Sacred Symbols: A PlayStation Podcast

Recent (still unsubstantiated) rumors indicate Sony may be considering a full shutdown of its digital stores for PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, and -- perhaps most tragically -- PlayStation Vita. While we don't yet know what Sony's plans are (if any!), such a possibility raises a lot of interesting philosophical and practical questions, particularly this one: Who's watching out for the digit...

Interesting news emerged in recent days: Sony is funding the creation of a new second party studio in Canada, and it'll be working on a brand new IP for PlayStation. But it's who's leading the team -- Jade Raymond -- that has people excited. But should that excitement be replaced with skepticism? Raymond hasn't released a game in years, and it's uncommon (as in, it virtually never happens) that an...

The deed is done: Microsoft has officially purchased Bethesda. What's that mean for PlayStation gamers? Well, it doesn't seem good, at least if you care about many of that label's products coming to PlayStation 5 outside of Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo. But between the lines are still myriad topics ripe for discussion, like Phil Spencer's years-long lack of categorical, definitive statements, Mic...

There's little doubt Sony is near (or perhaps even at) the front of the race for mass-consumer virtual reality, and it's done a pretty nice job of putting its money where its mouth is. But with PSVR2 tacitly acknowledged and PSVR itself more than four years old, things are starting to slow down a little bit. Or are they? Out of left field, Sony has announced six new PlayStation VR games -- not PSV...

The PlayStation world is in absolute overdrive right now, at least on the news front (not so much on the games front). Such is typically the case when a new State of Play stream occurs. The new one gave us some interesting items to consider -- fresh looks at Returnal and Deathloop, for instance -- but learning about Final Fantasy VII Remake's PlayStation 5-exclusive DLC definitely takes the cake....

Who knew that we'd talk about Six Days in Fallujah for two weeks in a row some 12 years after the original iteration of the contentious game was cancelled. Yet, it's all our sphere wants to talk about, as the FPS revival of Six Days is drawing the ire of predictable industry-types. The question, though, is simple: When does criticism of a game stop being about the game itself, and start being abou...

After a slow start to 2021, news has finally arrived via a rather compelling trio of items germane to our show. For starters, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart finally has a release date on PlayStation 5, while HBO's planned The Last of Us series casts both its Joel and Ellie. We chat about both in great detail. But perhaps the most intriguing piece of news comes in the form of Six Days in Fallujah. Yes...

Sony is thriving. The Japanese mega-company released its quarterly financial results showing a healthy, growing, and forward-thinking organization that's doing a lot right. Especially when it comes to PlayStation. Yet, buried in their financials and accompanying phone calls and interviews is some bad news: PS5 is being sold at a loss, for starters, and worse yet, it doesn't appear Sony is confiden...

All anyone wants to talk about is the recent GameStop stock market fiasco. Well, fine! We'll do just that. Let's chat about capitalism, "the market," class, and much more, sifting down into the actual nitty-gritty: How did a dying brick-and-mortar video game store find itself at the center of one of the most memorable global financial stories in recent history? But there's other news, too, of cour...

If we're being totally honest, Capcom's recent Resident Evil Village event was largely a waste of time, considering we could have just watched gameplay and gotten a release date without the false promise of an "event." But it was awesome to more thoroughly see the newest entry in the company's long-running survival horror franchise, and we simply cannot wait to play it. Yet, with RE8 now coming to...

When Electronic Arts signed a 10-year exclusive development and publishing deal with Disney for the Star Wars license, it had the potential to be something huge for the lucrative (but oft-under siege) companies. Eight years later, though, it's clear both sides (and EA in particular) have largely squandered the deal, with a couple of Battlefronts, a Rogue Squadron revival, and an admittedly very pr...

For some peculiar reason, Sony simply refuses to officially announce how many PlayStation 5 consoles have been sold, which leaves us only one choice: We've gotta speculate. Really, we can actually do a little bit better than that -- reliable inside sources note PS5 is a meteoric success -- but we're left to wonder why Sony won't say anything itself. Say something, why don't you?! Plus: Cyberpunk 2...

Thank the maker: 2020 is behind us! Now, 2021 sprawls before us with 12 promising months of gaming goodness on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation VR, and even Vita! (Okay, probably not the Vita.) To celebrate the exciting and unknown, we thought we'd do a special show dedicated entirely to the 2021 catalog of games coming to PlayStation that we simply can't wait to get our hands on. We pres...

For every last one of us, 2020 was an absolutely insane year. And, yes: We're all very, very worn down by it all and happy to wave it goodbye. But this unusual 365 day period also gave us a lot to be pleased with, particularly when it comes to the PlayStation brand we all know and love, a brand that we may owe an extra tip-of-the-cap to in an era dominated by a need for distraction. PS5 was proper...

Cyberpunk 2077 isn't what it was promised to be. At least, that's the experience of countless gamers the world-over, as they grasp with playing CD Projekt's long-awaited RPG on, say, a PlayStation 4. The resulting fallout has engulfed our industry, and rightfully so, because what happened here was bound to occur eventually. In a fandom dominated by loud, boisterous voices excited for every last pr...

Geoff Keighley's Game Awards went off without a hitch, and -- as usual -- the show came along with a boatload of announcements, release date reveals, and other such newsworthy items. But buried within the event is an interesting truth: Sony only showed up with one game, from the second party, which we already knew about. In doing so, it lined-up PlayStation 5's next exclusive of consequence, givin...

We were about to wrap-up recording this week's show when some unexpected news broke: Long-time BioWare creative leads Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah have both left the EA-owned dev, and one can't help but wonder if they were pushed out the door. After all, modern BioWare is a far cry from the glory days of yore. We make sure to discuss these notable exits, though they come as a sort of ironic twist,...

There are a lot of understandably frustrated PlayStation fans out there right now. After all, PS5s are truly and persistently hard to come by, a situation unassisted by COVID, component shortages, a wobbly economy, and other macroeconomic factors. But -- much like the market for virtually any desirable object -- a vacuum has been created, facilitated by bot-assisted scalpers serving monied and des...

Capcom has been the victim of a massive external hack, and the group responsible is apparently holding the company for digital ransom. Yet, the beloved Japanese publisher and developer has reportedly refused to yield, and as such, a treasure trove of ill-begotten information has been dumped on the 'net, most of it irrelevant to our show. But amongst the details are a few trinkets we simply cannot...

We've covered the lead-up to PlayStation 5 on this podcast from every conceivable angle. In reality, there wasn't much of importance left to say, aside from idle speculation and over-analysis. Yet, the time has indeed come: PS5 is finally here, and now that we've gotten our hands on our consoles and spent time with some games, it's safe to assume we're not gonna run out of things to talk about on...

There was a time not too long ago when League of Legends was one of the most-played games in the industry, and even today, around a decade after launch, Riot's core offering remains popular. And now, for the very first time, a game taking place in that universe is coming to PlayStation in the form of an RPG called Ruined King, and it's launching sooner than you might think. Question is, what took...

Barely two months after promising not to delay Cyberpunk 2077 yet again, famous Polish dev CD Projekt has done just that, though for a mere three weeks. This pushes their open world RPG (arguably the single most-anticipated title of 2020, though certainly one of them) precariously close to Christmas, and some candid words from one of the studio's execs indicates they're not entirely sure they'll s...

When Kojima careened from Konami's cocoon (that's called alliteration!), he was left to his own devices for the first time in basically his entire career. The result was his unusual Sony-funded project Death Stranding, an interesting (if divisive) game that left us curious what he may pursue next. We don't yet know a specific answer, but thanks to a salvo of job listings out of Kojima Productions'...

We've all been dying to see PlayStation 5's UI, so it's awesome that -- finally! -- Sony has given us a little taste. In a roughly 12-minute video, we grabbed a prolonged glimpse at the basic user experience on PS5, and it looks great. Snappy. Utilitarian. Perhaps even a little crowded and busy. Yet, there was also an overt Killzone Easter Egg put before us that seems to indicate more than meets t...

A recent video out of Japan finally gave us our first look at PlayStation 5's innards, a nice change of pace from a mysteriously silent Sony as we approach Zero Hour. The teardown gave us a glimpse at the console's technical configurations and setups, though it also revealed the machine to be a bit of a beast, size-wise. Either way, for those in pursuit of power, the newest PlayStation should be a...