Apple and Microsoft are working on adding support for the Xbox Series X controller to Apple devices, according to an Apple Support page spotted by a Reddit user. MacRumors reports: The support page states that Apple devices only support the Xbox Wireless Controller with Bluetooth, Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, Xbox Adaptive Controller, PlayStation DualShock 4 Wireless Controller, and various other MFi Bluetooth controllers. However, small print on the page states: "Microsoft and Apple are working together to bring compatibility for the Xbox Series X controller to customers in a future update." There is no mention of the Sony PlayStation 5 DualSense Controller or the Amazon Luna Controller on the Apple Support page, but MacRumors has spotted code mentioning the controllers in the iOS and iPadOS 14.3 betas.

Sales of Sony and Microsoft's new gaming consoles fell short of their predecessors during their first week in Japan, suggesting persistent supply bottlenecks will hamper the debut of two of this holiday season's most hotly anticipated gadgets. From a report: Sony sold 118,085 PlayStation 5 consoles from its debut on Nov. 12 to Nov. 15, roughly a third of the PS4's performance over launch weekend, Famitsu estimated. Microsoft tallied 20,534 units of its Xbox Series X and S during the six days from its start on Nov. 10, also shy of the 23,562 that the Xbox One managed during its first few days, the research house said. The estimates provided a first glimpse at sales of the new Xbox and PlayStation, two devices that should dominate wishlists this Christmas. Japan was among the first markets globally to get the consoles and is considered a key battleground between two companies vying to establish a lead in next-generation gaming and drive longer-term growth. Factory and logistical disruptions during the pandemic have hurt manufacturers' ability to keep up. The outcome is likely more reflective of the available supply than demand for the consoles, as both companies saw their machines sell out on day one, said Serkan Toto, an industry consultant in Tokyo.

Sony confirmed today that the existing PS4 will soon let you access your other PlayStation consoles remotely, including the PS5: "We're updating PS4's Remote Play feature. Now, in addition to being able to access your PS4 from a PC or a mobile device, your PS4 can access other consoles via Remote Play too, right on your TV. This includes the ability to connect to your PS5 and stream a PS5 game to your PS4 so you can play it there." The Verge reports: VGC and Eurogamer reported today that a "PS5 Remote Play" app has already popped up on the PS4, offering up to a 1080p stream from your new console to your existing one. Perhaps you'll hook up your PS4 to the bedroom TV -- or the living room if you keep your primary console in the den? You don't necessarily need a PS4 to stream a PS5 to another room of your house, though, since the PS Remote Play app is getting updated on other platforms as well. The Windows version not only adds PS5 support at 1080p but also HDR. Sony's PS Remote Play apps for Android and iOS have been updated for the PS5, and we'd be surprised if the Mac version wasn't ready as well.

tlhIngan writes: Many years ago, Kojima Productions produced P.T., a "playable teaser" (rumored meaning to P.T.) for a now-cancelled Silent Hill survival-horror reboot. This was a popular teaser but when Kojima and Konami parted ways, it was swiftly removed from the Sony PlayStation Store. People who downloaded the trailer could still re-download it for a period but that was swiftly removed, leading to PS4s preloaded with the game spiking in price. Since the PS5 offers backwards compatibility, reviewers did test the PS5 playing back P.T. to find it still worked. However, this was short lived, as Sony removed the trailer from working in backwards compatible mode, as well as removing the ability to transfer the game to the PS5. Sony's response to the removal was "it was a publisher decision" to remove it from the backwards compatibility list.

Sony says its PlayStation 5 can load virtual worlds far faster than ever before, thanks to one of the fastest solid-state drives ever made -- but it's also not a particularly big drive. Sony has confirmed to The Verge that you won't be able to expand that blazing-fast SSD storage on day one. From a report: While the PS5 features a dedicated internal slot that can theoretically fit standard stick-shaped M.2 SSDs and an easy way to access it, the slot will apparently be disabled out of the box. "[T]his is reserved for a future update," Sony tells The Verge.

A peripheral company selling custom PS5 faceplates has been forced to cancel all its orders and pull the products from sale, following reported legal action from Sony. From a report: PlateStation5.com had already been forced to rebrand to CustomizeMyPlates.com following a complaint from Sony earlier this week, but now the seller claims that subsequent threats to go to court over the custom faceplates have forced it to stop selling the product entirely. "Before we launched, we did our due diligence and were of the opinion, that because Sony only had pending patents on the faceplates there would be no problem," CustomizeMyPlates told VGC via e-mail. "But after only a day of our website being live, Sony's lawyers asked us to change our name (at the time PlateStation5), due to trademark infringements. We thought this switch would be enough to keep everyone happy, and honestly were hoping so since we were already underway with our product development. "But then Sony's lawyers told us it was their opinion, Sony's intellectual property extended to the faceplates, and that if we continued to sell and distribute them in any country, we would end up in court." It added: "This all came to light yesterday and we are now cancelling and refunding all faceplate orders worldwide... we are extremely disappointed about this but we have no other option."

Sony PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan says virtual reality won't be a meaningful part of interactive entertainment in the near future. The Verge reports: Ryan indicated to The Washington Post that VR still has a long way to go, although he emphasized that Sony isn't giving up on the medium. The statement suggests that an update to Sony's PlayStation VR headset is years away.

"I think we're more than a few minutes from the future of VR," Ryan told the Post. "PlayStation believes in VR. Sony believes in VR, and we definitely believe at some point in the future, VR will represent a meaningful component of interactive entertainment. Will it be this year? No. Will it be next year? No. But will it come at some stage? We believe that." He notes that the upcoming PlayStation 5, which will be released November 12th, supports the old PlayStation VR headset with a special adapter.

Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X haven't hit stores yet, but the video game console showdown has already begun in the online black market. From a report: Demand for the PlayStation 5 on resale websites is outstripping that of the new Xbox, and shoppers are paying more to get their hands on the first run of products, market research shows. The vibrant market for scalpers offers a preview of next month's contest when the two rival game companies will release their new consoles to a global audience with a seemingly endless appetite for home entertainment. In the U.S., consumer spending on video game hardware, content and accessories is at record highs. The pandemic triggered a surge in players and engagement through the spring and summer months, at times depleting inventory of the current generation of consoles, according to research firm NPD Group. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X, the first major console releases from Sony and Microsoft in seven years, are among the most highly anticipated gadgets of the holiday season. Spending on games over the holidays is expected to jump 24% from last year. "Units will be tough to find," wrote Mat Piscatella, an analyst at NPD.

Poland's biggest computer game maker has delayed the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 for a third time, as it seeks to ensure the compatibility of its awaited product for current and next-generation consoles. From a report: CD Projekt SA has set a new release date on Dec. 10, and won't be able to keep its earlier scheduled premiere on Nov. 19, the studio said in regulatory filing on Tuesday. The management said it had "undercalculated" the time needed to complete the game since the title passed certification earlier this month. "First and foremost, please accept our humble apologies," Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Marcin Iwinski and CD Projekt RED studio's head Adam Badowski said on Twitter. "We feel we have an amazing game on our hands and we are willing to make every decision, ever the hardest ones, if it ultimately leads to you getting a video game you'll fall in love with." [...] The new date for launch of Cyberpunk, a role playing game set in dystopian urban environment, is scheduled weeks after planned launch of Microsoft Xbox Series X and Sony Playstation 5 consoles. It will also be behind many other gaming premieres planned in November as developers hope that gamers' propensity to spend will increase together with the first deliveries of new gaming equipment.

In an interview with Kotaku, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that Microsoft doesn't need to ship future Bethesda games on PlayStation in order to recoup the $7.5 billion it spent acquiring Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax Media, last month. Spencer also explained that the deal wasn't specifically signed to take games away from the platform. Pure Xbox reports: "This deal was not done to take games away from another player base like that. Nowhere in the documentation that we put together was: 'How do we keep other players from playing these games?' We want more people to be able to play games, not fewer people to be able to go play games. But I'll also say in the model -- I'm just answering directly the question that you had -- when I think about where people are going to be playing and the number of devices that we had, and we have xCloud and PC and Game Pass and our console base, I don't have to go ship those games on any other platform other than the platforms that we support in order to kind of make the deal work for us. Whatever that means."

Previously, Spencer noted to Yahoo Finance that the Xbox community should feel the Bethesda acquisition is a "huge investment in the experiences they are going to have in the Xbox ecosystem," and he wants that ecosystem to "absolutely be the best place to play, and we think game availability is absolutely part of that." However, the Xbox boss has also confirmed that decisions on whether games will be exclusive to Xbox will ultimately be made on a "case-by-case basis", so it might still be a while before we know more.

GameStop jumped as much as 27% after a strategic partnership with Microsoft gave investors fresh optimism that the video-game retailer can turn around its business. From a report: Under a multiyear agreement, GameStop will use Microsoft's cloud services to handle business operations, including finance, inventory and e-commerce, according to a statement Thursday. In-store workers also will use Microsoft Surface devices while they're helping customers. And GameStop will offer Xbox All Access, a monthly service for the Xbox gaming console. GameStop is expected to get a surge in sales when new video-game consoles arrive in coming weeks, and the Microsoft partnership could help them extend the momentum. A new Xbox and Sony PlayStation are debuting next month, which should drive traffic to GameStop's stores and e-commerce site.

Sony's recently-released PS5 teardown video gives us a closer look at the PS5, and confirms that the speed of the console's Wi-Fi antenna and USB ports are faster than those available in the Xbox Series X. GamesRadar+ reports: As spotted by VG247, the teardown confirms a few new hardware details about PS5. For starters, we know the console's Wi-Fi antenna supports the new Wi-Fi 6 standard, which allows for a new maximum speed of 9.6 Gbps -- more than twice the 3.5 Gbps ceiling for Wi-Fi 5. This doesn't mean your PS5 will be able to use all of that to send your download speeds through the roof. The practical benefit is that Wi-Fi 6 routers can better distribute all that speed to a bunch of devices at once, and to maintain their performance over time. So if you have a Wi-Fi 6 router and a home full of connected devices, there's a good chance you will notice the improvement. For reference, the Xbox Series X Wi-Fi antenna supports Wi-Fi 5.

As for the USB ports, we already knew that PS5 has a USB-C port and a USB-A port on the front. The teardown video confirms the type-C port will support 10Gbps transfer speeds, and it confirms that the two USB-A ports on the back will as well. The type-A port on the front isn't as quick, so if you plan to plug in an external PS5 SSD make sure you use one of the ports on the back. Xbox Series X doesn't include any type-C ports, and all of its type-A ports run at the standard 5gbps speed. If you know that fast connection speeds will make a big difference to your play experience, you may want to lean toward PS5 -- but as always, the biggest deciding factor should be what games you want to play and how well each console plays them. The Verge also notes the PS5 includes removable sides, dust catchers, and storage expansion.

On Friday America's Department of Justice announced: Two leaders of one of the world's most notorious videogame piracy groups, Team Xecuter, have been arrested and are in custody facing charges filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle... The indictment alleges the defendants were leaders of a criminal enterprise that developed and sold illegal devices that hacked popular videogame consoles so they could be used to play unauthorized, or pirated, copies of videogames. The enterprise targeted popular consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition, the Sony PlayStation Classic, and the Microsoft Xbox.

"These defendants were allegedly leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of U.S. companies," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "These arrests show that the department will hold accountable hackers who seek to commandeer and exploit the intellectual property of American companies for financial gain, no matter where they may be located."

"These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers — even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games," said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington. "This conduct doesn't just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry."

"Theft of intellectual property hurts U.S. industry, game developers and exploits legitimate gaming customers, all of which threaten the legitimacy of the commercial video game industry," said Acting Special Agent in Charge Eben Roberts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, Seattle. "We are committed to working with our international partners to find criminals like these who steal copyrighted material and bring cyber criminals to justice...."

According to the indictment, Team Xecuter at times cloaked its illegal activity with a purported desire to support gaming enthusiasts who wanted to design their own videogames for noncommercial use. However, the overwhelming demand and use for the enterprise's devices was to play pirated videogames.

In a Wednesday interview, Sony Interactive Entertainment chief Jim Ryan confirmed that the upcoming PlayStation 5 console won't natively support PS1, PS2, or PS3 games. Ars Technica reports: Ryan explained that "PS5-specific engineering" meant the design team was mostly focused on "the simultaneous use of high-speed SSDs and the new DualSense controller." This prevented Sony from delivering compatibility with older consoles, Ryan told Famitsu, even though he made clear that Sony wanted to support PlayStation 4's "100 million players" by developing compatibility with "99%" of PS4 games, since "we thought that they would like to play PS4 titles on the PS5, as well."

This announcement doesn't clarify whether PS1 games purchased for use on PS4 will transfer to PS5. It also doesn't mention the existing ability for players to stream older-generation games to PS4 from the PlayStation Now cloud-subscription service or whether we should expect that functionality to seamlessly transfer to PS5 in November. [...] Wednesday's dump of PlayStation 5 news did not go into further detail about additional boosts to PS4 games as played on the upcoming console. Instead, we learned that some major PlayStation 5 games, particularly Horizon: Forbidden West and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, will launch simultaneously on PS5 and PS4. This appears to run somewhat counter to Sony's recent comments about maintaining "generations" instead of supporting an Xbox-style "forward-compatible" plan for its biggest games.

The PlayStation 5 will cost $499 for the standard version of Sony's next-gen console and $399 for the PS5 Digital Edition -- the system without an optical disc drive -- when it launches Nov. 12, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced Wednesday during its PlayStation 5 Showcase livestream. From a report: The Nov. 12 release date is for the consoles' launches in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. They'll become available on Nov. 19 for the rest of the world, Sony said. Sony's PS5 price announcement follows similar news from Microsoft, which announced the release date of its $499 Xbox Series X and $299 Xbox Series S earlier in September.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The latest quarterly earnings report from GameStop doesn't show much sign of a turnaround for the long-troubled game retailer. Sales were down 26.7 percent year over year for the April through June quarter. Even accounting for permanent store closures and COVID-related reduced operating hours, so-called comparable "same-store" sales were still down 12.7 percent year over year. GameStop's already depressed stock is down nearly 8 percent on the news, as of this writing. GameStop still publicly sees an "opportunity to capitalize" on the upcoming release of new Sony and Microsoft consoles, which could help turn its business around in the short term. But there's some reason to believe the coming generation of consoles could actually make GameStop's long-term prospects worse, thanks to console options that get rid of disc drives entirely.

In an earnings call, GameStop CEO George Sherman acknowledged that "there has been growth in digitally downloaded games" and said GameStop is "not debating the growth of digital gaming." But he also tried to put a positive spin on the fate of GameStop's physical game sales going into the next generation of consoles. "First, new consoles have a disc drive," Sherman said. "So for the next seven years, the consoles will play both the physical and digital software that we sell." That's only partially true, though. Both the Xbox Series S and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition actually won't have a disc drive. And while GameStop does sell some digital software, the bulk of its business comes from the sale of new physical games and high-margin pre-owned games. We don't know what percentage of consumers will opt for these disc-free consoles, of course. Still, lower hardware costs could definitely make discless consoles an attractive option to many potential customers this generation. The Xbox Series S is $200 cheaper than the more-powerful, disc-drive-equipped Series X, a sum that could go toward a lot of digital game purchases...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Horizon: Zero Dawn probably won't be the last former PlayStation exclusive to make the jump to PC. In its 2020 corporate report published late last week, Sony says that it "will explore expanding our 1st party titles to the PC platform, in order to promote further growth in our profitability." The "explore" wording there is a little bit couched, suggesting that Sony still hasn't completely made up its mind on the specifics of further PC game publishing. And the report doesn't go into detail on which games, if any, Sony considers ripe for porting. And even if Sony does continue publishing on PC, we shouldn't necessarily expect major PlayStation titles to hit Steam on the same day as the coming PS5. In Horizon's case, Sony waited a full 1,256 days between the game's February, 2017 launch on PS4 and its PC launch earlier this month.

All that said, explicitly mentioning the potential for PC ports in its annual report is the latest sign that Sony continues to slowly loosen its tight, walled-garden approach to game hardware and software. [...] It all speaks to a company that's more aware that "competition from online PC games and players from other industries is expected to continue to intensify," as it says in its annual report. Even as Sony pushes hard for the exclusive "speed, haptics, and sound" improvements of the upcoming PlayStation 5 this year, it is hedging its bets somewhat with support for non-Sony hardware as well.

Oakland's nonprofit "Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment" housed 40,000 historic pieces of videogame memorabilia — including 11,000 playable games. In 2017 they were the ones urging America's copyright office to allow museums and libraries to circumvent DRM to preserve abandoned online games like FIFA World Cup, Nascar and The Sims. The museum's sponsors include GitHub, Google, PlayStation, and Dolby Digital.

But now the MADE is "set to close its doors, with uncertainty ahead about whether it'll ever be able to reopen," reports GamesIndustry.biz: Founder and director Alex Handy said in an interview with GamesBeat that the group managing the museum couldn't reach an agreement on rent for the place during the COVID-19 crisis... 80% of its budget comes from admissions, its website says, and since it's been closed since March due to the pandemic, it's now forced to shut down and move its collections to storage.

Storage will be paid for thanks to donations — still open on this page and will also go towards eventually finding a new space for the museum. "The current plan is to stay in storage for two years while we raise the funds and make plans to create our dream video game museum," the museum's website reads. "When we're ready, we will be back and better than ever, mark our words."

"Cloudflare, an internet service that is supposed to keep websites up and running, was down itself Sunday, taking dozens of websites and online services along with it," reports CNN: Hulu, the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, Feedly, Discord, and dozens of other services reported connectivity problems Sunday morning. Cloudflare said the problem was with a third-party "transit provider," and its service was becoming increasingly stable over the course of the day... CenturyLink, formerly known as Level 3, confirmed there was an IP outage impacting Content Delivery Networks (CDN), and that all services had been restored as of 11:15 AM ET... DownDetector, which displays reports of internet and service outages, showed that reports of internet connectivity came in across the United States and Europe Sunday morning.
Anyone experiencing any connectivity issues this morning?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ever since the hype campaigns began for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, we've gotten apparent teases of real-time next-gen gameplay, enough to convince us that these systems are adequately powerful. But the full-blown execution of what "only on PlayStation 5" can look like finally crystallized for the first time on Thursday. It came in the form of six uninterrupted minutes of live gameplay from Insomniac Games' Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which will debut on the PS5 during the console's "launch window," we learned today. Sony couldn't have rolled out a better, more convincing sense of what top-to-bottom next-gen gaming architecture can deliver than this shiny, explosive, SSD-powered sequence -- and so far, it's more stunning than anything we've seen from Xbox Series X-exclusive fare.