Starting September 22 your 1-year PlayStation Plus Membership grows
in price to match Xbox Live. Indeed, the PlayStation Plus is getting a
price hike to $59.99, but there is one last day to pick her up for the old $49.99 price tag. Even better there’s one last hurrah for a deal under $50.
The holdout is eBay Powerseller Neogames
via eBay Deals with a drop to $47.99. This discount may not match the
kind of price breaks to $40 we grew accustomed to in early 2016, but
it’s the best price online from a trusted seller with free shipping in
the continental US and no sales tax. In fact, they’ve sold over tens of
thousands of these PS Plus cards in the past handful of years.
Other than the eBay offer, every other retailer is still $49.99 for
the moment. Best Buy, GameStop, and the rest will turnover starting
tomorrow. We do expect to see deals during the Holiday Season, but it’s
likely the best offers we’ll come will simply be a temporary reduction
in price from $60 down to $50 – which uh if you’re paying attention, is
the price of the PlayStation Plus we’re seeing today.
How often do PlayStation Plus go on sale? From our observation in
the past year, the 1-year membership usually gets a price cut in 2-3
month interval. The last time we saw a “real” significant discount was
back in early August before the price hike announcement. And prior to
this event, it was on sale around May 2016. So if you don’t pick up some
spare subscription, we’re expecting the next round to show up during
Black Friday or Cyber Monday later this year.
It might have been a shorter week with the Labor Day
holiday on Monday, but this was a big week for big news, with huge
stories from Sony, Apple, and Nintendo.
THE BIG STUFF:
Sony
put rumors to rest on Wednesday during its PlayStation Meeting when it
officially confirmed not only the PlayStation 4 Slim, but a brand-new
console called PlayStation 4 Pro. The Slim model comes out next week,
priced at $300, while the Pro version lands in November for $400. Read all our coverage here.
Sony's briefing wasn't the only big one on Wednesday, as Apple held its latest announcement event to reveal the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
And the rumors were right: no more headphone jacks. The phone
announcement is obviously a big deal, but Nintendo's own Shigeru
Miyamoto appeared on stage to announce Super Mario Run, an auto-runner-style game coming out in December for iOS devices.
Also during the briefing, Apple announced that Pokemon Go reached a staggering 500 million downloads and that a version of the game will be available for the Apple Watch.
In other news, some NPD numbers for August 2016 came in this week, with Microsoft announcing that the Xbox One was the top-selling console in the US for the second month in a row. August was the debut month for the slimmed-down Xbox One S, the release of which may have helped sales improve.
PlayStation Network has been offline for the last few hours, leaving
many gamers without access to their games, Party Chat, or other
services. Sony is investigating.
According to Sony’s official PlayStation Network server status page,
the PSN service is experiencing numerous issues across the board, and
has been for the last few hours. Beginning earlier this afternoon,
PlayStation 4 owners began noticing trouble signing into their accounts
on their consoles, and took to social media to seek out help. It turns
out it isn’t just sign-in issues gamers are having.
Confusion was high for a while with PlayStation’s
own status page claiming everything was fine, but that updated quickly
with the page showing login issues on PSN. Shortly after that, the PSN
status page showed multiple services offline, including the PlayStation
Store and gaming services.
At the time of this writing, it looks like PlayStation Store,
Account Management, and Friends List are all back up and working, but
the core services of gaming and Party Chat are still offline, meaning
there’s very little PlayStation 4 owners can do with their consoles at
the moment.
Naturally, Sony is hard at work trying to restore all PSN services
for gamers, though there doesn’t seem to be much communication from the
gaming giant about the situation. Aside from the original tweets on the
PlayStation Twitter accounts acknowledging the issue, there haven’t been
any official updates. Granted, the PlayStation Network status page
looks to be up to date, but provides very little information for PSN
members about the cause of the problem or a timeline for when it should
be fixed.
Sony is no stranger to technical issues
with its PlayStation Network. The service has been targeted multiple
times by various entities by both DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)
attacks and hacks to the system. Over the last five years, PlayStation
Network has had to deal with numerous attacks, some lasting a few hours,
others a few days. In 2011, the service experienced a security breach so widespread
it caused the network to stay offline for a whopping 23 days. Earlier
this month, multiple games experienced issues on PlayStation 4,
including Neverwinter, FIFA 17, and the Battlefield 1 beta.
Hopefully the current situation – whether it be an attack or
other type of technical issue – will resolve quickly. Gamers will
undoubtedly be keeping an eye on the PlayStation Network status page to
see when gaming, Party Chat, and other services come back online.
What do you think about the current PlayStation Network outage?
Are you experiencing any issues? Share your thoughts in the comments
section below.
A listing for a PlayStation 4 Elite controller appears online, but
no official word from Sony and an $80 price tag suggests the device is
third party and not of ‘elite’ quality.
When the Xbox Elite controller
was first unveiled, most didn’t know how the gaming public would
respond to the device. High-end controllers were nothing new to the
market, but this was the first time in recent memory that a publisher
was responsible for the device’s manufacture. And as it turns out, the
response was overwhelmingly positive – to the point the Xbox Elite controller was hard to find during its first few months of release.
So, it only makes sense that others would want to copy that
formula, namely Sony and its DualShock 4. And as it turns out, there is a
PlayStation 4 Elite controller on the way, but it’s not from Sony.
As the name implies, the PlayStation 4 Elite controller is not a souped-up version of the DualShock 4;
it’s actually an $80 off-brand controller with “elite-like” features.
Those include back paddles, a grooved d-pad, and some customization
options, to name a few.
In fact, this PlayStation 4 Elite controller is fully compatible
with the Xbox Elite in terms of replaceable features. So any who may own
the Xbox Elite will be able to mix and match back paddles and joysticks
with this upcoming controller.
All that said, though, it can’t be stressed enough that the
PlayStation 4 Elite controller is not a Sony manufactured product. It
may look like the Xbox Elite, but the major selling point of the Xbox
Elite controller is that Microsoft manufactures it.
In other words, we can’t speak to the quality of the controller
or the type of comfort/ease of use that it may offer. Third party
controllers are hit or miss, with most landing in the “miss” category.
Plus, at nearly half the price of the Xbox Elite – arguably the best controller on the market right now – it’s hard to imagine that this PlayStation 4 Elite controller will be seen as anything as a cheap knock-off.
If there are any gamers out there looking for something comparable to
the Elite for their PS4 we would recommend taking a look at Scuf. The Scuf brand has been around since before the Xbox Elite was introduced, and operates in a very similar space.
Essentially what they do is customize a real DualShock 4
controller with back paddles, different types of joysticks, and they
even offer different color combinations. At this point, a Scuf is the
closest thing to a “PlayStation 4 Elite” controller as gamers are going
to get, until Sony announces something official.
As far as if/when Sony might announce something official, this week’s PlayStation Meeting
seems like the best bet for the foreseeable future. If there were to be
an Elite DualShock 4 then an announcement alongside the PlayStation NEO
would be perfect. Outside of that, though, Sony fans might be waiting a
while to see something comparable to the Xbox Elite.
The PlayStation 4 Elite controller will reportedly be available on November 1, 2016 for $79.99.
If you're in the market for a new Xbox One S and want a 4K TV to go with it, retailer Best Buy is currently holding a deal you may want to consider.
Starting
today, the store is offering a bundle that includes the 500 GB Xbox One
S Halo system with a 55-inch LG 4K TV for $800. According to Best Buy,
this comes out to $300 in savings. The Xbox One S comes with the system, its Bluetooth-enabled controller, and copies of Halo 5: Guardians (disc) and Halo: The Master Chief Collection (digital). Go to Best Buy's product page here to learn more and to place an order. This deal started today, September 4, and runs through Saturday, September 10.
Sony will be unveiling a new PlayStation 4 standard model in September alongside a new, upgraded PlayStation 4, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
Citing sources "familiar with the matter," the report alleges that the
two new consoles will be introduced in a bid to "maintain demand" for
the PlayStation 4.
The timing lines up with the PlayStation event Sony has scheduled for September 7 at 3PM ET.
The presentation will be held at PlayStation Theater in New York,
although the company has not disclosed what exactly it will be showing.
This new information lines up with previous reports that the a new PS4 model would be revealed at a PlayStation 4 event in September. GameSpot reached out to PlayStation for comment, and a spokesperson for the company responded, "Sony Interactive Entertainment does not comment on rumour or speculation." In June this year Sony confirmed that it was working on a more powerful version of the PlayStation 4,
code-named Neo. Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Andrew House
revealed that the console will feature improved graphics and support for
4K resolution. House also confirmed that the console is intended to be
sold alongside the standard version of the PS4, at a higher price.
Sony
hasn't revealed much else about the Neo, opting not to talk about the
console at E3 this year. However, the PlayStation event takes place just
a week before Tokyo Game Show, which starts on September 15. Analysts
have previously suggested that new PlayStation 4 models would be launched before or during Tokyo Game Show.
All
PS4 games will be playable on both the existing PS4 and Neo. Sony has
said it will take a "small but manageable" amount of effort for
developers to get games working on both versions of the PS4. Since the
announcement of Neo and Scorpio, a number of publishers have spoken positively about this type of mid-cycle hardware upgrade.
Rumors regarding upcoming hardware releases from Sony, including both an upgraded PlayStation 4 Neo console
and a slim version of the existing PlayStation 4 platform, have been
swirling since prior to E3. Today the Slim half of those rumors grows
quite a bit more substantial. Several NeoGaf users hunted down and collected online auction listings for what was said to be a retail versions of a slimmer PlayStation 4. Their efforts produced enough evidence to show that this is likely no rumor or fake.
By contacting the owner of the auction listing, NeoGaf was able
to produce several photos of the new PlayStation 4’s retail box. Later
on, they even persuaded the seller to open the box and take photos of
the new console itself. The more squarish, matte console and all of its
fine details look persuasive. While a 3D printer could certainly produce
such a construct, the various plug-ins — USB, ethernet, power — show a
much more thorough construction.
Later images were produced from other sources who also claimed to have their own updated slimmer PlayStation 4.
Some of those photos even compared the sizing of the new PlayStation 4
to the old, to an extent. The slim version appears to be just as wide
from the front, but shorter from back to front and from top to bottom.
The hard drive expansion bay remains, via a slot in the back of the
console. Across the bottom of the console are small spacers which will
hopefully prevent the tilting issues that the current PlayStation 4
suffers from.
There are some additional considerations to keep in mind regarding
the listing, as well. For instance, the boxing of the new PlayStation 4
simply lists the updated version as the “PS4” and not a “PS4 Slim.”
That could likely imply that Sony will be halting production on the old
version of the platform in favor of the new one. That makes extra sense
when considering that the rumored PlayStation 4 Neo will be supplanting the standard PlayStation 4 as the core modern PlayStation platform.
Also, one has to wonder how exactly these shady fellows acquired
an as yet unannounced and unreleased slim PlayStation 4. More than that,
these are quite clearly retail versions of the console and so they’re
either being shipped out to retailers or already sitting in back rooms
waiting to be sold. In either of these cases, it wouldn’t be surprising
that a few slip through the cracks and end up in the hands of some not-quite-so trustworthy employees.
What the evidence at hand shows is that Sony must be
precariously close to announcing and launching this updated, slim
PlayStation 4 model. They’d probably do it at some significant event,
perhaps like the upcoming PlayStation Meeting on September 7. What a
coincidence!
Stay tuned for news from Sony’s September 7 PlayStation Meeting, including any news on this slim PlayStation 4 or the in-development PlayStation 4K, in the weeks ahead.
