Sony Aggrieves Anime Fans by Erasing Digital Funimation Content in Crunchyroll Merger | Push Square

Another day, another videogame company jettisoning a large number of people "who have contributed to our success" so as to position themselves for growth in the face of "challenging times". Today it's Sony's turn with the axe: the PlayStation publisher have announced plans to reduce their global workforce by about 8% or 900 people, so as "to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead", in the words of outgoing president and CEO Jim Ryan.

Tomorrow marks Bravely Default 2's third anniversary, and Tomoya Asano has the best gift of all for fans: a tease that the team will be able to tell us more about what's happening with the franchise «later this year».

PlayStation VR often gets overlooked in conversations about mixed reality. These days, it seems all anyone wants to talk about is Apple Vision Pro versus Meta Quest. But Sony has been an enduring presence in VR for years now, throughout the industry’s various ups and downs (mostly downs, if we’re being honest here).

Total worldwide shipments and digital sales for NieR: Automata have exceeded eight million units, Square Enix announced.

Capcom loves a good pre-release demo, and fans think they have found evidence of one for Dragon's Dogma 2 ahead of its PS5 launch next month. An update to the PC version on Steam apparently now brings up an extra app that's listed as «free on demand»; this is supposedly the text associated with demos uploaded to the digital marketplace. Due to that, a Dragon's Dogma 2 demo is thought to be on the way, presumably for all platforms.

Bandai Namco has revealed that it cancelled at least five in-development games, and will change its internal development structure moving forward. Stricter rules will make it more difficult for future games to proceed past specific development milestones, as increasing costs make games even more expensive, risky propositions.

Upcoming PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade has been given an adults-only rating in Korea, where developer Shift Up is located. Considering the attention-grabbing headlines the game has been generating, it should come as no surprise this is due to apparent (or suggested) nudity and extreme violence.

As reported earlier today, Sony shipped 8.2 million PS5 consoles during the three-month period ending 31st December, 2023 – a very good number which contributed to record-breaking revenue, but not enough to help it reach its forecast of 25 million units for the current financial year. Thus far, it’s sold 16.4 million units, and subsequently it’s revised its forecast down to 21 million.

Console sales are crucial, and Sony will be pleased it’s shipped almost 55 million PS5s to date – but monthly active users are also an important metric for organisations these days. Platform holders want customers to be logging in often, because when they’re engaged, there’s a good chance they’ll spend money on software and add-ons through the PS Store.

Sony’s continuing to bring a hearty helping of emulated classics to PS5 and PS4 courtesy of its PS Plus Premium subscription, and alongside Resistance Retribution, it’ll be adding Jet Moto 2 from 20th February. The original game in the SingleTrac series is already available on the Japanese giant’s contemporary consoles, but this sequel is much more ambitious, with zanier course designs including an active volcano and a dilapidated American city.

Yesterday, we brought you word of a brewing controversy surrounding the upcoming PS5 action game Rise of the Ronin after director Fumuhiko Yasuda made some comments alluding to a controversial 19th-century Japanese philosopher. It was supposed that these comments were why Sony confirmed the game would not be released in Korea, but now Sony says it never planned on selling the game in one of the world's most lucrative markets in the first place.

NIS America will publish the latest game in the Ys series, Ys X: Nordics, this autumn / fall in the west. The action RPG originally launched last September in Japan, and a localisation announcement has been on the cards ever since.