Sony Interactive Entertainment will release its PlayStation 5 DualSense controller in two new color schemes in June: Cosmic Red and Midnight Black.

What’s happening with Sony’s latest console, now that it’s been out for six months? Supply issues aside, it’s proving to be much more than a simple evolution. Six months after its November 12 debut, the PlayStation 5 is well on its way to being a success story for Sony. As of March 31, the company had sold 7.8 million of the new video game consoles worldwide—enough, in both units and dollars, to make it the biggest console launch in US history. Bigger than the Nintendo Wii. Bigger than the Xbox One. Bigger than even the PS4. And who knows what that number might be if everyone who wanted one was actually able to buy one.

The law firm behind a PlayStation 5 controller drift lawsuit has filed an amended complaint demanding a jury trial. The class-action lawsuit, which was brought against Sony Interactive Entertainment in February 2021, alleges that PS5 DualSense controllers “contain a defect that results in characters or gameplay moving on the screen without user command or manual operation of the joystick”.

Yes, millions of people have actually managed to buy a PS5

Godfall is a PS5 exclusive launch game that was also released on PC. It appears that the game might arrive on the PS4 according to a recent rating.

Speaking to Nikkei (paywall, translated by VGC), the PlayStation boss said the company has been “quietly” investing in the creation of first-party software, and that it could pursue further M&A opportunities to bolster its in-house development capabilities.

AI has gone into games, self-driving and other areas with mixed success, and now it's trying its hand at cooking. After Google's AI went up against a Great British Bake Off winner, Sony has developed a deep learning system called FlavorGraph designed to pair up ingredients like garlic, olives and milk.

It appears that Sony’s short-sighted hardware decisions that render PS3 and PS4 games unplayable extend to the PS5 as well. According to a tweet from noted video game preservationist group DoesItPlay, the PS5 won’t play games if its clock battery (also known as CMOS) dies and you aren’t able to connect to Sony’s servers. What this means is, even if you are able to replace the PS5 CMOS, you will still be locked out of your games when Sony decides to shut off servers. Initial testing suggests that this impacts digital games at the moment.

Unless something changes, an issue lurking in older PlayStations' internal timing systems threatens to eventually make every PS4 game and all downloaded PS3 games unplayable on current hardware. Right now, it's not a matter of if but when this problem will occur.

Some of the best PS5 games could be winging their way to your smartphone

Jim Ryan has a lot to get off his chest. If we’re honest, it’s a lot more than we’d prepared for. You see, usually when you interview someone – not least the president and chief executive officer of Sony Interactive Entertainment – you go into that conversation with some semblance of what’s to come. So when we got offered 20 minutes with the PlayStation boss out of the blue last week, it did seem a bit too easy-going to be true. “A follow-up to our PS5-related chat last November,” we thought, “should be a breeze.”

A staggering 99% of video game sales in Japan in 2021 have been for the Switch, as Sony announces 4.5 million PS5s have been sold worldwide. There are some real mixed messages going on at the moment in terms of the PlayStation 5 in Japan. On the one hand, analysts have painted a picture of doom and gloom, claiming Sony is abandoning its home turf, while on the other riots have been breaking out amongst fans trying to get hold of the console.

Specifically, the Xbox was unveiled at CES in 2001 — to commemorate that launch, Bloomberg has published an in-depth oral history of how the console came to be. It’s a fascinating read, but one particular passage stands out: details on Microsoft’s efforts to secure games for the brand-new console. While the company implored third-party developers to work on the Xbox, Microsoft also considered using its considerable financial might to buy developers.

Sony has pulled Cyberpunk 2077, one of the year's most-anticipated games, from its store and offered refunds to all players. The unprecedented move follows complaints that the game has been riddled with bugs and glitches, and is prone to crashes. Microsoft later said it would also refund any dissatisfied Xbox players.

The PlayStation version of the game has been riddled with bugs.

It has now been nearly a month since the launch of the PS5, as well as the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. And still they are stupidly difficult to find. Even when stock arrives, it feels like you need to carry out a blood sacrifice to a hundred retail and internet gods before you even get a whiff of new console stock.

Sony has suggested that most of the PlayStation users prefer to play games offline, especially single-player games, rather than online.

Video game companies like Sony and Microsoft spend years planning their next-generation machines. The moment one machine is out the door, they're sketching out what the next one will look like, even if it won't ship for another decade. Sony's big plans for PlayStation 5 were in motion long before the hardware showed up at people's doors, and that included its ambitious ideas for the PS5 interface, such as the "activities" that I wrote about last week, where people can instantly jump around to different game quests by sorting through a menu.

Microsoft and Sony are often considered direct rivals in the game space, competing for players through new consoles and exclusive games. Brand loyalty and “console wars” for some players dictates whether they’ll grab a PlayStation or Xbox. Extreme fans have even escalated their affinity for one over the other into harassment. But Microsoft’s real threat isn’t Sony, Nintendo, or any other company, says Microsoft’s head of gaming Phil Spencer.

Sony has shed some light on PS5 sales performance and has bullishly claimed that “absolutely everything is sold”. Speaking to TASS (a Russian news outlet), Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan revealed that PS5 launch sales are doing phenomenally well, and that increasing supply is now the main focus.