos, and old fashion operating systems.
Signalis is launching on PS4 on October 27th.
The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition is launching in North America on September 7th.
“The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition takes place in an alternate future following a failed experiment to unite the minds of all humanity.” Now, humanity’s hope is in the hands of ‘Projection Clones’ that are capable of going into the Void in search of preserved human survivors.
You can learn more about The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition, here.
Schim, is a game where you play as a shadow creature trying to get back to their person. You’ll travel through Dutch-inspired locations, but only through other shadows. You’ll also meet other shadow creatures and characters that you can interact with.
Schim doesn’t have an exact release date but it’s coming out next year. You can learn more about Schim, here.
Last but not least, Cursed to Golf is landing on PS5 and PS4 on August 18th. Cursed to Golf is a ‘Golf-Like’ 2D side-scrolling golf game with roguelike elements.
You’ll be playing as a would-be golf champion who dies just as he’s about to win a tournament and get sent to Golf Purgatory.
Thankfully, I’m happy to say that PlayStation has just delivered what is easily its best State of Play to date, and one that gets me especially excited for its future.
Simply put: it nailed the reveals. Of course, these are subjective to a degree; interests can vary greatly depending on the person. But inarguably, this State of Play was PlayStation’s most diverse yet thanks to a solid mix of major franchises, smaller indie titles and even new hardware. In this way, PlayStation touched on key parts of its business and signalled how they’ll all play an important role in the brand’s future.
The show opened with the official unveiling of a long-rumoured game: the Resident Evil 4 remake, which is coming in March 2023. It’s hard to understate the significance of this title — the original Resident Evil 4 is widely regarded to be one of the greatest games of all time, and it was incredibly influential to the third-person shooter genre. Moreover, it’s being made by the team behind 2019’s beloved Resident Evil 2 remake. RE4 remake alone would have elevated this above most State of Plays, and this was just the start.
Right after, PlayStation gave some spotlight to PlayStation VR2, as promised. It’s here that the company really seemed cognizant of proper pacing. In the span of about six minutes, we get quick looks at four VR titles: Resident Evil Village, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Retribution, No Man’s Skyand Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Resident Evil 4 remake is also getting some sort of yet-to-be-revealed PS VR2 content, and after how chillingly scary Resident Evil 7 was in VR, I’m especially eager to see what Capcom does with the new headset. On the whole, this was an effective way of teasing some of the different experiences players can expect while not bogging down the whole show with VR. After all, VR as a whole is still quite niche, and we don’t actually have a price or release date for PS VR2, either. Ostensibly, this was just to remind people that a new headset is on the way, which seems wise for the time being.
Following this, we got confirmation that Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is coming to PC in August. It’s a smart move for the company, especially with the sequel coming next year. Miles Morales is also coming to PC this fall to complete the collection. The PC ports’ involvement in the State of Play serves to reiterate — especially to the whinier console fanboys — that PlayStation games coming to PC is a growing and important part of the company’s business. I’m also always in favour of allowing more people to play games, especially when they’re as wonderful as Insomniac’s Spider-Man titles.
From here on out was just games, games, games — and lots of good-looking ones, at that.
On the indie front, we first got the promising cat adventure Stray, which comes to PS4/PS5 on July 19th. As an added bonus, those subscribed to either of the higher tiers of the new PS Plus will even get the game at no additional cost. Tunic, the recently released, critically-acclaimed Canadian-made adventure game, is making its way to PS4/PS5 on September 27th. Another Canadian game, Season: A Letter to the Future, got a trailer with a fall 2022 release window, and it looks like an engrossing, relaxing biking adventure. (It should be noted, though, that leadership at Montreal-based developer Scavengers was accused of abusing employees, and it’s unclear whether there’s been meaningful change has been made at the studio). That’s to say nothing of the fact that OlliOlliWorld developer Roll7 has a stylish rollerblading game, Rollerdrome, coming to PS4/PS5 on August 16th, or new team Studio Sai is making a Persona-inspired action-dating sim, Eternights, dropping on PS4/PS5 in early 2023.
Of course, there were more AAA games on top of that impressive assortment of indies. Striking Distance, the studio co-founded by Dead Space creator Glen Schofield, showed off its survival horror space game, The Callisto Protocol, which looks like a worthy spiritual successor to his previous work. We’re getting that on December 2nd, 2022 on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. And while it’s not at all my cup of tea, Capcom’s Street Fighter 6got a fairly meaty new trailer, which is undoubtedly a big deal for fighting game fans. It’s coming sometime in 2023 to PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
But it’s the show’s closer that had me absolutely jumping out of my seat: Final Fantasy XVI. Since the action-RPG was revealed at the September 2020 PS5 Showcase, Square Enix hasn’t shown anything else from the game, so fans like me have been clamouring for a new trailer for over a year-and-a-half. Thankfully, we got that and more: a summer 2023 release window. Farther off than I would have liked, to be sure, but Square Enix had said the game was delayed half a year due to COVID, so it’s understandable. What matters more, though, is that it looks damn good. I confess that I didn’t much care for Final Fantasy XV; the game’s story, characters, open-world and combat felt half-baked in many ways. FF is my favourite series, so XV was pretty disappointing to me.
XVI, by contrast, looks to be everything XV wasn’t. And I have immense faith it will deliver — just look at the talent involved! Naoki Yoshida, the man who helped turn Final Fantasy XIV into one of gaming’s biggest redemption stories, is the producer. Hiroshi Takai, who’s worked on classics like Final Fantasy V and, more recently, XIV, is the main director, while Kazutoyo Maehiro — who penned XIV‘s outstanding Heavensward expansion — is the creative director and writer. Combat director Ryota Suzuki worked on a little action game called Devil May Cry 5, which should give you an idea of how great XVI‘s battles should be. And Masayoshi Soken, the magnificent composer of XIV, is handling XVI‘s music, so expect some absolute bangers. TL;DR — this game is going to be fire. It’s a timed PS5 exclusive, too, which is a big deal for PlayStation.
Ultimately, PlayStation accomplished a great deal in just under 30 minutes. It gave us a good mix of games that are pretty much all coming out within the next 12 months, while also showing more from its plans for PC and VR. Of course, questions remain surrounding when God of War: Ragnarok is coming, among other new first-party titles. But we knew going in that this State of Play was never going to be about that. For what it was — a largely third-party-centric showing — PlayStation absolutely crushed it, and hopefully, future State of Plays will be as strong.
While Sony hasn’t yet confirmed any of the titles that will offer these, a new report provides some insight into the types of games that will be included.
Citing developer sources, GameDeveloper reports that PlayStation is requiring games that have a wholesale cost of $34 USD (about $43.61 CAD) or more to offer a time-limited trial. These must be at least two hours long, although games that are under $34 USD will be exempt from this policy.
These requirements are also said to not be retroactive or applicable to upcoming PlayStation VR titles. Instead, developers are starting to be notified of this now and will have up until three months after their games launch to implement a trial. These must remain available to PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers (starting at $21.99 CAD/month) for at least 12 months.
PlayStation is also allowing developers to create custom trials instead of time-limited ones, although these will need to be approved on a case-by-case basis.
On the one hand, game trials are, in theory, an option for consumers to play a game without spending as much as $80 or $90. That said, game developers will need to allocate time and resources to create a polished demo, which can be tricky.
The new PlayStation Plus is set to launch on June 13th in Canada and the U.S.
Sony is now rolling out its next system update for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles.
One of the new features is ‘Pro Tips,’ which are cards in the Control Center that offer hints like how to pin videos and apps to your screen while you play, apply game presets and share your screen with friends.
The PlayStation mobile app is also getting new Remote Play enhancements. According to PlayStation’s blog post, PS App users will be able to join or create open and closed parties through the app. That said, it’s unclear how new this feature is as I’ve joined parties through the PS App several times over the past few months. Additionally, PlayStation says it’s easier to access your friends, parties and messaging features with the PS App’s user interface.
The PS Remote Play app also gets a dark mode based on your smartphone’s settings. Further, Sony added more Screen Reader languages on iOS and Android, including Portuguese (both Brazil and Portugal), Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Greek, Thai and Chinese (traditional and simplified).
That’s it for this update, but PlayStation says it plans to bring variable refresh rate (VRR) support to the PlayStation 5 in the coming months. On HDMI 2.1-compatible TVs and PC monitors, VRR automatically changes the refresh rate of the connected display to match the console’s output. According to the PlayStation Blog post, VRR eliminates issues like screen tearing or frame rate pacing issues and results in crisper graphics and reduced input lag. You can also apply VRR to PS5 games that don’t support it, which could improve the video quality of some games.
When this feature gets closer to release, PlayStation says it will send out a list of all fully compatible games. It’s important to note that the update is currently causing connectivity issues for some players with a PS Plus subscription.
Finally, in the U.S and U.K., PlayStation is enabling a Voice Command preview that lets users open games, apps, settings and control media playback via voice (in English only). It’s unclear if this feature will eventually come to Canada.
PlayStation 4 owners can now receive a free three-month subscription to Apple TV+.
The offer is eligible to new subscribers and requires you to have a free PSN and Apple ID. If you meet those criteria, follow these steps to claim the subscription:
Download the Apple TV app onto your PS4 from the ‘TV and Video’ section
Open the app and follow the on-screen instructions
Sign in with your Apple ID (or create one, if needed)
An Apple TV+ subscription costs $5.99 CAD/month on its own, giving this offer a $17.97 value. Note that this is a separate promotion from the six-month Apple TV+ offer on PS5. That said, both offers can be redeemed until July 22nd, 2022.
Notable Apple TV+ originals include the Oscar-nominated drama films, Coda and The Tragedy of Macbeth, the drama series The Morning Show and the comedy series Ted Lasso and The Afterparty.
Every month, Sony offers a few PlayStation games at no additional cost to those subscribed to its PlayStation Plus service.
Now, the company has revealed the four games — one more than usual — landing on PS Plus in March.
To start, there are two PS5 games: the first-person action-platformer Ghostrunner and Ghost of Tsushima‘s standalone Legends multiplayer suite. The former will only be available for free via PS Plus on PS5, while the latter will be offered on both PS4 and PS5.
Meanwhile, the two PS4-only freebies are the racer Team Sonic Racing and MMO survival game Ark: Survival Evolved.
All four games will be available to download for free through PS Plus from March 1st to April 4th. February’s lineup remains free until February 28th — read more on that here.
A PlayStation Plus subscription costs $69.99/year in Canada.
