PS Portal Is Proving Everyone's Predictions Wrong | Push Square

In February, we brought you word of a group of Google engineers who, apparently just for fun, managed to hack Sony's streaming PS Portal to run emulated PSP games offline. Being courageous White Hat types, the group «responsibly reported» the issues to Sony. The exploit was quietly fixed in patch 2.0.6, which also seems to have improved video quality significantly, despite neither being listed in the patch notes.

No Man's Sky has become synonymous with ambitious developer overreach, a cautionary tale of what can happen when publishers do nothing to reign in out-of-control hype. When the game was released in 2016 and failed to meet sky-high expectations set in no small part by Hello Games director Sean Murray himself, fan backlash was the stuff of legends. But ever since, the developer has set about making amends.

PS Portal owners may have noted that system update 2.0.6 is now available, requiring the usual restart rigamarole. The patch notes for the update are incredibly sparse but potentially quite profound, reading simply: «We've improved system software performance and stability.» In the hours since, players have been reporting a drastic increase in video quality.

Sony president Hiroki Totoki will today step into his new role as PlayStation CEO following Jim Ryan's retirement after a more than 30-year tenure at the company. While retaining his duties across the wider business, Totoki's main objective will be to aid the search for a true successor to Jim Ryan while defining «the next chapter of PlayStation's future».

The back half of March was a big one for new video game released, with the likes of Dragon’s Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, Princess Peach: Showtime!, and Alone in the Dark all hitting store shelves around the same time. Alongside those new titles, however, Sony also released the PC port of Horizon Forbidden West, which has got off to an impressive start on the platform.

There's been a lot of chatter about this Stellar Blade demo recently. First, it was released accidentally, and although Sony took it back down pretty quickly, it wasn't fast enough to stop a few people playing and sharing footage online. So, we knew a demo was coming, and it wasn't much later that we got official confirmation. Now, the time has come: it's available to download and play right now on PS5. Those in the US can click here, and it's here for UK readers.

Sony's first-party Santa Monica Studio is currently working on a new PS5 game, that much is known, having wrapped development on God of War Ragnarok with the release of the essential Valhalla DLC. If we had to bet, it will be quite some time before we hear anything more concrete, but one thing's for sure: whatever they are up to, creative director Cory Barlog seems incredibly excited about it.

A US judge has ruled that Sony did not infringe on another company's patented technology with its PlayStation hardware, specifically in regard to how consoles and controllers communicate.

We really liked Dragon’s Dogma 2 in our review, describing it as the “apex of RPG adventuring”. But it appears the enthusiasm has not quite infected everyone yet, as the title’s community is surprisingly divided right now. Obviously, performance issues and those launch day microtransactions aren’t exactly aiding the discourse, but for some eager fans, the issues run deeper.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is an amazing open world RPG — we've said as much numerous times in our Dragon's Dogma 2 PS5 review. But there's also no getting around just how unoptimized the title is on a technical level. As stressed in our aforementioned review, the game's frame rate can be a problem. Most of the time, it's found hovering between 30 and 45 frames-per-second, which is fine, but it's certainly not the consistent 60fps that you want from a game that's so heavy on action.

Rise of the Ronin, the latest tentpole PS5 console exclusive from legendary Japanese developer Team Ninja, has been subject to a colossal marketing push in Asia, where posters and billboards have been spotted around cities such as Taipei for several weeks now. That’s all culminated in an Edo period art exhibition in Huashan 1914 Creative Park – coincidentally, the former home of a Japanese sake manufacturer– where Sony has installed several 19th-century props inspired by the game.

Open world historical epic Rise of the Ronin releases today, and we can't wait to explore 19th century Japan as a ronin – a samurai with no master. And it's from Team Ninja (Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, and Nioh) so our hopes are high.