Sony Allegedly Pausing PSVR2 Production Due to Surplus of Unsold Stock | Push Square

After Sony forced one-man developer Lilith Walther to rebrand their PC kart racer inspired by Bloodborne, the game has reappeared as Nightmare Kart. A new trailer can be viewed above, which confirms the title will release on PC platforms like Steam and Itch.io for free on 31st May 2024.

Sony likes to put on major State of Play livestreams and host its PlayStation Showcase during the month of May, and it appears the company is gearing up to do so once again in 2024. Giant Bomb journalist Jeff Grubb reports he's heard «a bunch of times» from sources that Sony is planning an event for May, and it sounds more like another big PlayStation Showcase rather than a more subdued State of Play.

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.

Sony and developer Shift Up have confirmed that a playable demo for Stellar Blade will launch later this week, on Friday the 29th March. Of course, we all knew this was coming — the demo was actually released several weeks early, by mistake, on the PS Store. Sony pulled it offline as quickly as it could, but not before a bunch of people played through it.

A future PS5 update has been revealed, in which the 'Game Help' section of the system's interface will be significantly expanded upon. The new 'Community Game Help' is exactly what it sounds like: players will be able to reference gameplay clips from other users when they're stuck on a certain in-game objectives, challenges, or Trophies.

There have been two big stories on the ground at GDC this year: Xbox’s flatlining brand and the purpose of the PS5 Pro. Speaking as part of a podcast, GamesIndustry.biz’s well-connected reporter Christopher Dring noted that he didn’t meet a “single person” at the show that understood the point of Sony’s mid-gen upgrade, which is rumoured to release later this year.

The all-but-official PS5 Pro has been a prominent talking point over the last couple of weeks, especially with leaked specifications and the like only adding fuel to the fire. But from our perspective, it's starting to seem like Sony has a fairly hard sell on its hands — even if the mid-gen upgrade ends up being aimed squarely at hardcore PlayStation fans.

Sony first-party developer Bend Studios is staffing up for another «AAA live service» game, and it seems that PlayStation will continue to chase the live service dragon. When we last heard from the Oregan-based developer of Days Gone, Bend said it was still «cooking» and, if nothing else, seemed confident whatever they were working on would take the studio to the next level.

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.

Today marks the end of Jim Ryan's 30-year tenure at Sony Interactive Entertainment. Having climbed the ladder of the company all the way to the top, his five-year stint as CEO has now drawn to a close, with Hiroki Totoki temporarily taking over until a permanent replacement is found. Speaking on the latest Official PlayStation Podcast, Ryan has one last interview, in which he comments on the platform's evolution, his career, and his thoughts on the PS3 boomerang controller. It's worth a listen.

There’s an argument that the novelty of Sony’s delayed single player PC ports has worn off, but Horizon Forbidden West is bucking that trend. The open world sequel, converted by Nixxes, has opened to a respectable peak of 35,168 concurrent users on Steam, making it the sixth biggest PS Studios launch on the platform to date – just a hair behind The Last of Us: Part 1. There’s a good chance it’ll overtake the Naughty Dog remake later in the weekend.

Although it's yet to be officially announced, we all know that the PS5 Pro is real, and it's likely dropping later this year. A mid-gen upgrade on the PS5, Sony will probably position the refreshed console as another premium product — something that it's been doing throughout the generation so far, with stuff like PS Portal and the DualSense Edge.