Future of PlayStation Beyond the Living Room

Hello and welcome back to NPC that stands for N next Portable Console. It's a show about the games we take with us andlike other companies, we're still making discs. I'm Federicoitichi and I'm joined as always by Brandon Bigley. Hello, We're making discs, we're making flash drives, we're making physical cartridges. Buddy, we got everything you want as long as it's physical Yes And we're also joined by John Bis. Hello John Hello, I'm really looking forward to an episode coming out on a Nintendo sixty four cartridge. I think that that's how I want to consume this show. I will say when I released my Metroid Fusion review last year Somebody took it and turned it into a Game Boy ROM. Oh I remember that. That you can actually like play and watch the review on your. Game Boy. Did you see that there's now a project that lets you watch YouTube videos on the Game Boy Car? Oh No I didn't see that. That's incredible. I saw it too. It It looks absolutely terrible I, of course. But you can actually search YouTube, pick videos and play them back. That's the way Christopher Nolan intended for these movies to be watched and again by color. YouTube clips of his movies on a Game byoy Cor. That's the way This is amazing Yes, I know right. I saw that fly by and I thought to myself, I cannot believe this is real, Here we are We have some follow up. First of all, we need to address the elephant in the room, which by the way We can talk about the elephant in the room later. There's part of another topic. Did we or did we not get the steam machine? John Well Last week I said I wasn't even going to sign up for the email list but I was peer pressured a little bit. I did I did sign up for the list and I did not get it and and I don't feel bad about it Okay, Brandom So I had signed up for the five twelve with controller configuration I did get an email that says I am officially in the reservation queue and I have not heard back since So that was how that was six days ago. I got the email saying I was in the queue and I still haven't received these. So I guess I'm still precipice of needing to make a decision How do we know how this is going to work? Like arere they gonna stage these emails over time? Is it all gonna to be all at onece? I suppose so because I mean, I sure am seeing people post that they've gotten theirs in the mail already. That's what I thought. Yeah. Soike if you go on the steam machine subreddit, it's just flooded with people who already have their units I when I sign up. And I got an email saying that I didn't make it Yeah I was not part of the reservation queue and they were saying, hey, but maybe somebody will cancel and if a spot freees up will Maybe you will be in a cebe or not. Wh knows? You signed up for two terabytes, so did I, I think, right? thought I was going to get it but no. So yeah, I wonder if like because we talked about this last week, that I thought was the right one to sign up for because it was the highest model, most expensive, the least amount of people would probably try to get that What is occurring to me literally right now in this moment is it's also so expensive to buy those parts. They probably don't have very many of that model in particular That's K of why I did it in part because well, I did it in part because I thought upgrading down the road might be more expensive than the three hundred dollars difference that they were charing. fair. If I didn't have a little bowl right here filled with micro SD cards that I could throw in the front I would probably do the same So no steam machines for any of us at the moment in the future Uh, John I think you have something to mention in the follow up? Yes. Well, you know, when we were at WWDC Federico, we ran into the crew from Delta, the iPhone and iPad emulator app and Right before we went to WWC, they announced something that's kind of cool. They worked with the eplog folks and you can actually plug your your up a log operator right into the bottom of your iPhone using a USBC cable and use those cartridges with Dlta And you might wonder why would you want to do that? Well, you might want to play on an iPad where I think that would probably be Best situation to do that, but it's also a way to see if if a cart is working, if you're buying one from a store or something like that. So that's I think it's a neat little feature that they've got. so I was glad to see that they werere working together on that. Does it work with both the Game Boy operator and the Superintendo operator? I assume it works with the Super Nintendo, but I don't know. I think the announcement I saw was before the Nintendo One was out, so definitely worked with a Game Boy operator I think there's something very interesting about I think yeah, I wrote that piece for Mackstories forever ago about the idea of using your iPad as like your console. And I think there's something very interesting about having literally like a cartridge slot built into that setup and saying like I could just plug a Chrono trigger cartridge in there and then be playing a game that That is very cool to me atttach it with magnets like Federico would do in the back of your iPad. And just you can do things, you know. You I've been told you could do things. Love to do things We have also another line in the follow up saying what does Brandon think of the RG fifty five D one Night I've been thinking about this for weeks now because this was announced when I wasn't here.. Y. same I think it's all kind of boiled down to one s, which is I appreciate Ambernick's constraint, not calling this the RG Switch light Pretty much. yeah. Be it just looks like a swwitch light which is great. It's probably my favorite form factor that Nintendo has had for the entire Switch library. And, you know, that device is not going to be able to play Nintendo Switch games that that well So shhout out for not calling it this RG switch Light But it's cool. I mean I'm glad to see Ambern kind of getting into the snapdragon world Yeah The finally Okay, so The main topic is going to be PlayStation on this week's episode for really three main reasons Something that they're doing with physical games media The PS three and the PlayStation Vita stores and a statement that they made about the future of PlayStation beyond the living room So let's start with the bad news and the reason why PlayStation is getting dunk by just everybody on Twitter and other places, including Nintendo itself, which is funny And They published a blog post saying that they're ending physical disc production in january twenty twenty eight And new games sold on PlayStation consoles will basically just be digital only. And that's including when you go to a retailer, you will be able to buy I guess a box, like a physical plastic box But inside there'll be there won't be disks anymore, starting in twenty twenty eight, just download codes get to get a digital game. over the internet Now We can talk about this, we can also talk about the fact that Sony had the brilliant idea of timing this announcement with another announcement, which is I would I would be so curious to learn exactly the kind of the kind of process. that Sony PR PlayStation PR thought of here because you time this announcement with another blog post on the PlayStation blog saying no, by the way. And it's titled an update on PlayStation store for PS three and PSVita. And when you see these blog posts by these companies saying an update on, it's never good news. No. So they're closing the PlayStation store for PSVita and PlayStation three and they're shutting them down in multiple phases. They're going to start with Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua in In two months, in August. Okay. And they're going to continue with additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries later this year. and then they're gonna to shutter them for good next year in july twenty twenty seven in the rest of the world. So US, Asia, North America, everywhere, Europe, everywhere. The process here is We announce that we're getting rid of physical media and also we announce The only source of digital games were're also shutting that down Obviously, the PS three and the PS Vita are no longer in production. they're not consoles that are being sold anymore But I think And we can talk about physical games media in general, but the thing is The problem is that even though they're not Coles you can just go out and buy as new devices on the shelf The PlaySition store is the only way to stilleal access games from your account on those consoles. So this means that If you have a PSVita from your childhood, And at some point in August twenty twenty seven You'll be like, hh, I wonder. What I add in my PSVita account, you will not be able to download those games anymore Well, I thought it was just they're closing the store. that the downloads are going to continue indefinitely, that they're only closing purchases is that confirmed Did I read that? Is that my wishful thinking you guys Previously Okay, so prev is the transition players with foreseeable future, foreseeable future. Yeah. that's a I mean Good news, bad news, right? Good new bad news. I looked at that because I immediately looked at that because when I moved I lost my Vita. I have no Vita, but I know I have a lot of Vita games stored in the, you know, Sonys store. And I wanted to know whether I should go out and buy used Vita right now just to make sure that everything's on there like I did when I, you know, when when Nintendo started shutting down the three D S store, I made sure everything was on microSD cards on actual hardware that I could use. So this This is just purchases for now Eventually though the whole thing is supposed to shut down Yeah. This is I On one hand I'm wondering if this is like a left hand isn't talking to the right hand of it all to have both of these announcements land on the same day Um But I think that's unlikely. I think I think both of these announcements for plan to go out today. and I would imagine a bunch of people Probably not. executive class within PlayStation PR were like, this is a horrible idea. and they all talked about internally. This is just my guess from working in a PR section of a very large company. A lot of people probably raised alarm bells saying, this is a horrible idea and they went through with it anyway, didid not space these out. I think you kind of can't space out the PS three and Vita stuff if it's going to start literally next month. like there's really nothing you can do there. I have a hunch that the reason they're announcing the end of the physical media thing now instead of closer to the twenty twenty eight date when they say they're actually stopping is just because They felt like they got social permission from Rockstar when they announced that Grand thatoto sixix is not going to have a physical version. I think that's a good point. Yeah. I think I think it's completely because of Grnd of Auto six that this announcement is being made now. It's worth mentioning also because Yeah, I've seen this coverage happening a lot in the video game space, but this has been an ongoing discussion in the physical media world for the past year ish because PlayStation, sorry, Sony specifically are the rights holders and the creators of Blu Ray also And they've been winding down blu ray production pretty consistently over the past like five or six years at this point culminated announcement, I think earlier this year saying that they're going to be stopping blue rate production. just like completely at a certain point within the next couple of years So Everyone in like Film physical media space. has been flipping out already about this And now it's hitting video games and it's, you know already I'mprised it hasn't hit music. It's amazing that you can go into a store and buy a CD still, thank God It just seems like it's kind of coming for everything And video games is just kind of the last piece of media to get wrapped up in all this. Yeah And Sony doesn't have a great reputation for this stuff either. They have been known to pull things from libraries that, you know, someone had purchased down, you know, years ago and it disappeared from their media libraries. That's happened in the past as well. I think a lot of people are sensitive to it when it comes to Sony in particular. You know The other thing I think about this announcement, especially the one that the physical media is going away in january twenty twenty eight is that kind of gives us the earliest time period for when a new console would come out because they're not going to put out a console before january twenty twenty eight with a physical drive in it So I suspect that says it's at least a wait until twenty twenty eight for that, which is not surprising. That's essentially what the rumors have been saying anyway. I I feel like I'm really ambivalent about phhysical games. Part of it is the fact that I'm that I can be a very nostalgic person Um who likes to reminisce about the times when When I was in middle school and in high school and I used to go to my trusted local video game shop Uh, you know, this deal, you know, the classic, you know Shout out the Turbo Shali Terbu the name is extra Ball That's the out extra ball, sh out aar. And And so there's the d nostalgic. compomponent Yeah. thenen I also think, well Aren't you fine with all the games that you download from Steam Aren't you okay with that? Like you already have a games library that is digital only on your PC And so what is it that that makes you feel a certain way about physical games on a console versus having digital games on. Right. And part of it, I guess is the appeal of the idea of the console more broadly. like the whole piture of the console was you don't need to assemble a PC and download games, you just buy the box. buy the cartridge, put the cartridge in, play video game. Like that was the page. And then things got more complicated over the past few decades with updates When I start when I started playing video games on Super Nintendo, there were no updates. likeike the game that you bought was the game that you got. There wasn't DLC or anything. There were no DLCs, no software updates, no no expansions, nothing And so things got more hybrid over the past two decades. And now we're reached the point where you buy a Nintendo Switch two and you get got a cartridge and the cartridge is actually like something that needs to be downloaded. from the e shop or or you buy GTA six later this year and you get a plastic box and inside the plastic box there are no five disks like I don't know, finance financy fifteen or something. You got a code and you got to go and download. So all you're left with is the plastic box, right And so On one level I think Well, it would be nice, especially for games preservation. to retain access to a physical artifact thirty years from now, you can just take out of a box and put it into a console and it lets you play a video game O the other on the other hand game the entire videoa game industry And now Sony is getting dunked on Twitter, but this is a problem for the entire industry. Video games have become so dependent on servers and updates and they become so computer adjacent that it's maybe impossible to go back to the time when you go to a store and you buy a Nintendo DS game and that game lasts you forever. M. That ended ten years ago Yeah, probably more So I'm with you I understand where this kind of back and forth feeling about it comes from because I I'm a person who basically exclusively buys games digital and has since the Basically since the option to buy digital, I've been buying gigally. My My reason for buying physical usually comes from Like basasically like saccharine or nostalgic reasons. it's always rooted in this game means a lot to me. so I have a copy of Ho Kight behind me You can't see it, but also behind me, I have every Dragon Quest game and also three copies of DragonQuest eleven. You know, like when I'm collecting games, it's because I feel A lot of emotion surrounding those games in particular, not buying them, you just to play them or just to collect them All of that having been said When you watch something like the PlayStation Vita store get shut down or the PS three store get shut down and it prevents people from accessing those games ever again. And I think you brought up a great point. like it erases a value proposition in some ways of a console as an idea to no longer be able to revisit those games. you know, if I took my Gameboy addvance off the shelf behind me and then put this copy of Warriorware twwisted in, I could play it right now. The idea that that's not going to be possible with the PlayStation Vita hypothetically in a couple months or basically from this point forward, any console that gets released will not have that experience ever again, you know, because Not only is PlayStation saying this and people are implying it about the PlayStation sixix, but Xbox has outright said that the helelix will not have a disk drive in it. That is all digital and it will be all digital U Nintendo is already obviously encroaching in this space with with the game key card idea, you know, saying like we have a physical piece of plastic you can buy and put in the thing, but that's like That's the last thing you're probably going to get. when whatever comes out after the Nintendo Switch comes out, like I'm sure that thing will be all digital And Sony's been trying this since the PlayStation Go era. You know the PSP Go in particular was the first time they tried to go all digital. And people revolted and then they changed their minds about it in following consoles. I just think the like march of time and technology will not allow people rising up against this idea to actually make a change this time around. I I think it's just going to happen this time and The last thing I'll say on that I just think it's important to note is like PlayStation is in such an unbelievable state of dominance right now in this space. like Xbox is such an afterthought and their image as a company and as a console manufacturer is so diminished because of everything that's happened. And everything that's happening right now, like we're waiting for them to hypothetically close down like four or five different studios that they've acquired. I just saw this morning that also obsidian Maybe one of them. Oh, really? Yeah know. And like also a bunch of these studios who just announced games at their Xbox showcase recently. right. You know, all those games are getting canceled etcera, et cetera It's just like it we're just in this scenario where like PlayStation doesn't have to be competitive And they can make a move like this and it won't affect them at all, really. Right Well, and because as you said, Brendon, they're doing this with blue rays and things too, you're kind of you get to like a critical tipping point where it no longer makes economic sense to manufacture the plastic. I mean, there they are accelerating that, but once you' reached that tipping point, it's only going to accelerate further because there are only so many companies that are actually making physical media to begin with Meanwhile, the Sony's CEO In an interview with Famitsu in Japan They were talking about the future of PlayStation consoles and they said they're looking at, you know, They mentioned that one of the most important qualities off a console is the pick upp and play experience we were just talking about. like the whole point of a console is that kind of abstracts. away the complexities that are typically involved with playing on PC and For the future, they're looking at leveraging technologies that can be used in various forms and locations. going beyond the living Stems to me It seems to me like plation is basically Uh Basically hinting at what was also previously reported by Bloomberg and a bunch of other publications that it looks like the PlayStation six family, it'll be a family of devices Ining a console like like a TV, you know, living room console, but also a handout component whether we're looking at a hybrid like the Nintendo Switch or a PSation six portable and a PSation six proro that goes into the living room, but those are two actually separate devices. It's not clear But it's what seems pretty obvious at this point is that Sony is saying, well We got toa go beyond the living room. We got to offer a handout Yeah. Carly clearly going beyond the living room with VR has not worked out. So what's next is a handle. is a return to form with a placation handle Which I mean, sign me up. I am not really into this. PlayStation generation. I was thinking about this a couple of days ago. It seems like historically speaking, I've always been to every other PlayStation generation I got really I never got into the PST got really into the PS four didn't really get into the PS five and things are looking up for the PS six. So maybe this is just my thing, everyvery other PlayStation generation, Im mean to You're an even number kind of kind of guy Oh you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. ye I don't know, what are we thinking here guys Look, I love the idea of a portable handheld from Sony. I think that's great. I was really bummed to see the Vita go away. I thought the Vita was fantastic, especially when they were focused on indie games and I was really bummed to see it go. It's going to be hard for them to restart from you know, square one on this stuff, but they've got time You know, they're going have to wait out all these shortages, so yeah, I think it'll be it has promise I think realistically, this will probably be PC handheld size, whatever it is So I don't think it's going to scratch that Vita itch for me personally. because again, I say this all the time. And it's in the name of our podcast, but Portability is important to me. and just because the thing is portable doesn't mean I'm going to take it out of my house So when you say, like I can go beyond the living room I guess it could go to my bedroom or the bathroom. Are the options? because it's not leaving my apartment.ty second beyond. It is beyond. They're not wrong about it. Whatould Id be interested in? It's worth grounding this in the rumor from Bloomberg, which stated that the PS six is actually going to be three devices. There's going be three SKUs a low end, high end and then handheld version of the PlayStation sixix, that'll all be called the PlayStation sixix, kind of similar to what Xbox did with the series S and X, but like throw throw the ROG AllI X in the mix hypothetically and then you have like what PlaySation is thinking for the PS six I'd be curious to see if they because of the part shortages and all that kind of stuff if they don't just go with smaller less capable model that's cheaper as an entry point into the generation. probably still ends up costing a thousand dollars And then also a handheld that has some kind of docking station. that does the thing everyone thought the switch two would do which is that it becomes more powerful when it's plugged into whatever that dock is. I think that that idea is the one that has been kind of floating around for long enough And it makes more sense for PlayStation to do it than Nintendo in my eyes Yeah, I think I think you're right. I also think Realistically, we will be looking at a thousand dollars handle for sure Yes. And I would also bet on a ten eighty p display and something that leverages And Again, this is going to be the new normal leverages AI based upscaling, AI based frame generation. four K. Yeah You know that's going to be the new normal when even Nintendo is doing it. So for sure. I mean and to be honest Sony has a pretty solid foundation, right? What's it called PSSR with with their ir R. Oh yeah What's it called spectral resolution? L That's actually pretty solid. Sbody get moreark excerny on the phone, he can explain it. Yeah I mean, I'm sure he'd love to just I'm sure he would love to actually. five minutes on PSS. Yeah. I'd love to hear it S. They have they have a really strong foundation, good partnership with AMD. So don I don't see why not at this point. Right They anou they announced that collaboration between the two of them. So that's going to happen. And then also, it's worth mentioning one of the big stories from this week as well was that there's rumors that the The cost of building the PlayStation six is upwards of a thousand dollars already Wow and I think in a world where all of these companies are simultaneously saying, like we're done taking losses on our hardware. Like that is behind us, that age is behind us I mean That's going to be an expensive, Wh which would also explain why you announnce that you're getting rid of physical games because making a console with this drive it's going to be more expensive too So that's true. And then also it oh yeah, wait Yeah all these compounding things, right? So then it also means that they're forcing you to be buying through their store that they're getting a cut of every sale on as well.. So they're not only making up for the lost revenue Yeah they're cutting costs and they're forcing you to pay them a tax on every game. down to. I think in a world where and this is the more depressing things the sorry to be bummer. but in a world where this hobby Like as video gaming becomes so expensive that it's really not a viable hobby for a lot of people to ever buy a new console again. Realistically, once they get into the thousand dollars and above range and even below that, but still like once we cross into four digits price you need to start if line must continue going up then you need to start making money everywhere you possibly can on every single customer. You need to increase I forget what that's called, but that you need to increase the amount of money that every customer is making for you to make up for all of the customers you will be losing because you're no longer cheaply available. The one thing I would mention before we move on is I am very curious to see if betweenween now And twenty twenty eight U There's going to be another revision to the Playsttation five We already have I'm sure everybody has forgotten about this. We already have a PlayStation five slim That it's not really a Paysttation five slim at all. Like it's it's not rememember the PayStation five slim? I kind of forgot about it. I don't remember that. Is that real? Are you kidding me? I didn't I did't hallucinate this, right There is a Pition five S slim. You're right. l There is a position five slim that is not really slim at all. They announced did you totally forgot about this one? Completely forgot about it sameame year. I was just thinking to myself, I hope they releaseed a PS five sllim. and they There is a PS five slim and it's not really slim. It's just shorter It's just shorter. it's not in the same design. It just is shorter than that. It probably a smaller motherboard in it or something. So so let me tell you. so my PS five history, I've had all the PS five models. I did PS five what kind of PS five of fat for historical reference. Then I moved to a slim and then I moved from a slim to a pro and then I sold all of them play the PS five slim is the least slim revision ever. Like it's It used to be like I remember my mind was blown when Sony did announce the PlayStation two slim Now the PS two slim was really slim. Yeah it was. It was like the size of the disk drive. It was like incredible Yeah And the PS five swim is such a letdown compared to that. So So it would be nice, especially since I bet that ever since the PS five came out There's been a lot of progress in Oh making components smaller more power efficient, cheaper Now obviously, the current situation of the supply chain for components is not great But it would be nice to actually have a PS five slim How about a slim pro That's well That's whatt' be, right? proro. It slimmer Remember the weei minini Yes. I was just thinking about the Wi minini. Yes. It's amazing that they made the Wii minini. That was an all digital device by the way. Yes. Yeah just driving that thing There was never a Ginkcube mini There was unfortunate So yeah. Sony is up to a bunch of things I am glad that. The PS five slim was not an hallucination of my own something that actually existed. But yeah What are we gonna talk about in NPC EXcel a couple of things. Ambernick updated the RG Rotate. Yes with some stuff that we were hoping for. I think John's got something for us.ight do. I do about the game porting toolcast. Gaming on the Mac again. so Yeah. Everybody's favorite topic. And we're gonna talk about RG Rotate again I'd also like to talk about the pocket micro too in Excel real quick. Yeah, I was going to say, I wanted to talk about that want to talk That's really bad. That's a weird story. All right, we'll save the bad news for Excel. John wecome. Yeah, let's wrap up all this good news. wp up this very positive episode of NPC. U Where can people find us and the show notes and everything that we do? Oh boy, all sorts of places. Brendon's over at wavelengths. online and overworld.vg and of course his other podcasts into the Aher and so on and so forth. Then there's us Me and Feder Rico at macstories. net App Stories, another podcast about apps and Apple stuff And of course you can find all three of us on social media. just search for our names. You'll find us all over the place Tal talk to you next week guys. See you bye. Byee