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Leaked PS5 Pro Specs Are Real, Console Reportedly Coming Holiday 2024, Gamers React On X

March 16, 2024

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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / PS5 Pro
After months of speculation, the PS5 Pro is real and will reportedly arrive this holiday season.
Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson has confirmed the leaked PS5 Pro specs that hit the web this week are indeed real. They confidently confined the news after speaking with a source under anonymity.
Per Insider Gaming:
Speaking with sources, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to talk about company plans, we can confirm that the leaked documentation from the YouTube channel Moore’s Law is Dead is real, despite the criticism of the leaker and the leaked specs. Insider Gaming can confirm that the documentation leaked is from a PlayStation developer portal, which was sent out this week to a wider band of third-party developers.
July 2023, word on the video game streets that a PS5 Pro-model code-named “Project Trinity” was in the works and game studios would begin getting their devkits in November of that same year.
The confirmed specs for the PS5 Pro are:

Rendering 45% faster than PS5
2-3x Ray-tracing (x4 in some cases)
33.5 Teraflops
PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling) upscaling/antialiasing solution
Support for resolutions up to 8K is planned for future SDK version
Custom machine learning architecture
AI Accelerator, supporting 300 TOPS of 8 bit computation / 67 TFLOPS of 16-bit floating point

Devikits and Testkits Are Rolling Out
Those are quite impressive, which means the PS5 Pro is pretty close to performing on par with powerful gaming PCs. It also sounds like it could be called the PS5 6.
Insider Gaming also reports that devkits have been available to first-party developers since September 2023, third-party had theirs since January 2024, and testkits close to the final product will be available in Spring 2024.
The PS5 Pro is tentatively on track to release in the holiday of 2024 and will arrive before the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, which could benefit immensely from more powerful hardware.
The video game streets are talking, following the news. You can see those reactions in the gallery below.

2. This is true

4. We can’t wait to see it

Is the Music Business Out of Synch With Game Developers?

djfrosty

March 12, 2024

When 21-year-old singer ericdoa released the song “ >one” last March, he had an unusual collaborator: Valorant. That’s not another artist; it’s a popular shooter game that attracted millions of players in February. Riot Games, the company behind Valorant, used “ >one” — which references the game in its lyrics — in a trailer that introduced a playable character named Gekko. The track is now ericdoa’s second-most-popular song on Spotify, with over 36 million streams.
“That was a huge spiritual win,” says Maria Egan, global head of music and events for Riot Games. “Can we do that over and over again?” she asks. “How do we unlock our platform and other gaming platforms to be the new place that new artists can find audiences?”

It’s a question often asked in the music business as well. In recent years, the industry has struggled to find reliable ways to ensure that its songs reach a wide listenership. The gaming community is massive, youthful and interested in music — in other words, an ideal target for labels. Yet there have been few notable recent instances of games helping new artists break through or driving music discovery on a mass scale.

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“Like music, gaming is global and has significant cultural relevance, but scalability at this intersection is still a challenge,” says Geoff Sawyer, an agent in gaming and esports at UTA. “Players and revenue are scattered across an endless web of product categories and consumer affinities, and not all in one big bucket. While there are incredibly cool, bespoke integrations happening between games and musicians, the music industry would need to upend its licensing model to truly achieve scale in this category.”

In truth, gaming does not need more labels’ music to thrive — the gaming industry earned around $184 billion in 2023, dwarfing music (around $26 billion, according to the IFPI). As one prominent music tech executive puts it, “the business model for games doesn’t need to support music.”

And even within the popular games that foreground music, space remains highly competitive. “There are still a limited amount of slots in FC, a limited amount of slots in NBA 2K,” says Steve Schnur, president of music for Electronic Arts (EA).

The music industry would presumably benefit if there were more games with more slots for its songs. But gaming executives say the opaque licensing system makes this unlikely. “Every time I speak to a games publisher, they’ve always got at least one horror story about trying to navigate music rights,” says Ben Sumner, managing director at Feel for Music, which helps games and brands with music supervision.

One recording may have multiple master owners and writers, each of which could work with a different publishing company, and gaming companies have to get everyone’s approval. Vickie Nauman, who has licensed music for many games in addition to founding the music-tech consultancy CrossBorderWorks, once had to get 143 agreements complete to clear 20 songs.

This may simply take too long for a game’s timeline, explains Gavin Johnson, director of sync and partnerships at the electronic music label Monstercat. “Typically a game developer is creating content that’s quarterly or bi-weekly or even weekly,” he says, especially in the world of “live services games,” which are free to play and dynamic, updated on the fly to rejuvenate player interest and maintain consistent engagement. (Several of the most popular games of 2023 — as measured by monthly active users — were live service games, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Minecraft.)

In addition, the music industry usually requires large upfront payments to license songs. “Incorporating music is often an experiment for games, and they don’t want to pay millions of dollars for an experiment,” says Alex Tarrand, co-founder and COO of STYNGR, a company that offers games precleared music.

Between multiple rights holders impacting timelines and steep up-front fees, many game developers find it far easier and more fiscally prudent to commission music in-house. “If anything creates more cost in ways that aren’t really driving what a game is going after, they tend to think, ‘We probably shouldn’t be spending time and resources on that,’” gaming consultant Toa Dunn says.

Tarrand’s company STYNGR is working to reduce the friction between gaming and music companies by putting blanket licenses in place with all the major labels and publishers so game developers can come to STYNGR and pull music into their titles. Instead of paying STYNGR upfront, developers cut revenue-sharing deals.

Another company, Game Over, takes a very different approach, targeting gamers who watch live-streams on Twitch or enjoy gameplay montage videos on YouTube or Instagram. This allows them to sidestep the industry “arm-wrestling match” around rights altogether, according to partner Zach Katz. Labels are “still in the mindset that winning in the gaming space is tied to interacting with the [gaming] platforms,” Katz says. In his view, that’s “a mistake.” “The victory is ultimately to get the gaming audiences” and serve them music, which can be done in other places where gamers congregate.

Still, executives in both music and gaming dream of more in-game opportunities. “Licensing needs to be made easier and more scalable for games so that it’s not only huge franchises that can do it,” says BandLab CEO Meng Ru Kuok.

“What I’m hoping to do is create a dialogue where we can understand that, although synch relationships bear enormous amount of fruit, they still are limiting us,” Schnur adds. “Let’s take a look at what the term ‘synch’ means and what it should mean going forward.” He acknowledges, however, that music rights holders may be content with the current system — and wary that any calls for change could disguise a campaign to undervalue music.

For now, many creative ideas to bring more music into gaming “are just not coming to market,” Nauman says, “because of rights issues.”

2K & Hangar 13’s ‘TopSpin 2K25’ Looks & Feels Like The Franchise Hasn’t Lost A Step

djfrosty

March 12, 2024

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Source: Hangar 13 / 2K / TopSpin 2K25
2K continues to build its sports video game library. The video game publishing company is looking for an ace with TopSpin 2K25.
It’s been several years, 13 years to be exact, since Hangar 13 released 2011’s TopSpin 4 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii consoles.
Flash forward to 2024, and 2K is resurrecting the franchise and adding its signature flare to the famed tennis video game franchise with TopSpin 2K25.
I had the opportunity to get hands-on with TopSpin 2K25 while visiting Palm Springs, which also happens to be the home of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
I didn’t know what to expect, especially since I had never played a TopSpin game. My only video game tennis experience came from SEGA’s Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast in 2000.
Yeah, I know, don’t judge me.
After my 2 hour experience, I walked away with plenty of thoughts.
The 2K Presentation Is Very Present
Source: Hangar 13 / 2K / TopSpin 2K25
Hangar 13 linking up 2K is very evident the moment you look at this game. It screams 2K’s touch thanks to the on-point presentation, beautiful arenas, and, of course, gorgeous and damn near life-like player models.
We saw several arenas during our demo, including Indian Wells and Arthur Ashe Stadium. As expected with any 2K Sports game, the attention to detail is on point.
Hangar 13 fully utilizes next-generation consoles and PCs to bring the arenas, crowds, and players to life while delivering authentic tennis action in video game form.
You will notice everything from how the players move on the different court surfaces to their grunts when hitting the ball, the crowd reactions, and even their signature celebrations.
TopSpin 2K25 isn’t as visually impressive as the NBA 2K series, but in its simplicity, there is still something to marvel at, and it still has that signature touch we expect from a 2K Sports game.
TopSpin 2K25 Is Fun & Challenging
Source: Hangar 13 / 2K / TopSpin 2K25
During the preview, of course, before I hopped on the court with any of the pros, I went to school to learn the ABCs of the game with the legend John McEnroe serving as my instructor.
Once I was done with training, I started with a singles match; of course, I picked Serena Williams and faced off against Steffi Graf.
From the onset of the match, I was getting my ass handed to me, quickly going down two sets. This was on the normal difficulty. But once I got into a flow, I did mount an incredible comeback, something Serena would do in real life, and it was pretty rewarding to walk away with the victory after it looked like the computer had my number.
For my next match, I decided to bump the difficulty up to the hard setting, this time running with Coco Gauff and facing Serena Williams, and it wasn’t close.
On hard, you almost have to be a picture of perfection, making sure every return hits the green on the NBA 2K-like shot meter that tells you if your swing is either bad, good, or perfect.
It’s not disheartening on the harder difficulties. Instead, it makes you want to step your game up.
I also played a doubles match, and those matches are very challenging and much harder to win, being that you’re playing with a controlled teammate. It was fun to see the small volley back and forth that took place at the net while also being sure to stay vigilant because the ball can come your way.
I didn’t win the two doubles matches I tried, and I would have gone for a third, but my time ran out. I definitely wanted to run it back to get a W because it was so much fun.
The Controls Are Buttery Smooth
Source: Hangar 13 / 2K / TopSpin 2K25
As far as controls, TopSpin 2K25 looks as good as it feels. I’ll even go as far as to say the game feels more responsive than the latest NBA 2K video game.
You never feel like you don’t fully control your player. Navigating the court, running toward the ball, and returning shots all feel buttery smooth.
The real question is, how does that feel when you play the game online? NBA 2K can be a miserable experience when lag is introduced. I imagine the same can be said if you’re playing in a TopSpin match and your opponent’s connection is causing some severe lag, leading to annoying input delays.
But we’ll have to wait until the game drops to get that question answered.
Game, Set, Match?
Source: Hangar 13 / 2K / Top Spin 2K25
Based on the small sample size I experienced, TopSpin 2K25 looks like it’s back and better than ever. It seems to be checking all the boxes for what a next-gen tennis video game should look and feel like.
During our preview, we saw a signature MyPLAYER feature and a mode allowing you to take your amateur to tennis greatness and become a Grand Slam champion in the MyCAREER mode.
For those who would rather play the game with established tennis greats, TopSpin 2K25 boasts an impressive roster featuring tennis legends like Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Steffi Graf, and Andre Agassi.
You can also play as current stars like Francis Tiafoe, Coco Gauff, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Świątek, and others. Hangar 13 boasts a roster of 24 superstars available.
TopSpin 2K25 features four editions of the game: Standard Edition, Standard Cross-Gen Edition, Deluxe Edition, and Grand Slam Edition.
Source: Hangar 13 / 2K / Top Spin 2K25
The Standard Edition and Standard Cross-Gen Edition launch Friday, April 26, 2024; Deluxe and Grand Slam Edition owners get three days of early access.
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1. Top Spin 2K25