Dragon's Dogma 2 was one of the great surprise pleasures of 2024, at least for me – a sprawling, mechanically complicated RPG that did things in different ways from the vast majority of the competition. Its commitment to those foibles made it feel really unique and special, so its upcoming expansion is naturally alluring.

Dark Arisen repeats the trick that worked for the first Dragon's Dogma by updating the base game and also adding a large new area at the same time, and I was super interested to get my hands on it at Capcom's UK office a couple of weeks ago.

After over an hour with the game, it immediately convinced me that more Dragon's Dogma 2 is a good thing, with the added bonus that it's coming to Switch 2 in a pretty impressive way.

The new expansion is set in Norgan, which you can basically think of like Skyrim – it's the snowy northern region of the landmass you've been exploring. That means icy terrain, snowstorms and generally frigid climes. These look lovely, especially on PS5 Pro, and give some fun new traversal challenges and obstacles.

To the victor, the spoils

I had around an hour to run around an open starting area, beginning in a small village with some quest-givers, a hub that I'd return to a few times. Dark Arisen introduces a new loot system called Spoils, and it'll be familiar to Diablo or other ARPG fans. As you explore and kill foes, you'll collect generic loot called Spoils, in various rarities.

Only by returning to this base can you pay a vendor to reveal these items of loot before choosing to keep or sell them according to their worth to your build. Even in just an hour's play, I uncovered some really powerful new items this way, and it's clear that it opens up a world of loot grinding that wasn't really in the base game at all.

After pootling around for 45 minutes finding enemy camps and completing some side quests, I realised the time and mainlined my way to the boss arena that would close the demo out.

Along the way, I had to fight a giant, horned giant that proved quite a formidable foe on its own, frankly, but with my memory of the base game flooding back, I was able to chop off its horns and eventually best it with the help of my NPC pawns.

From there, it was a short hop to a dark arena inhabited by a sort of zombified dragon, which I got to fight up to a certain point – once I whittled its health down by a certain amount (chopping off limbs and even its head, only to watch them regenerate), a cutscene ended my fun.

This Fallen Dragon seems to clearly be central to the plot of the expansion, along with the mysterious woman Eir who showed up to help me with it. I'd imagine the encounter I played won't be the only time you get to clash with the beast.

While the reality of more Dragon's Dogma 2 was indeed just as fun as I'd hoped, and the new region was great to explore, perhaps the bigger treat was getting to play the game on Switch 2 after my main demo ended.

This far more limited demo, the one now on the show floor at Gamescom, let me choose between a few boss fights, with a 15-minute timer to limit things. I played the most advanced available, battling against an ice dragon with a pretty sinister voice, and had a great time beating it.

Some 12 minutes later, I left massively impressed by how smooth the 30fps-capped gameplay had felt in a boss fight with a lot of particle effects, weather, powers and stuff flying around the screen. Whether it's truly representative of performance in the open world, I can't say, but I definitely know that the game will be extremely playable on Nintendo's console.

Pending final testing, that looks like another major notch in Capcom's belt, underlining how impressive its Switch 2 strategy has been compared to basically any other multi-platform publisher. Day-and-date launches keep coming, and they keep being barely compromised compared to more powerful consoles' versions.

I don't know if I'll have time to fully replay Dragon's Dogma 2 on the Switch 2, but the fact that people will have the option to, along with its expansion, feels like a pretty great thing. That said, they'll have to wait for its release date on 9 October.

This is a huge week for Grand Theft Auto fans worldwide, with the long-awaited reveal of actual, honest-to-goodness gameplay from GTA 6 finally about to arrive. Or, at least, we're all very much assuming that we'll get a massive chunk of gameplay to digest when Rockstar releases Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look, a 30-minute preview of the game.

The trailer, as everyone and their nan now knows, will hit Netflix first on Thursday 27 August, with a six-hour exclusivity window for subscribers to one of the biggest and best streaming services out there.

That makes it the first of its kind – an advertisement for an upcoming game, delivered like a one-off documentary special on a streamer. It's a pretty wild situation, but you're probably wondering about the exact timing of the show, both on Netflix and then subsequently on YouTube. Read on to find out all the key times.

Netflix timings

Here are the timings for when the Extended Look will go live on Netflix (all on Thursday 27 August):

• UK: 8:00 PM BST
• Europe: 9:00 PM CEST
• North America: 12:00 PM PT / 3:00 pm ET

YouTube timings

Next, here are the times when the trailer will then go live on YouTube, for free, six hours after the Netflix premiere:

• UK: 2:00 AM BST, 28 August
• Europe: 3:00 AM CEST, 28 August
• North America: 6:00 PM PDT / 9:00 pm EDT, 27 August

What will the GTA 6 Extended Look show?

Rockstar has stayed extremely vague about what the Extended Look will actually show us from GTA 6, but it's a really safe bet that it'll be an extended showcase of the gameplay offering that the game will bring to the table.

The developer's patience has clearly been stretched by a fortnight of nonstop leaks, during which anyone who really wants to see gameplay from the upcoming mega-release could simply search for it and, well, see it.

Frankly, there's no way those leaks haven't at least slightly dimmed the hype, since millions of people can no longer say that the Extended Look will truly be their first glimpse of actual gameplay. Still, untold millions more won't even know the leaks have happened, so there's no real doubt that this remains one of the biggest trailer events of this generation.

My guess is that we'll get a more detailed breakdown of the story of the game, and then we'll see a campaign mission play out. That'll involve some driving to show off the cars and physics model, as well as some run-and-gun action. Those two are the biggest parts of the game's actual gameplay loop, so we'll surely get proper looks at them.

I'd also hope that we'll get clarity on the game's graphical settings, namely whether it'll have a mode aiming for 60fps or not, and what upgrades the PS5 Pro will bestow on the game for those who have one.

Beyond that, it's anyone's guess what exactly Rockstar will choose to walk us through. With half an hour to fill, though, we should leave the showcase with a much clearer expectation of what the game will be like.

Depending on who you are, Call of Duty has either spent the last few years ruthlessly specialising in exactly the quick-paced twitchy action you love, or has become so rapid and relentlesss as to alienate you a little bit. With the arrival of Battlefield 6, I'm in the latter camp – wall-running and omnimovement made the last couple of COD games feel too challenging for my little soul.

That's meant I've been quietly quite excited for Modern Warfare 4, which sees developer Infinity Ward return to centre stage. I want a return to the smooth but methodical action of Modern Warfare 2019, but a weekend of open beta action with MW4 has confirmed I won't be getting that, quite.

A few matches of multiplayer confirmed that the game is, at least, slower than the frenetic Black Ops games from the last couple of years, and that's a huge step. Once again, footstep audio feels key, and far more limited starting ammo also meant I had to manage my shots more carefully and pick up other people's guns more often.

The movement tech here is a middle ground between older, slower styles and newer crazes. Mantling and jumping over obstacles is super quick, and the same goes for sprinting and sliding; you can also now climb pipes and jump to edges more freely, which actually feels quite cool to control.

Gunplay, meanwhile, does feel great, albeit I only sampled a handful of weapons. Rattling through killstreaks remains compelling, and as the first game to abandon the PS4 and Xbox One generation, MW4 looked pretty excellent in motion on my PS5 Pro.

Most intriguingly, though, this is the first time the open beta for a COD game has included a single-player mission. This might be Activision's way of trying to convince people that the dire campaign of Black Ops 7 was just an aberration, and to be fair, it might achieve just that.

The mission, called Entrenched, is a fairly classic slice of COD, seeing you start with trench-to-trench warfare before moving into a vehicle for some tank action, then back on foot for more close-quarters interior fighting and a final run through climbing sections to escape a burning reactor.

It's a great little demo, and it makes the open beta feel more like just that – an old-school demo disk that gives you the chance to really sample the final game, rather than purely its multiplayer component. A good COD campaign is a real thrill, after all, and we haven't had a properly consistent one in a surprisingly long time.

I think MW4 will still have a hard time pulling me away from Battlefield as it stands, though, and most shooter fans will know what I mean when I say there's only really room for one of them in my life. Since these games are where I play socially with my friends, it's a proper tussle for supremacy.

With my mates largely scarred by BO6 and BO7's outrageously fast pace of play in multiplayer, COD has its work cut out for it in convincing them to come back for another try. This beta is a good start, to be fair, but the fact that I'm most captured by the single-player element is probably a sign for caution, still.

I think something might have clicked quite recently for Sony when it comes to its Inzone gaming brand. When it first launched a few years ago, it was confusing – the devices were clearly intended for PC gaming, but they were designed with the same white aesthetic as the PlayStation 5, muddying the waters in terms of intended audiences.

Now, though, a second generation of products has been making its way to the market, and they're almost all redesigned with more stealthy, lightweight black aesthetics, nailing down their place a little more clearly. The latest I've tried is the H6 Air headset, a more mid-range option compared to the H9 II from late last year. So just how does this headset stack up?

Price and Availability

Sony released the Inzone H6 Air earlier this year, so they're fully available now and come in at £179 / $199 / AU$269 / €199.

That sees them sitting in the upper end of the mid-range market, although "mid-range" is a bit of a misnomer given how good some of the headsets in this bracket can be.

For context, similar money would get you the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7, a wireless model that has no noise-cancelling, but does pack in more features than the Inzone H6 Air.

Design and Features

The H6 Air has a really familiar design from the H9 II, but with one very obvious difference: where that earlier headset had smooth, matte plastic on the outside of its earcups, the H6 Air is covered in tiny perforations that actually make its cups semi-transparent.

That's because it's an open-back headset that deliberately avoids isolation to give you a really wide soundstage. And, to be fair, I really like how the headset looks as a result. It has the same suspended headband system as the older model, but the fact that you can see its drivers from the outside gives it a really nice industrial quality.

The other incredibly obvious feature of its design comes the moment you pick it up out of the box. This headset is phenomenally light, as the "Air" in its name suggests. It comes in at just 199g, which means it's one of the lightest options anywhere on the market.

That weight (or lack thereof), combined with the comfortable headband system, makes it a dream to wear – it's in the category of headsets that you might forget you have on if you're immersed enough in what you're playing.

Of course, as I'll get to, some of that weight has been saved in ways that do have downsides, but from a comfort point of view, the H6 Air is a home run.

Rounding out the design, the headset comes with a detachable microphone arm, and its controls are relatively limited. You get a 3.5mm jack for that connection, a volume slider, and a bobbly mute button that pops out when you're muted, so you can tell just from feeling it with your fingers.

The absence of many buttons and settings hints at the absence of ornamentation where features are concerned. This is a wired headset, so there's no Bluetooth or any wireless standard at all here, and that also means that its software configurability is somewhat limited.

You can use the Inzone Hub to customise the headset's EQ, but if you want those changes to be saved, then you have to listen to the headset through the included USB-C audio dongle – the headset itself has no storage for profiles or anything. That's a drag, although it arguably doesn't actually change the convenience level, given it's already wired.

Sound Performance

So, if the H6 Air is deliberately stripped back where the design and features sides of things come into play, it arguably has its work cut out to justify those decisions from a sound perspective.

After all, by skipping wireless play, it makes itself less convenient, and it also doesn't have any noise-cancelling to speak of (other than in its microphone). The open-back system here is really impressive, though – it sounds phenomenal, provided you don't have any background noise fouling things up.

I used the headset for a good few hours of Battlefield 6 and found it nice and precise when it came to enemy footsteps and vehicle locations. It also worked well in more immersive games like The Adventures of Elliot on my Nintendo Switch 2, where the orchestral soundtrack sounded lush and deep.

That said, I can't pretend that I didn't miss some more isolation – when my robot vacuum was running, or the neighbour's washing machine was in its final spin, the simple fact was that these sounds made it past the earcups and disrupted my audio experience.

You have to know going into the H6 Air that you're fine with that, I'd say, or the lack of isolation could end up being more frustrating than rewarding.

Another interesting note on the microphone side of things. My friends are used to me popping up with new microphones pretty regularly as I test headsets, but this was one of those occasions where I caught pelters for my mic. It took a lot of adjustment, both in software on my PS5 and in terms of physical placement, before the microphone would stop picking up my breathing sounds and relay them to my chat.

That's a very rare problem in my reviewing experience, and the slightly over-tuned microphone therefore doesn't get a top grade from me, despite its actual recording quality being very solid.

That's another asterisk in my experience with the H6 Air, though, and for the price attached, I think Sony might have liked to get it more flawless to really compete with wireless models.

Verdict

The Inzone H6 Air is a curious headset, not least because I'm not sure who exactly will be clamouring for it. Inzone's other headsets like to claim that they're great for pro gamers, for instance, but there's no way they'd use this and be bombarded by outside crowd noise at events, surely?

For normal gamers like me, the same doubt lingers. Is your gaming environment reliably quiet enough to make noise-cancelling an unnecessary extra, and do you care about wireless play? In both cases, I know that I'd rather have those features than not.

That said, the Inzone H6 Air sounds excellent in the right setting. If you're a wired aficionado, then have at it, as you'll love the lightweight built. But other gamers might be better served by more appropriate alternatives.

Also consider

I've compared the H6 Air a couple of times to the pricier and only slightly older Inzone H9 II, and I think the pricier headset is well worth a look if your budget is flexible. It solves all my issues with the H6 Air and is still impressively light, making it also very comfortable.

If you do want to stick to the same rough price point, though, you'll probably save money by opting for the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2, which can often be had for a fair discount and is brilliant. It's light and sounds great, but it has way more features and works a treat wirelessly.

Sony has finally furnished us with more details on its PlayStation-branded wireless speakers, as revealed last September. That includes pre-order and full release dates, plus pricing.

The Pulse Elevate speakers were unveiled during a State of Play video feed in 2025, but with the understanding that they would release in 2026. We didn't expect it to take so long, though.

Coming in two colour options, black and white, the speakers will be available to pre-order from 1 September 2026 in the UK, US and several Central European countries. They'll be available on the PlayStation store online.

Pricing stands at £199.99 / $219.99 / €219.99 a pair and they come with a wireless dongle to attach to a PS5 for ultra-low latency. They will also come with Bluetooth support for connection to a smartphone, PC or Mac.

Why are the speakers called "Pulse Elevate"

The clue to one of the speakers' main features lies in their name. Each speaker is designed to sit straight on a desktop or tilt backwards to "elevate" the audio to a listening position.

This allows them to mimic height channels for a wider soundscape.

They can also be connected to power via a cable or, thanks to housing rechargeable batteries, can be moved around a desk or even room to room. That's much like a Sonos Move 2 speaker, so you aren't restricted to using each Pulse Elevate with gaming.

However, when you do, you can also make use of their built-in microphone for multiplayer online play. That way you won't need a separate headset with a boom mic.

Each speaker comes with a woofer built-in too, so they should work fine without a separate subwoofer.

We hope to test the Pulse Elvate speakers here on T3 soon, to let you know what we think.

Lego and retro gaming have proved a match made in heaven over the years. The brick building brand has released sets based on Nintendo consoles, the Atari 2600 (VCS), and even the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis. And now it seems another classic machine is on its way.

A Lego PlayStation has leaked. We don't yet know the exact specifications of the build, nor do we have an image, but a post on the Legoleak Reddit does reveal some interesting details – not least a price, release date and the free add-on that'll be available from Lego.com.

Posted by BrickTap (via VGC), the Lego PlayStation (72306) will allegedly come with 1,911 pieces in the box. It is likely to include a build of the console itself and, if previous sets are any marker, an original DualShock controller.

It'll cost around $160, it is claimed, and will be available to order from 1 October 2026.

The post also reveals that, excitingly, an Astrobot gift will be available to redeem when purchasing the Lego Playstation from the brand's official site.

It often includes GWP (gift with purchase) releases that are exclusive to Lego itself, and they can become very collectable soon after. It's therefore worth keeping an eye out for an official announcement and pre-order details. We'll keep you informed with anything further we hear too.

As for the main set, I'd personally be surprised if it doesn't have an Easter Egg or two in the construction – such as a famous PlayStation scene that's revealed when you lift the disc cover, for example.

This has been a trademark of some of the other sets. The Nintendo NES came with a CRT TV featuring an animated Mario, while the Lego Atari 2600 sports an 80s gaming room hidden in the front.

This is also not the only retro gaming set coming this year. A Lego Donkey Kong build was launched soon after it too had leaked. That's currently on back order at Lego.

There are some things in life that you just have to have, no matter how impractical they may be. This sofa designed to look like a PlayStation controller is exactly that - and I have to have one.

This design comes from Muddycap (shared by Yanko Design) and fits nicely into Muddycap's other chair design: it's impractical, but lust worthy. The same designer has a chair that's shaped like a pigeon as well as a set of keys, which looks about as comfortable as the Iron Throne.

Based around the classic DualShock PlayStation controller, there's space for two gamers in the centre, leaving the rest of this sofa to the iconic design.

Sadly it's just a 3D model, which makes it even more frustrating as I won't be able to buy one, but you can see how - thanks to the D-pad on one side and the buttons on the other - that this sofa could expand its skills beyond just looking great.

With so much space taken up by the design, it's begging for a pull-out fridge or snack drawer to the sides, or maybe just a charging dock for controllers at each end.

If there's one criticism of this as an actual gaming chair, I'm not sure it would be slouchy enough for me. I'm either almost horizontal as I become the sofa during long sessions, or I'm standing in the middle of the room when things get more fraught.

This is a far cry from the best gaming chairs, which give you full adjustability, lumbar support and arm rests, so this sofa is less of a Call of Duty chair and more of a Mario Kart chair, you know, where precision might be less important.

While I'm going through a crisis trying to figure out how I can commission a furniture builder to make me this sofa, PlayStation is enjoying its own crisis after announcing that PlayStation will stop physical disc releases from 2028.

That's going to put a nail in the used game market and while PlayStation would probably rather sell you the game at a higher price, for those seeking out games they missed well after release, getting it second hand has always been a way to snap up a bargain.

While PlayStation and its gaming community wrangles with that hot potato, I'm going to measure up my lounge and see exactly where I might fit a PlayStation controller sofa.

Xbox is currently undergoing a reset which has resulted in a vast amount of jobs being lost across the business. It is also dramatically changing strategy – nigh-on reversing a decade of decisions to refocus the company and brand. And it seems that some of the endeavours are working.

It has been revealed that, in the US at least, sales of the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles have "more than doubled" year-on-year.

In comparison, hardware sales for PlayStation and Nintendo have dipped – with the latter falling by 79%.

To be fair, that's understandable. The Nintendo Switch 2 launched in June 2025 so the company reported a massive spike in sales as pre-orders were shipped and launch stock sold out quickly. The sales for June 2026 were always likely to be much lower.

More interestingly, perhaps, is that PS5 sales dipped by 19% YOY. But then, Sony did recently raise its console prices significantly. And the Xbox Series X/S equivalent price hike is yet to come into affect.

It'll occur in just over a week, on 1 August, so consumers could be snapping up the consoles before that happens.

The sales figures are also relative. Mat Piscatella of data firm Circana revealed on Bluesky that while Xbox performed better than many expected last month, it still sold fewer consoles that its rivals. The Nintendo Switch 2 continued to be the best-selling option, in both units and dollars earned, with the PS5 in second.

Uncertainty in the games business

Whatever the trends, the games market is still looking uncertain at present. When it comes to the next generation, at least.

Xbox has admitted that its Project Helix plans might have to change in the light of the ongoing components crisis. Its hope to launch a "premium" PC/console hybrid might have to be scaled back to remain affordable.

Meanwhile, Sony is said to have delayed the PS6 for similar reasons, and we all know what happened with the Steam Machine. While it seems to have found a market, it is undeniably overpriced for what you get.

And so it seems we'll see this current console generation continue for the foreseeable, which is good news for those who already own a PS5, Nintendo Switch or Xbox Series X/S. At least the games are still coming thick and fast.

Sony has announced the latest lineup of games coming to the PS Plus game catalogue and, in a break from the norm, they will be staggered over the next couple of weeks in the UK, US and Japan.

That's a release strategy more akin to Xbox Game Pass than PS Plus in the past, but we're sure PS5 fans won't be whinging as the excellent Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will be leading the way.

It'll be available for PS Plus Extra and Premium members from 21 July in all regions, and is one of the best first-person action adventure games I've played in many a year. It's also arguably one of the best movie tie-ins ever made.

The other games being added might be available a little sooner or later, with the dates jumping around a bit depending on where you live.

Rise of the Ronin, for example, is available for PS5 in the UK, US and Japan now, but in other regions from 21 July.

Firefighting Simulator: Ignite, also PS5-only, will be available everywhere from 21 July, while Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind will be added for PS5 and PS4 from 28 July in UK, US and Japan, 21 July everywhere else.

That's the same day another of my favourite first-person games arrives, too. Dying Light (the PS4 version) will be joined by Citizen Sleep 2: Starward Vector (PS5), as well as Snow Bros. Wonderland.

Things are a bit more regular when it comes to the new (old) games being added to the classic catalogue for PS Premium members. Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy and Indigo Prophecy (AKA Fahrenheit in the UK) will be available globally on 21 July.

Sony has announced the games coming to all PlayStation Plus members next Tuesday, and they are lead by a bit of a surprise inclusion.

Xbox recently made a big decision on Call of Duty when it comes to Game Pass Ultimate, but PS5 and even PS4 owners will be getting one of the best entries in the series at no extra cost.

In preparation for this year's Modern Warfare 4, PS Plus subscribers will get the cross-gen bundle of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.

Comprising a four to five hour single-player campaign, multiplayer and a Zombies mode, the game sees Captain Price return to track and take on Vladimir Makarov. It's also notable for introducing open world areas to its campaign missions, and giving you more freedom on routes and gameplay styles.

What's interesting is that Xbox – owner of Activision Blizzard – recently announced the decision to stop adding Call of Duty games to its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service, in order to cut the monthly price.

Admittedly, that comes into effect with COD: Modern Warfare 4 and beyond, but it's a strange look putting another big release on the rival PS Plus platform soon after – even if it's already available on Game Pass.

I'm sure PlayStation fans won't care though.

It'll be available for PS4, PS5 and PS5 Pro from Tuesday 7 July, as will For the King II and CrossCode – two additional PS Plus games for the month. All members can redeem them – Essential, Extra and Premium.

They'll be available to grab until Monday 3 August.

PlayStation Plus pricing and membership tiers

There are three tiers of PS Plus membership. You will need to subscribe to one of them if you want to play multiplayer games online. However, each also offers additional benefits.

PS Plus Essential is the cheapest. Priced at £6.99 / €8.99 / $9.99 / AU$11.95 per month it gives you online play, plus three or four free games at the start of each month.

PS Plus Extra sits in the middle. It costs £10.99 / €13.99 / $14.99 / AU$18.95 per month, and adds access to a game catalogue of more than 300 full games to download.

PS Plus Premium is the most expensive tier and has all of the above and more. It is priced at £13.49 / €16.99 / $17.99 per month, and includes game demos, and an additional catalogue of classic games. There's cloud streaming too, for many games. That works across PS5 and the PS Portal handheld.

Note: in some regions – including Australia – PS Plus Premium is replaced with PS Plus Deluxe for AU$21.95 per month. This is the same as Premium, but without the cloud streaming.

I'll be interested to see if the news that Sony won't make disc-based physical releases for its consoles starting in January 2026 makes a proper ripple in the home cinema world, but it really should. The more I've thought about this announcement from PlayStation, the more despair I feel, and I don't think it'll just be games that are affected in the long run.

I've written a lot in the past year about how much I've enjoyed getting into physical media, starting up a modest but decent collection of movies both in standard Blu-ray and 4K formats. While I now use the brilliant Panasonic DP-UB820 and love it, for a long while I relied entirely on my PlayStation 5 to play 4K discs.

To be more precise, I used my PS5 before I upgraded to the PS5 Pro, at which point I had to fork out more money for the optional extra disc drive, since the PS5 Pro is digital-only. That already made it clear that using a disc on a PlayStation wouldn't be accessible forever, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon.

The key point I'm trying to make here is that we know the market for 4K Blu-ray players is really small – it's been that way for years, and the number of brands making players has shrunk over time.

Now, given that we can be extremely confident the PlayStation 6 won't have a disc drive (because why on earth would it?), it's highly likely that the one remaining mainstream way of being able to play 4K discs (the console under your TV) will also disappear.

Someone who didn't necessarily have a big collection of discs, but had some old favourites and could be tempted by a big new release on 4K, will soon quite probably have no hardware to actually watch a disc – unless they keep hold of their PS5 or Xbox Series X.

Given that the PS6 is likely to cost a genuine bomb, though, this might mean missing out on a decent trade-in fee for the older console, a luxury that only some will be able to afford.

It all means that an already niche market for physical cinema and TV releases might well shrink even further, and that's a terrible thing in my eyes. I've had some of the best home viewing experiences of my life in recent months thanks to proper physical releases from outlets like The Criterion Collection, replete with extras and featurettes to enrich a viewing.

In a world with fewer actual disc players, the idea that we'll still see the same number of disc releases feels pretty optimistic to me, and while we've seen revivals for formats like vinyl and cassettes in the music world, there aren't the same green shoots yet in movies.

Only this week, PlayStation users found a huge list of movies being deleted from their libraries after supposedly having been purchased, so it's not like the digital question is only for gamers. So, while it might seem unfair to say that PlayStation isn't just killing physical games with this decision, but also killing physical movies, there's certainly an argument to be made there.

Put it this way – I'd buy a Panasonic player sooner rather than later. They might get discontinued at some point, and then you'll be up the creek with just a PS6 and no disc drive to help.

Well, what a time it is to announce this one. Hot on the heels of news that GTA 6 won't have a disc in its "physical version", we're now learning that all PlayStation consoles will stop getting physical game disc releases from January 2028 onwards.

PlayStation announced the move in a surprisingly short blog post, with little deeper explanation of its thinking beyond touching on market trends (which are hard to ignore). It's blunt: "Physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028".

In its own continuing words, "This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs."

Closing the gap

There's no getting away from the fact that around 85% of games sold right now are digital, with physical media ever-shrinking, but this is still an absolutely enormous step, and one that will have major effects on the whole gaming industry.

After all, you'd put solid money on a PlayStation 6 coming out sometime around 2028 based on the current trajectory, and some observers would say this basically confirms that it will be digital-only. Unlike the PlayStation 5 Pro, it would also seem likely that it won't have an optional disc drive, since that drive would only be for older PS5 games anyway.

This will mean that, unless there are major changes to how purchasing works on PlayStation consoles at some point, the PlayStation Store will be the only way to get games directly on Sony's consoles, with the physical market becoming entirely code-in-a-box, and no likelihood of used games.

Digital ownership

Given that PlayStation is already fighting a multi-billion-pound lawsuit here in the UK around the prices on the PlayStation Store, it's hard to avoid the suspicion that this is a fairly dire change from the point of view of most consumers. After all, even if you rarely bought used discs, you always had the option to, and that option will now disappear.

On top of that, we're not even a week on from Sony catching major flak for deleting purchased movies from people's PlayStation accounts, underlining just how tenuous the concept of "ownership" is when you don't have a disc in hand.

It's also worth remembering that it's harder to actually capture the scale of the used market from retailers like CEX and marketplaces like eBay – again, there are plenty of buyers who will suffer from being restricted to digital purchases only.

Given the discontent generated by the lack of a disc in GTA 6's box, expect a fairly significant wave of backlash to be generated in the coming days. There's almost certainly nothing that anyone can do to change Sony's mind on this, but that won't stop people from making their unhappiness known, and loudly.

Sony has informed many customers that 100s of digital movies they've purchased will soon be deleted from their libraries.

PlayStation owners will lose access to over 500 movies from Studio Canal, after the expiration of content licensing agreements between the studio and Sony. There's a list of all the films that will be removed on the PlayStation website, but it includes the likes of the original Rambo trilogy, the Paddington movies, and The Evil Dead.

The cull list also includes many TV series, such as multiple seasons of Gomorra and The Young Pope.

They will be removed from users' libraries on 1 September 2026 (via VGC), and there doesn't seem to be a backup system or library swap service (to move your purchase rights to another platform).

Time to collect 4K Blu-rays?

Although this is just one storefront and one studio, the example it sets is clear. When you purchase a movie on a streaming platform you more often than not don't own it. You are simply purchasing the right to play it as often as you like, as long as it remains on that service.

But if, as in this case, the rights expire, you are left with nothing.

This is an argument Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray and even DVD collectors have been making for years. While streaming is more convenient, the only way to ensure you own a copy of a movie is to have a physical version (and the player to spin it on).

Picture and sound performance is an obvious benefit, with higher bitrates afforded by 4K Blu-ray discs, but even they pale into insignificance to a movie being deleted from your collection by a third-party.

It's why I retain my physical disc collection personally, even though it takes up a considerable amount of space. At least I can watch Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 4K whenever I fancy, rather than find it has simply disappeared when I next get the urge.

The biggest game of the century so far is nearly here – GTA 6 is open to pre-order now, ahead of its release on PS5 and Xbox on 19 November. Still, you might have some questions about it, not least because every screenshot and trailer of the game released so far appears to be jaw-droppingly high-fidelity.

If you're a PS5 owner wondering about the game's compatibility, or if you don't currently own a console but plan to buy one to play what is a genuinely titanic gaming release, you're in the right place – here are some key answers about what hardware the game will run on, and how.

Will GTA 6 require a PS5 Pro?

Here's the big headline question – given how good it looks, will you need a PS5 Pro to run GTA 6? No.

Rockstar has long since confirmed that the game will release for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, meaning that it will be available to play on base hardware from the launch of this generation. That means that if you have a PS5 right now, you're absolutely fine to play the game when it launches.

It also means that if you don't have a console, you can choose between a PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S as to where you end up playing it. The game isn't releasing on PC at first, although that will hopefully come later, and it also hasn't been announced for the Nintendo Switch 2.

Will GTA 6 be PS5 Pro enhanced?

This is a more difficult question to answer. According to the PlayStation Store listing for GTA 6, the game will indeed be enhanced for the PS5 Pro. However, Rockstar and PlayStation have said absolutely nothing about what this actually means.

Sometimes game developers tell us before a game releases what the differences will be between playing on PS5 and PS5 Pro, whether it's higher resolutions, framerates or better ray-tracing.

In this case, we don't know anything about what'll improve; that said, we have months to go before it comes out, so there's no reason to believe that we won't get these details eventually.

Frankly, given the extra power offered by the PS5 Pro compared to every other console on the market right now, it's a given that the game will run better, but we'll have to wait for further details to know in what ways.

Will GTA 6 be better on PS5?

Here's another more contentious question. In theory, the versions of GTA 6 coming to PS5 and Xbox should be the same in terms of content, PlayStation and Rockstar have a marketing partnership pushing people towards the PS5.

A recent blog post confirms that there will be various PS5-specific enhancements, too, including using the DualSense's haptic triggers, its built-in speaker, and the console's 3D sound engine for more immersion.

In practice, none of those will be all that game-changing (and I always turn the DualSense's speakers off in-game as I hate how they sound), but these little touches do mean that the game will arguably have slightly more to offer on PS5 compared to Xbox, if you're keeping track of all the minutiae.

Where to pre-order GTA 6 on PS5

If you're a dedicated PlayStation gamer and you want a copy of GTA 6 locked in for launch day, you'll find some links above for pre-orders. It's worth knowing and reiterating that the "physical copies" being sold in stores won't actually have discs, though.

They're going to be download codes in boxes, which is a frankly grim step that nonetheless will mean that Rockstar is completely safe from pre-release leaks. The firm indications are that a disc version will follow eventually, but it's fairly rotten to know that this won't be available at launch.

When you've got a PS5 Pro to call on at any time, but also a Nintendo Switch 2 and a gaming PC that just so happens to have a 5070 Ti inside it, knowing what platform to choose for a game isn't always that straightforward. A lot of the time, I'll base my decision on what hardware I think will be most interesting to evaluate, and in the case of Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, I found myself drawn to the PS5 Pro for reasons I can't fully explain.

I've been playing the Lego games since the very earliest incarnations – the mid-2000s were a great time to be a kid with an Xbox 360, and I played some of the Lego Star Wars games to death. I've given them a bit more space recently, being a full-on adult and all, but the buzz around Legacy of the Dark Knight made me think I should check it out.

I wasn't wrong – this screams out that it's a great place to get back into the franchise if you haven't played one in a few years, not least because it's basically a hybrid between a Lego game and a sequel to the superb Arkham series that has been so badly missed in recent years.

I've played half a dozen hours of Legacy of the Dark Knight and enjoyed every minute, crunching through the prequel scenes that establish Bruce Wayne as Batman, and fairly quickly acquiring the core gadgets to make moving around this brick-built version of Gotham City super fun.

What's been most interesting in that time has been how the game approaches the PS5 Pro's beefier hardware. Principally, unless it has something going on behind the scenes, there's actually no Pro setting here in the menus, meaning you get the same choice between "performance" and "fidelity" modes as those on the normal PS5.

The performance mode targets 60fps, while fidelity aims for 30fps, and the visual difference is actually quite obvious. Fidelity is a good chunk sharper, but also has more accurate and vivid reflections and lighting, while the performance setting obviously strips things back a bit.

Normally, I gravitate straight to performance options for smoothness, but I've actually been playing the game on fidelity mode to get the most of it visually, because this is a surprisingly lush-looking game at times. Its nighttime cityscapes can be really pretty, and the detail in its Lego constructions is really fun, especially when they're at a sharper resolution.

That said, there's no getting around the fact that I'm surprised there's no "Pro" mode here, or at least that the in-menu information could be clearer about whether the PS5 Pro has any boosts to offer. The game looks great, but it's still quite surprising to find a Lego game limited to 30fps if you want the best visual performance, especially when you think about the modes on offer in something like Assassin's Creed Shadows, for instance.

I'm hopeful that we'll get a patch down the line to improve things, even if it is just a matter of clearer communication, but I'll still be having fun with Legacy of the Dark Knight regardless. I didn't expect it to pull me away from 007 First Light on my PC, but it's done a good job of offering a low-stakes palate cleanser, and there's a reason it's been met with the reviews and word-of-mouth that it has.

I've been hugely impressed by the PS5 Pro since the PSSR 2.0 patch arrived in February – not least thanks to its implementation in games like Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Crimson Desert and Pragmata.

These truly feel next-gen with higher frame rates, technologies like ray-tracing, and 4K resolutions all running at the same time. PC gamers will just shrug and say they've had that pleasure for years, but Sony's console is catching up.

The results have been so positive that the imminent need for a PS6 or Xbox Project Helix has been diminished. Even with its price rocketing in recent times, the PS5 Pro is holding the fort admirably.

That's evidenced once more with its handling of Saros, Sony and Housemarque's latest PlayStation exclusive. As a fan of Returnal, I've been looking forward to this latest bullet ballet roguelite for some time, but little did I expect its visuals to be my favourite bit.

Developer Housemarque truly takes the "roguelite" tag to heart – coming back time and again with familiar game concepts, but powered up in some way. And that is the case with Saros.

Built with love

Built using Unreal Engine 5, but with the studio's proprietary particle systems (Graphite VFX) layered on top, the game has a unique look in combat. Like Returnal, enemies bombard you with glowing, neon-like fire patterns, but there's a greater emphasis on voxel explosions and disintegrations, to the extent where the best battles result in spectacular light shows.

The planet on which you find yourself trapped (this time with a few colleagues in tow) – Carcosa – is more muted and devoid of much colour, which makes the bright effects all the more impressive. And sometimes it's easy to just stop and admire the Geiger-esque landscape as it's lit up in multiple hues, just before you get blasted into oblivion again.

Making life easier

Thankfully, Saros is even more forgiving than Returnal in that there is a traditional skill tree and weapon upgrade system – including while on a run. That makes it technically easier to play – although mastering it is another matter.

It is also more interesting in story terms, with the stunning graphics also elevating character models. That includes your lead, Arjun Devraj, who is superbly portrayed by English actor Rahul Kohli (of The Fall of the House of Usher and We Were Liars fame).

The cutscenes provide a welcome respite from the action too, while also helping to unravel the mystery of why the colonists first sent to Carcosa have disappeared. This story feels more involving than we've had from other Housemarque games and it helps drive you on, even when the going is getting much tougher.

Just the one graphics option – but oh, what an option

Surprisingly for a modern game, Saros only comes with one graphics option on PS5 Pro (and PS5). The game plays in 4K using PSSR 2.0 and at an almost consistently locked 60 frames-per-second.

You can't tweak the settings, that's your lot. However, what you get is so good and stable, why would you?

The Pro version is also so much sharper and better defined than on a standard PS5. It is a great advert for upgrading, for sure. And thankfully, as many retailers have opted not to adopt Sony's own hikes, you can still do so at roughly the original launch price – even less in some cases.

It's certainly worth it, with Saros now sitting loud and proud on the rapidly expanding list of enhanced games that take advantage of the latest tech. Long may it continue to grow. At least until PS6 arrives, anyway.

PS Plus members got a big win earlier in May with the addition of EA Sports FC 26 as part of the monthly lineup, but arguably the best is yet to come. One of the best games of all time is returning to the service for Extra and Premium subscribers.

What's more, you'll also be getting the best Star Wars games for PS5 too.

Red Dead Redemption 2 will return to the PS Plus game catalogue on Tuesday 19 May. In my opinion it's the best game ever made, not just one of them, but I appreciate that's subjective.

It's actually been part of the catalogue before, but was removed at the tail end of 2024 – its return is therefore a welcome reward for our patience.

If you've not played it before, it is a prequel to Red Dead Redemption, telling the story of the rise and fall of the Van der Linde gang, mainly through the eyes of main antagonist Arthur Morgan.

It's beautifully scripted, vast in scope and scale, and will undoubtedly take you on an emotional roller coaster.

There have been numerous rumours about a PS5 remaster, but this PS4 version also gets a little glow-up when running on a PS5 Pro. It's still locked to 30fps, but there's more fidelity in the graphics if you switch on "Enhanced Image Quality for PS4 Games" in the consoles' settings.

Also being added to the PS Plus game catalogue next week is Star Wars Outlaws – Ubisoft's open world adventure set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

You play as a young Han Solo-like scoundrel, Kay Vess, who must assemble a team of crack thieves to take on a heist against a criminal organisation. This takes you to different planets and open world landscapes, each of which packed with side missions and interesting characters.

In many ways, Star Wars Outlaws is a sci-fi Assassin's Creed, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Finally, PS Plus Extra and Premium members can also enjoy Bramble: The Mountain King (PS5 / PS4), The Thaumaturge (PS5), Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (PS5), Broken Sword – Shadows of the Templar: Reforged (PS5 / PS4), and Enotria: The Last Song (PS5) from next Tuesday.

Premium subscribers will be getting Time Crisis on PS4 and PS4, too – as part of the classics collection.

PS Plus tiers and pricing details

PlayStation Plus is mandatory if you want to play the vast amount of online games on your console. However, it also provides you with a number of free games each month, depending on your tier.

Here are the options:

• PS Plus Essential is £6.99 / €8.99 / $9.99 / AU$11.95 per month. It includes online play and three or four free games each month (as above).
• PS Plus Extra is £10.99 / €13.99 / $14.99 / AU$18.95 per month. You get the same benefits of the Essential plan, but also access to a game catalogue of more than 300 games to download and play.
• PS Plus Premium is £13.49 / €16.99 / $17.99 per month. You get everything in the Extra and Essential plans, plus game demos, and an additional catalogue of classic games. There's cloud gaming too, on PS5 and PS Portal.
• In some regions, including Australia, PS Plus Premium is replaced with PS Plus Deluxe for AU$21.95 per month. This doesn't include cloud gaming.

It is largely believed that, in the grander console wars, Sony won this generation. The PS5 sold considerably more units than Xbox Series X and Series S combined. And its mid-range refresh – the PS5 Pro – is undoubtedly the most-powerful games console we've had to date.

However, it could also be that Sony has looked longingly at something Xbox has been doing better for a fair while – something that could be important for the future of PlayStation and, in the short term, the PS6.

It is claimed that when a next-generation PlayStation arrives, it will be accompanied by a next-gen cloud gaming service.

While PS Plus Premium members have access to games via Sony's own cloud gaming platform, on both PS5 and the PlayStation Portal, the technology and scope is seen as inferior to Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Sony reportedly has plans to address that.

According to MP1st, upgrades could be coming to make the service more competitive – to improve its infrastructure and, potentially, lower latency. It is claimed that it will enhance the technology at server level, with once change touted being the adoption of PCIe Gen5 NVMe storage that's considerably faster than what's currently employed.

By reducing load and access times, this could have an impact on play for the consumer. At the very least, it should dramatically reduce the queuing time it takes for a game to start up.

PCIe Gen5 NVMe storage almost doubles the speed of access over Gen4. It's also suggested that this will be found in the PS6 console too – with the built-in SSD potentially capable of up to 14,900 MB/s read speeds.

Developers could have a field day with their games if they could live load assets at those speeds.

This is just a rumour for now, of course, but it wouldn't be a far stretch to believe that Sony would want to improve its cloud gaming service. After all, it's become the heart of the PlayStation Portal and with regularly leaked plans to bring a PS6 handheld to market, it could be important to that device too.

UK PlayStation owners will have until the start of June 2026 to comply with a mandatory requirement, or face being unable to use certain features on their consoles.

Sony has started to inform PS4, PS5 and PS5 Pro players that age verification is needed to allow specific functionality – such as chats, messaging and live streaming. It is necessary for the brand to comply with the UK's Online Safety Act, and all users are affected, no matter their age.

Players will have to use Yoti's verification tools to confirm that they are the right age to use social features online. It's simple to perform, using either a mobile number, face scan (through your phone or using a webcam) or an approved ID. You can simply scan the QR code on a PlayStation support page and follow the instructions.

Once your age is verified, your PlayStation account will be permanently approved.

Other gaming firms will need to do the same soon, to operate certain services in the UK. Xbox started its age verification process late last year, which is also mandatory to access social features on its consoles.

It's likely others will follow suit in the coming weeks.

Why do you need to verify your age on PlayStation and Xbox?

The UK's Online Safety Act was passed into law in 2023, although companies were given time to enforce its rules and guidelines. This includes age verification to allow access to online content that could be deemed harmful to children.

In terms of the video games industry, that specifically applies to the social aspects of online play – as it is hard for games publishers and console manufacturers to ensure underage players don't hear or read inappropriate language.

The rules do not apply to other countries, although some have their own guidelines and laws.

There have been plenty of rumours on Sony's return to handheld gaming before, but the latest is of particular interest to those looking for the ultimate retro device. That's because it is tipped to be able to emulate systems even the latest PC handhelds cannot.

As an owner of multiple handhelds, including Android, Linux and the SteamOS-powered Lenovo Legion Go S, I can just about play games from every era of console. However, there are two in particular that remain out of reach. And that's where the PS6 Portable could come in.

According to YouTuber Moore's Law is Dead (via NotebookCheck), the PS6 Portable will be able to play PS5 and PS4 games natively.

There is an emulator for the latter available for PC, Linux and Mac (ShadPS4) but it's very early in development and it'll only run a handful of PlayStation 4 games. And even then with caveats.

A handheld system that will run PS4, PS5 and PS6 games could be the holy grail for retro gamers, therefore, especially with some PS4 titles never getting decent remasters or PC releases.

Add the ability to play older classic PlayStation 1, 2 and 3 games through PS Plus Premium – likely through streaming – and you're onto a winner.

Of course, to be the ultimate retro gaming handheld you'd really need it to also play other classic systems, but I'm a believer in having multiple devices for different use cases. For example, I play 4:3 systems on my Ayaneo Pocket Air Mini, Game Boy and Game Boy Color on my TrimUI Brick Hammer, and 16:9 games on my Legion Go S or Odin 2 Portal.

Adding a PlayStation powerhouse that can play a vast library of otherwise difficult to emulate games seems a shoo-in to me.

There is one thing to note though, according to Moore's Law is Dead – who claims to have gleaned his information from a leaked Sony internal document – you will have to own the digital versions of games you play on the handheld. There is currently no way to assign disc copies to your account.

So all those physical games you've been collecting will be exempt, as things stand.

That said, the main PS6 console could be different – let's just hope it includes a disc drive, unlike the PS5 Pro.

Yes, these are troubling times for gaming, with soaring hardware prices and reported delays for next-generation consoles, but amongst all that, the PS5 Pro is finally coming into its own – especially if you have PS Plus Extra or Premium membership.

That's because, as well as being able to download the newly-upgraded Cyberpunk 2077 at no extra cost, another enhanced game is coming for subscribers. And it too is a sci-fi RPG masterpiece.

Horizon Zero Dawn was already one of the greatest and best-looking games on PlayStation consoles on its original release for PS4, but last year's remastered version took things to a whole new level.

The PS5 Pro version in particular looks absolutely stunning, with the console's newly updated PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) technology giving it a crisp, detailed facelift and buttery smooth 60fps gameplay.

However, as good as Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is, it's actually another game coming to PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers that I recommend the most.

Monster Train is a roguelite deck-builder that I have been addicted to across multiple platforms (no pun intended). It is a must-have indie hit, in my opinion, and a superb addition to the PS Plus game catalogue.

In it, you have control over a band of demons and monsters and must stop Heaven's soldiers from breaching your Hell bound locomotive to destroy its energy source – the pyre.

You play cards and power-ups to defeat each enemy as they progress up four levels of your train, and there are plenty more cards to pick up along the way. It is similar to Slay the Spire in many ways, except on public transport.

Like with Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, you can pick Monster Train up at no extra cost from 21 April. It'll be available for PS5 only (Horizon Zero Dawn will also be downloadable on PS4 in its original form).

The other titles coming to the game catalogue for Extra and Premium members this month are: The Crew Motorfest (PS5, PS4), Football Manager 26 Console (PS5), Warriors: Abyss (PS5, PS4), Squirrel with a Gun (PS5), and The Casting of Frank Stone (PS5).

PS Plus Premium subscribers with also get Wild Arms 4 (PS5, PS4) added to the classics library.

It feels like an age has passed since Sony announced that its prices would be rising pretty much globally across pretty much all the main hardware associated with the PlayStation 5, from the PS5 and PS5 Digital to the PS5 Pro and even the PlayStation Portal.

Tech news progresses at such a pace that there have been plenty of stories since then, but few are bigger than the chunk $100 and £90 price hikes Sony's bringing in with slightly less than a week's notice across its whole lineup. I've already written about how this is objectively terrible news for gamers right now, but there's no escaping the fact that it could also make for a pretty terrible situation for the next console generation.

After all, the PS5 is already five years old, and that normally means it would be time to start wondering when the PS6 might be unveiled. The PS4 lasted for seven years before the PS5 hit the market, and if the PS6 followed that same window, then we'd only be around 18 months away from seeing the console unveiled.

Normally, that would be exciting, and there's no doubt that the hype would build on my side if Sony did drop the news that an unveiling was coming, but there'd be one element that would spell real worry – pricing.

After all, we're now in a situation where the PS5 Pro is going to cost a massive £780 or $900, a nearly unthinkable price just a few years ago, and there's basically no argument that the reason for that price is market forces. Sony isn't willing to sell the console at a loss, and components are now so expensive that it's passing the cost on to customers, rightly or wrongly.

The table of price rises that we've used a few times is still useful for underlining just how big the hikes are around the world:

So, that leads us to a game that's always played in the run-up to any big gaming launch – what will it cost? The PS6 is now likely to launch years into a period of rampant pricing inflation in tech, and it's anyone's guess whether the current demand for memory will have faded away and corrected itself or not.

If it did go back to normal, then you'd assume that Sony would be looking to launch for no more than the £500 mark, one that's traditionally been seen as quite a hard barrier in the minds of most consumers. Now that the PS5 will cost £570 for the foreseeable future, though, it might be more like a £600 mark in reality.

So, if £600 is a more reasonable and likely prediction right now, how does that look to most people in the market? The PS5 was already a somewhat tough sell at launch thanks to a lot of re-releases and cross-generation games, and it would seem the PS6 could well be in for a similar fate.

We've all seen the way graphical leaps have plateaued in the last half-decade, so it would be fascinating to see whether people are willing to countenance that sort of price if they've got a PS5, albeit one that has technically appreciated in value (ridiculously).

My role in tech journalism means I'll always be an early adopter when a new PlayStation rolls around, but £600 would be a steep ask for many of my gaming friends, albeit without knowing at this stage how big the leap in power might be.

Until that's clearer, we'll have to brace ourselves for doom-saying rumours for the next, I'd wager. People smell a story, and the chances of the PS6 having a truly off-putting price clearly just went up quite steeply.

I was in a cafe in the centre of London when I saw Sony's blog post about raising the PS5's price across all models last week. Sometimes a day off coincides with some big news, and there's just nothing you can do about it – but that didn't stop me from basically ignoring a conversation for a few minutes to read the whole post.

Sony's explanations do hold water, to a degree; its arguments about the "continued pressures" in the market, particularly in terms of the steeply rising costs of various components, including all types of memory, are fair enough and are being made by plenty of other tech giants, too.

Still, there's no way this can be spun into anything remotely resembling a positive story – it's a disaster for the console generation, and means that the PS5 will be cemented as the console era in which waiting to buy a console when it's cheaper stopped being something you could even do.

The hikes aren't even negligible from a percentage point of view, adding £90 or $100 basically across the board (ignoring the cheaper Portal as its own separate case). That's huge money, and it's striking that these are the sorts of margins that PlayStation consoles' prices used to fall by once they'd been on the market for half a decade.

It seems like those days are gone, or at least don't seem like they're coming back anytime soon, and it's not too hard to work out the broadest reason for all this happening. Whatever moniker you want to give it, from RAMageddon to the RAMpocalypse, the fact is that we're now a long way into the memory price spikes caused by AI companies driving demand for components.

Sony's not the only corporation to have raised prices on its consoles, and it must be remembered that this isn't even the first PS5 price hike it's brought in. We're years into this process, and it doesn't feel good at all.

At a time when gaming studios seem more fragile than ever, and where big games need to sell millions of copies to stand a chance of breaking even, or attract millions of players to last longer than a few weeks before being shuttered, it underlines the fact that the vibes in gaming aren't so great right now.

Some people might try to spin this as not the worst thing in the world for actual gamers, who can skate above the industry turmoil and just play the games that survive, but it all speaks to a really precipitous situation – and "industry crash" is the sort of phrase getting bandied about more and more in development circles.

Sure, titans like GTA 6 will still come and do genuinely incredible numbers every so often, but with the amount of turmoil going around, and now these price hikes, the actual ceiling of players out there feels like it may start to plateau or stagnate.

None of that worry makes it Sony's fault that the PS5's getting hiked – the blame lies more with the AI bubble and the investors pushing it. Still, it makes 2026 feel like a pretty challenging year for gaming and gamers. Needless to say, if you can buy a PS5 of any description before 2 April, I'd do that.

Sony appears to be working on a new PS5 DualSense controller add-on that lets you use your smartphone as the PS5 console itself.

The idea, in patent concept at least, is to clip a phone to a DualSense controller which interacts with the device to play full-on PS5 games.

This would use a good network connection and stream games, while also allowing developers to use all the phone's hardware as part of the game interaction experience.

If you recognise this, that's because Sony already did it. Yup, this little clip to attach a phone to the controller was introduced back in 2014. The problem then was that even on a Wi-Fi network, streaming didn't work so well. As such it was quietly ignored.

Now, with 5G and enhanced WiFi, plus plenty of experience streaming games, the chance for this to work has returned.

The patent filed shows Sony is looking into using a phone to play games but rather than just mirror, to also let developers use all the touchscreen, motion sensor and hardware features of the handset as part of the gameplay.

Sony already offers the PS Portal, an 8-inch 1080p LCD toting handheld to stream PS5 games over WiFi. Imagine that getting upgraded to any internet connection and using your phone, all you'd need is your controller to continue full-on gaming wherever you are.

Sony files a lot of patents, that never amount to much. But this feels different, grounded in a tested reality and really not that far from becoming a real offering soon.

Who remembers the heady days of the PS5's launch? I know I do, since I spent that period of lockdown acting as a sort of fixer for most of my mates, using my slightly more online nature to secure as many pre-orders as I could so that we all got consoles. At the same time, my role in tech journalism meant that I was able to test a bunch of accessories out early doors.

That meant plenty of the best gaming headsets in the early days of the PS5, but also some excellent controllers, and I found my favourite almost instantly. Right after the console came out, Scuf started making adapted DualSense controllers, and I got my hands on a Reflex Pro, a gorgeous bit of gaming hardware.

This was the DualSense Edge, a couple of years before Sony made its own pro controller, and it meant that I've been using back-paddles for around five years, at this point. They're a huge help in online FPS games in particular, I find, helping me to keep my fingers on the aiming stick while I reload or jump.

That's made it feel almost like a minor bereavement that, in the last few weeks, my Reflex Pro has started to feel a bit weird in the hand. Movement in games has felt looser than usual, and I recently upped my deadzone settings in Rocket League to the point where it feels like I'm driving in treacle.

To the surprise of nobody at all, when I swapped back to the near-pristine standard DualSense that came with my PS5 Pro last year, barely used because it's paddle-free, these issues evaporated. There's only one conclusion: stick drift has finally come for my pro controller.

It's a spectre that's loomed over way too many first-party gaming controllers from the last couple of console generations, but I'll be honest – I normally dodge the bullet. I don't know if it's because I'm a light touch on the sticks (ahem), but I've never even had a Joy-Con give out, despite knowing people who seem to go through a controller every six months.

I'm still lucky that I've got a backup standard controller waiting to be used, and I'll be fine with it, but it's already proving an adjustment to play without those all-important paddles, or indeed the extra grip on the back of the controller.

If money were no object, I'd be straight out to get a DualSense Edge, since I've still never managed to get my hands on one and I'm pretty sure it's the best of all worlds in terms of what I want. Sadly, money very much is an immovable object, so for now I'm back to the life of the hoi-polloi, and I'll be in mourning for at least a few weeks.

The PlayStation Portal has come on leaps and bounds since its launch in 2023. No longer just a streaming companion to the PS5 (and PS5 Pro), it can stream games in its own right as long as you are a PS Plus Premium member.

Now a new update has landed and it makes it better still. That stunning display can finally be used at its max, with higher resolution streaming now available.

From today, 18 March, an system software update is rolling out globally that adds a new 1080p High Quality mode for remote play (streaming from your own PS5) and cloud streaming via PS Plus Premium.

This gives you a higher bitrate to make games look better when you have a stronger wireless connection.

The Portal has always been capable of 1080p streaming, but with some picture compromises to keep the performance stable. This new mode improves the video quality at the cost of using more data.

It's available as an option, so should you need to use mobile data or find yourself on shonky hotel Wi-Fi, for example, you can drop the resolution mode. You still get access to 1080p Standard and even 720p to ensure games run smoothly.

However, if you have a half decent connection, the 1080p High Quality mode is there to switch things back up again.

You can find the new setting in Quick Menu > Max Resolution. Just restart your streaming session after swapping the mode and away you go.

Wait, there's more?

In addition to 1080p High Quality, the new PS Portal update adds improved product detail pages to game bundles, better notifications for game invites, enhanced Trophy notifications, and an improved search screen.

It's also easier for new Portal owners to set up their account and device, with a new onboarding system.

The PlayStation Portal has really improved in the last few months and has become an essential accessory for PS5 and PS5 Pro owners. Its streaming is almost latency free, especially when playing on your home Wi-Fi, and the list of games available to stream over the cloud is growing rapidly.

There are now more than 3,000 games available to access via cloud streaming, either from your own digital library or via the PS Plus catalogue.

Sony has never really had ambitions to take on the likes of Xbox Cloud Gaming or Nvidia GeForce Now, but its service for PlayStation Portal owners is at an all time high.

After we were told it was coming a few weeks ago, and after Sony soft-launched it by having it included in Resident Evil: Requiem, a new and upgraded version of PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) is now rolling out for all PS5 Pro owners in a software update.

That's big news if you've been hoping for a bit of a visual boost to what your PS5 Pro can manage, and in my case it's a little annoying – I've played more than one of the games getting PSSR 2 in recent months, without the upgrade visual tech.

PlayStation made the announcement in a blog post that you should definitely check out if you're curious, since it includes clips from a bunch of the games that are getting patches to work with PSSR 2 straight away. Some of those games have needed performance fixes for a while, too, so it's an impressive slate.

Top of the list is the superb horror experience of Silent Hill 2, which I played through in February and massively enjoyed. It's beautiful on PS5 Pro, but there are a few locations where the original PSSR struggled to avoid major shimmering (including, awkwardly, the parking lot where the game begins).

This should be massively reduced with PSSR 2, as proved by a clip of Silent Hill f, which had the same problem but seems to resolve far more clearly in the example. This could make for a radically upgraded experience in both games, to the point where I'm a little gutted I played them before it was fixed.

The full list of games included in PlayStation's blog post is as follows:

• Silent Hill 2
• Silent Hill f
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard
• Alan Wake 2
• Control
• Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
• Nioh 3
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• Dragon’s Dogma 2
• Crimson Desert
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Cyberpunk 2077

Most of these should have patches available to download today, although in Crimson Desert's case, it'll come when the game launches on 19 March, and Assassin's Creed Shadows and Cyberpunk 2077 will both get their patches in the next few weeks.

That makes it quite a solid list of visual heavy-hitters that are getting PSSR 2 in the first instance, and you'd imagine that this is just the vanguard. If you want to sell more copies of your game to PS5 Pro owners, after all, embracing PSSR 2 would be a great way to incentivise people to buy.

Intriguingly, though, even if developers don't release patches, you can still see how PSSR 2 improves things. There'll now be a toggle in the Screen and Video settings on the PS5 Pro to use upgraded PSSR in all titles that support the original version.

As PlayStation says, "While results may vary by title, many games may see improvements in clarity and image stability. If it results in any unexpected visual effects, you can turn it off at any time."

That's a super interesting option that I'll be exploring once I get the software update, which will apparently roll out over the next few days – so if you don't see it yet, don't panic!

I've written quite a few pieces in the last six months about how I've been embracing physical media despite being a writer who covers streaming in major detail. That journey reached a really predictable milestone in the last couple of weeks – I finally got a real 4K Blu-ray player.

For the last couple of years, any time I wanted to watch a physical disc, I just used the PS5 I do most of my gaming on. In the last year, that's meant moving my PS5 Pro from my home office into the living room to hook it up and watch something. That's a bit of a pain, but my flat isn't big enough for it to be too annoying a journey.

What's more annoying about using the PS5 or PS5 Pro as a disc player, though, is that neither has a particularly quiet disc drive. Both will add a bit of a whine to your viewing experience, which isn't ideal from a sound perspective. Plus, the PS5 lacks one huge feature – Dolby Vision.

While Atmos is fully supported, Dolby Vision has never been added, meaning that the best discs can't shine to their full HDR potential on a PS5. So, I was extremely eager to try out the Panasonic DP-UB820, which in many people's eyes is basically "the" 4K Blu-ray player.

It's not Panasonic's top model, but at £350 it's by far the best value in the range, since step-down versions don't include Dolby Vision and the top-of-the-line UB9000 costs a massive £999. Still, £350 is the price of a PS5 when you take advantage of sales like Black Friday or Prime Day, so there's no pretending it makes more economic sense than a games console with so many other features.

If you're serious about your viewing experience, though, my initial watches have been pretty stellar, with the two biggest PS5 issues basically banished on the UB820. For one thing, its disc drive is much quieter (although still not entirely silent unless it's in a cabinet).

For another, Dolby Vision is entirely revelatory; I'm always a bit sceptical of codecs making massive differences, but having done some back-and-forth comparisons, this really is some of the best HDR tech you can get, and the fact that it works so easily out of the box is really persuasive.

I just watched the 4K version of Spielberg's War of the Worlds, for instance, and the amount of bright light points in otherwise dark scenes really made the player's contrast levels stand out. Some of the rich colours (like the blood-filled vines that spread around farms and towns) look sumptuous, too.

When I explained to other tech journalists that the PS5 doesn't support Dolby Vision, some of them were incredulous – but it really is absent. The more time passes, the more noticeable that becomes, too, since I'm confident that the PS5 is probably the most common 4K Blu-ray player on the market, technically speaking.

Regardless, now that I no longer have to rely on my PS5 Pro, I'm looking forward to getting as much out of this UB820 as I can over the next few months. From what I've seen so far, it's pretty much the best option for most people looking to get top-quality home cinema presentation.

My next question will be how it fares with standard Blu-rays, since its reputation is stellar on that front, too. If your normal Blu-rays are upscaled fantastically, after all, you might save a bundle by not having to rebuy them in 4K.

There’s nothing I love more than hopping onto the couch and playing a game for hours on the TV, but for a variety of reasons that isn’t always possible. The PlayStation Portal has become a big part of my gaming life therefore, especially since it started allowing you to stream your PS5 games from the cloud, as well as your console.

It’s still not perfect, but it’s a lot more versatile than it was at launch. And with its mighty 8-inch screen and DualSense-like controls, you get to experience the best of PlayStation without needing to turn on the TV at all.

At the end of last year I wrote about three games that really shine on the Portal, and now I want to highlight another trio that really suit the handheld format.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

The sequel to the weirdest game Hideo Kojima’s brilliant brain has ever given us is a stunning PS5 exclusive, and its grandest main story moments are definitely ideally experienced on a PS5 Pro connected to a massive TV.

However, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a game that shines almost as brightly in its side content. Running errands for your growing network of associates and delivering lost cargo you find in the Australian wilderness is a major part of the experience, and this is where the Portal becomes the perfect platform.

When I want to progress the story or am anticipating a flashy set piece, I’ll make sure I’m playing on my PS5 Pro, but if I’m just looking to upgrade some of my equipment by boosting my porter score, or just want to do some aimless wandering while I keep my eye on the football on the TV, I reach for the Portal.

Death Stranding 2’s combat can be pretty reliant on fast inputs, so I tend to avoid those sections when I’m streaming, but for everything else the game works really well on the handheld.

Cairn

T3’s Max Freeman-Mills recently wrote about how this hardcore indie climbing game has been an eye-opening experience on the PS5 Pro, and I’ve put some time into it there too.

But I’ve also found that the methodical, slow-paced nature of the game makes it a great fit for the Portal, and I’ve been making (very slow) progress from the comfort of my bed.

Unlike the many games that feature climbing sections as simple as locating a glowing handhold and pushing the analogue stick towards them, Cairn is an at times mercilessly difficult simulator. You control each of player character Aava’s limbs in sequence, thinking about every move carefully to avoid a painful fall.

Managing Aava’s food intake and chalk supplies is as important as mastering the controls, but I actually find it easier to spot grabbable geometry on the cliff-face when I’m holding a display close up to my face.

As Max noted in his piece, performance isn’t perfect, but I’ve had a pretty solid experience streaming from the cloud so far.

Astro Bot

It might be a few years old now, but Astro Bot remains the standout platformer of the 2020s so far, and will likely remain on the throne until a certain plumber decides to make an appearance on the Switch 2.

Team Asobi’s interactive love letter to both the platforming genre and PlayStation’s history is one of the most joyful gaming experiences I’ve ever had, and thanks to fairly frequent content updates since it launched in 2024, I’ve kept going back for more.

You should definitely enjoy Astro Bot’s pin-sharp virtual playgrounds on a 4K TV if you’re able to, but the Portal is also a great way to play. Because it features all of the DualSense controller’s technology, you still get to appreciate all the clever haptics work and adaptive trigger subtlety, and there’s something a bit special about holding the game’s wildly creative and colourful levels in your hands.

And while it might not be an OLED, this game makes you realise just how nice the Portal’s 8-inch display is.

It's not always the games you expect – when I bought my PS5 Pro (at some expense, despite selling a launch PS5 in the process), I knew that it would come in handy for the biggest releases. Since then, that's been confirmed by a series of massive titles that perform better on the more powerful hardware.

From Kingdom Come: Deliverance II to Ghost of Yotei, there are a heap of massive games out there that have sharper resolutions and smoother frame rates on the PS5 Pro compared to the base console. This week, though, I've been playing a far smaller game that nonetheless seems to be stretching my PS5 Pro to its limit at times.

Cairn is a climbing game, a little like the excellent Jusant from 2023, but with a far more intense focus on the actual mechanics of how you make your way up a cliff-face. In fact, where Jusant was extremely forgiving, Cairn can be brutal at times, tasking you with moving each of climber Aava's limbs one after the other.

You need to pick not just the right broad route up a climb, but also each and every handhold, foothold, clinch and piton point as you go. You might find an easy route, if you're careful and plan well, or end up stranded with no stamina or grip left and no choice but to reset and try a different approach.

That brutality (even on standard difficulty) does mean that Cairn can be frustrating at times – you might have to abandon an hour's progress if you realise that you don't have the pitons to make a final stretch, for instance. Still, it's also pretty clearly telling a story about single-minded determination that makes these setbacks very much an intended part of the experience.

The game's visuals are cel-shaded and, at times, really lovely, although it's not the most high-fidelity of experiences, which makes it a little surprising that it actually occasionally chugs on the PS5 Pro. It's not that easy to isolate these moments, although they often come when moving the camera across more complex scenes.

In fact, the frame rate is simply relatively unstable fairly consistently, which again is really surprising given the visuals at hand. I suspect the physics engine at play is quite complex, to account for some of that, but it all makes me wonder how the game plays on a base PS5. My guess is not brilliant – and that makes the prospect of a port to Nintendo Switch 2 look a little ropey, too.

This makes it quite a fascinating game to experience on this hardware, one that seems to underline the way that the PS5 Pro can be an investment in stable performance even when you don't expect it.

If you want a game that'll test your grit and determination without necessarily requiring split-second reactions and instincts, check out Cairn. It's a pretty unique experience.

It's been a couple of years now since the PlayStation Portal came out, but despite spending a frankly ludicrous amount of time on my PS5 and, more recently, PS5 Pro, I'd never actually gone hands-on with a Portal until very recently.

I'll happily admit that, while I had no issue with the idea of the Portal, it just wasn't something I could see myself needing. I mostly game on a monitor in my home office (a gorgeous 4K Sony Inzone M9 II if you're wondering), rather than on the main TV. That means I don't really need a second-screen device, since I'm not hogging the TV if I play on my PS5 Pro.

This all means that the relatively recent addition of full cloud streaming capabilities to the Portal is something of a game-changer. Whether or not you think the feature should have been there back at launch (and I do), the fact that it's here now makes the Portal suddenly a far more widely-useful device.

For one thing, it means you're no longer limited to Remote Play and the network strength of your home's Wi-Fi – rather, it's just about connection speeds and being able to support cloud streaming in bandwidth terms.

So, with a loan unit from PlayStation in hand, I've been testing out cloud streaming on the Portal for the past couple of weeks, and it's been eye-opening. I first tried this on my PS5 when it was made available, and found it pretty high on latency, the point where I ditched it quickly.

Now, though, I am indeed impressed with what I've been playing. Where games used to feel sluggish to the point where those needing fast reactions felt sub-par, I now would pretty happily play almost anything on the handheld.

The screen, for one thing, has always been impressive (despite not being an OLED), and continues to hold up really well. It's vivid and sharp, just as you'd hope, and colourful titles like Sword of the Sea look terrific.

That said, there are still hangups. I occasionally found that games wouldn't start because the Portal was citing poor connection strength – but checking what my iPhone was pulling at the same time would confirm speeds over 500mb/s, far more than PlayStation's recommended minimum for 1080p (15mp/s).

Similarly, there's no escaping the fact that you do get lag spikes, seemingly without a clear cause every time, and these have a knock-on effect on latency for periods. When it's stable, as it often is for long stretches, these fade into memory.

The real question for me is how this'll hold up when I'm on far weaker connections, like those in hotels or hotspotting from my phone. I aim to keep testing this over the next few months on trips and holidays, to see how it fares.

With PS6 still years away from release (according to industry experts) it seems Sony is still working on several ways to make it different to previous console generations.

There continues to be numerous rumours about a handheld version, which will play the same games but with compromises, and it's likely to more universally capable when it comes to backward compatibility. But the biggest, perhaps craziest upgrades might be found on its controller.

Sony has filed a patent for a new DualSense-like controller that takes a radical step away from what we know and love – it has no physical buttons.

The gamepad instead features two touchscreen zones where you can place your own button and D-pad configurations.

Issued last week, the patent (via VGC) shows a controller shaped like the PS5 DualSense but with no thumbsticks and two touchpanels. These enable users to assign their own customised layout instead.

It could even be changed per game, allowing you to set-up the exact key and pad controls you need for a specific title. This is potentially useful, not just for more complex games, but for accessibility too – for those who find smaller buttons hard to press.

There is a downside though – anyone who's tried to play fast-paced action games on a mobile phone screen will know how easy it is to miss inputs when you can't physically feel them. Haptics might help, and it seems that's part of this idea, but it's not a replacement for an actual D-pad or thumbstick.

That being said, mouse style controls would be better emulated through touchpanels – just look at the controller for Valve's forthcoming new Steam Machine.

Maybe the next DualSense could feature both concepts – physical controls and touchscreens that can be customised. That would offer the best of both worlds.

Or maybe this idea will be ditched when it comes to an actual consumer release. That happens often with patents – many of them never see the light of day.

When the PS5 Pro released just over a year ago, I wrote in my review that it had "more potential than is immediately apparent", but in all honesty, it's not really lived up to its promise – not yet, at least.

There are a few titles that run significantly better on the enhanced hardware, such as Assassin's Creed Shadows and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, but there's hardly been the flood we originally hoped for. And too few to justify the extra expense over a standard PS5.

But that could soon all change. We reported last March that an upgrade was coming to PS5 Pro to improve the console further, with Sony having confirmed a continued partnership with AMD.

Lead system architect, Mark Cerny, said at the time that the company's target for 2026 was to "have something very similar to [AMD's] FSR 4's upscaler available on PS5 Pro". That would replace PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), which has proved hit and miss at times.

Now it seems the new upscaling tech is almost ready for public consumption, with a release date of this March being touted.

According to Japanese PlayStation expert @Gust-FAN (via NotebookCheck) PSSR 2.0 is due before the end of March – it could even arrive sooner.

They also say that image quality and performance will be improved by the update, while games "capped at 70-80 fps" will be boosted too.

What is PSSR and what does it do in the PS5 Pro?

PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution is an upscaling technology that enables developers to run games at a higher resolution without impacting frame rates. It can boost graphics running in lower resolutions up to 4K, to make them look much better during play.

However, some games using PSSR have exhibited strange artefacts and shimmering. So while the technology has improved the overall presentation, it as sometimes come at a cost.

AMD's FSR 4 – much like recent versions of Nvidia's DLSS – is a similar tech but more effective. It uses more mature algorithms to perfect the automatic upscaling process, which results in better performance – even when running at super high frame rates, such as 120 fps.

PSSR 2.0 is based on those algorithms, which will hopefully encourage more developers to use it as a graphics option for PS5 Pro versions of their games.

We will hopefully find out more in the coming weeks.

The PlayStation 5 Pro is quite a banger of a console, and certainly the most powerful one on the market right now (far outstripping the nonetheless brilliant Switch 2 in raw power) – but it also has quite a lot of options for you to get to grips with once you set it up.

If you've recently picked up a PS5 Pro, or you've had one since launch day and want to get more from the console, there are plenty of little tweaks you can make, from making sure that your VRR (variable refresh rate) settings are correct to letting it power up backwards-compatible PS4 games.

Still, one thing that I think many people might overlook is the humble welcome hub, a feature that Sony added in a software update a couple of years ago, and which I think can be a really great way to get all the information you need when you turn your console on – if you set it up right.

The welcome hub and how to tune it

When you turn your PS5 Pro on, after the initial setup, you're greeted with what Sony calls the Welcome Hub, which is a card on your list of apps and games that basically lets you see a bunch of widgets at a glance. At first, this will be set up in the default configuration, but I think it's well worth taking some time to tinker with it.

You can do this by using your controller to navigate to the pencil icon at the top right of the section when you're looking at it – this is the Edit button, and lets you change what widgets are there, and add new ones.

As you navigate over the existing widgets, you'll be able to move them around and even use the R1 and L1 buttons to resize them.

By checking out the list of available widgets, you'll get a sense of the options open to you, and it should only take a couple of minutes to build a new version of the hub that surfaces the information you want.

In my case, I'm particularly interested in immediately seeing who from my friends list is online, and whether they're joinable, which I can do easily now, as well as getting a sense of whether my controller is charged thanks to a battery widget.

I also have a small media gallery tile, as I like the way it surfaces screenshots I've taken over the years, a bit like a memory from the Photos app on my iPhone. That helps me recall games I might have forgotten about every so often. There are a host more widgets to choose from, too, of course.

So, get digging into the menu and see what you end up building. It might not change your gaming life, but I can almost guarantee that customising the menu will spark more joy in the long run than just leaving it as the default.

The PlayStation Portal is an amazing piece of kit – especially since Sony pushed its streaming update at the tail end of last year. You no longer have to stream games from your own PS5, with a growing library of top-notch titles available to play via PS Plus.

But there's still one thing it's missing – something that would really put it amongst the best gaming handhelds, for me. And it looks like an upgraded model could be coming with exactly that.

Gaming analyst @Zuby_Tech posted a claim on X that a new version of the PlayStation Portal could be on its way. They also said that it will be upgraded with an OLED display and a 120Hz refresh rate.

They also suggested that it will be called PlayStation Portal Pro.

To be honest, the 8-inch LCD display on the current PS Portal is excellent – capable of bold, saturated colours and with great brightness. But when compared with the OLED panel on my AYN Odin 2 Portal Android gaming handheld, it just doesn't have the same impact.

Deeper, more involving black levels not only give images a more tangible look, they improve colour representation with minimal light bleed around pixels.

The 120Hz refresh rate will also bring it more in line with modern handhelds.

Isn't Sony also planning a PS6 handheld?

This new release won't impact Sony's other handheld plans, it's said. We've heard for a while that the company could release two new consoles in the next couple of years – a dedicated handheld, plus a full-on PlayStation 6.

However, the potential PlayStation Portal Pro could set the stall for the type of tech to expect further down the line. An 8-inch OLED display would certainly be an impressive start.

Of course, there's no confirmation on this rumour for now, let alone a launch date. If true, it'll surely arrive sometime this year – possibly during the build up to the holiday season.

For now, I'll continue to savour some of the best PS5 games on my Portal, and wait with baited breath.

The PS5 Pro is, bar none, the best and most powerful mainstream console available right now – and there's no arguing with that. It far outstrips the power of the base PS5 or the Xbox Series X, and should retain that title for a good few years. If you just added one to your arsenal, you've made a great choice.

As the proud owner of a PS5 Pro, and someone who's played a whole host of games on it since the console launched, I've brought together a list of the games you might want to pair with your powered-up hardware now that we're in early 2026. These are the buzziest titles, with most of them also boasting really obvious enhancements compared to on base PS5.

Arc Raiders

Top of my list right now is the game that's stolen dozens of hours from me in the last month – Arc Raiders, which has been something of a multiplayer insurgent, coming from a smaller studio. It's a stunning example of how to build an extraction shooter that still appeals to casual players, and its mixture of combat against unpredictable robots and even more unpredictable players is total dynamite.

The game is listed as being PS5 Pro Enhanced on the PlayStation, which means you get sharper visuals and some higher-quality lighting and shadows compared to PS5. That might not sound like much, but when you're sneaking around on a night raid and catch the glint of someone's gun barrel in a dark corner, you'll realise just how much extra ambiance and detail it can mean.

Assassin's Creed Shadows

Perhaps the biggest gap between a standard PS5 release and the PS5 Pro version that I've seen in a long while was offered up by Assassin's Creed Shadows, which made a radical improvement by letting you use its new and extremely impressive global lighting without dropping down to 30fps. That means you get super-smooth 60fps gameplay and the best visuals possible.

It helps that its version of feudal Japan is also insanely beautiful and detailed, to the point where I actually think it's a better and more consuming game than Ghost of Yotei (although the latter is also a superb pick for samurai fans). Available now for very decent prices, Shadows is a real technical showcase.

Battlefield 6

If Arc Raiders isn't quite the flavour of multiplayer shooter that you're looking for, there's a very good chance that Battlefield 6 is more up your street. This traditional but hugely satisfying FPS goes big on destruction and atmosphere, with some of the best visuals and sound design I've encountered in ages.

It also looks sharper and cleaner on PS5 Pro thanks to some handy enhancements, even if they're not surfaced in settings that you can actually change. It adds up to a modern and convincing shooter that can be incredibly immersive on PlayStation's most powerful console.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

My favourite RPG of the last few years was also the game that really made me realise I did the right thing by buying a PS5 Pro. What can be a slightly unstable game on the base console is completely rock-solid on the Pro, with better resolution and frame rate consistency making this unbelievably detailed game shine as it should.

It's been expanded with various free mission packs since its launch, making it all the more attractive, but you really have to give Deliverance 2 a few hours of gameplay to let it win you over. Its commitment to immersion makes it brutal in the early hours, but by the time you pilfer or earn a suit of armour you'll probably be unable to tear yourself away.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

A slightly older title that nonetheless benefits from one of the best PS5 Pro patches in the business, Spider-Man 2 is a total joy from start to finish, telling a classic Spider-Man tale and letting you jump between the two suits of Peter Parker and Miles Morales as they dice with a whole heap of different baddies and even each other at times.

The game's PS5 Pro patch unlocks a bunch of graphical modes to choose from, with those that take advantage of its power really standing out. They ensure that you can get ray-traced lighting and reflections at frame rates that still feel ultra-smooth (especially on a display with VRR), making this hugely satisfying game even more enjoyable to play or replay.

While it does feel like consoles are more expensive than ever, and gaming is pretty hard to do on a shoestring, it's thankfully still the case that most new consoles still come with an included controller, whether it's the PS5's excellent DualSense pad or the Switch 2's detachable Joy Cons.

Still, plenty of gamers know the sensation of wishing you had an extra couple of buttons, or clickier triggers, or whatever else when you're in the heat of an online match. If someone you know falls in that bucket, then giving them a pro controller for Christmas could make you just about their favourite person ever.

I've tested a whole heap of pro controllers down the years, and use one basically every day – so I've gathered three of the best current options for you to consider, right here.

T3's Top 3

So, which is best?

Well, this is where things get a little tight. After all, I've not picked out any duds for you – any of these three controllers would make a great addition to your gaming setup, and each has its strengths.

That said, I am ultimately happy to rank them, and I think the 8BitDo Pro 3 does come up in a very respectable third place. It's the best value, and there's no real doubting that. However, it's not quite as guaranteed to work with the device you want, since it doesn't have PS5 support, making it more of a Switch 2 accessory.

In second place, regrettably, I'm going to put my daily driver, the Scuf Reflex Pro. I think it can be the best controller on the market, if you tune it exactly as you want, but it lacks some of the flexibility of the DualSense Edge and is more expensive. This is for the true enthusiasts who want a custom controller that's perfect for them.

In the top spot, therefore, I think the DualSense Edge does take it. It's the best value despite a high price tag, has the features you'd want, and integrates phenomenally with a PS5, letting you make profiles on a per-game basis. That said, it isn't quite as stellar for other devices, for obvious reasons.

When Ubisoft first confirmed that it would be bringing Assassin's Creed Shadows to the Nintendo Switch 2, I'll happily admit that I was impressed and surprised. I played the game fairly obsessively earlier this year on my PS5 Pro, and was stunned by how it made the most of the hardware to look genuinely superb.

Nintendo's console is drastically less powerful than Sony's highest-powered device, though, so I assumed that major cutbacks would be needed to make it run. Still, after playing around with the game for the past week, I am indeed fairly impressed with how it's been handled.

The visual scaling back is pretty obvious the moment you boot up the game, and there's no point ignoring it. Shadows runs at 30fps on Switch 2, in both docked and handheld play, and it's clear that the console probably couldn't manage 60fps without looking so muddy as to be pointless.

The resolutions in each case are a massive step down from the PlayStation 5 version, let alone that of the PS5 Pro, and you also clearly miss out on the ray-traced global illumination lighting that made the game so spectacular on PS5 Pro. That said, I fast-travelled around a bunch and saw different weather conditions that made me still feel like the game is a technically impressive effort.

Shadows features a chunky open world, and its gameplay in exploration and combat is entirely 1:1 on Switch 2 compared to consoles – you don't miss out on anything. In fact, logging into my Ubisoft account let me pick up my completed save thanks to cross-progression, which is really handy.

I was thinking I could test the game by playing its Claws of Awaji free expansion, but Ubisoft has confirmed that this will only come to Switch 2 in early 2026 as part of an update, so parity between versions isn't quite there on the content front.

That 30fps change does make the game feel less fluid, of course, but that isn't to say it feels bad to play. It takes some getting used to, but it felt relatively stable in my limited testing. The menus did sometimes feel quite laggy, though, and the same went for fast-travelling.

Also, the upscaling techniques being used are more visible than you might be used to. Pan the camera between the sky and a busy hillside of trees in the distance, for example, and you'll see the software visibly catching up, with some lighting changing in front of your eyes once the vista is in view.

That makes the game notably a little janky at times, and I can't pretend it's the best version of Shadows. Still, plenty of original Switch ports were technically the worst versions of the games in question, but they still found bigger audiences by making it onto the platform at all.

One interesting detail is that, just as it did on the other consoles, the main menu in Shadows features a portal that lists other recent games, including Odyssey and Valhalla. That doesn't necessarily mean those two are going to be ported to Switch 2, but it certainly makes that seem more likely than before.

They run on the same game engine, after all, albeit an older version with fewer visual features, so perhaps they could even perform more smoothly on Switch 2 if Ubisoft does port them. That said, since Shadows clocks in at a chunky 65GB download, having them all on your Switch 2 at once might need a microSD Express card to make things more sensible anyway.

Ultimately, anyone asking which platform to play Shadows on will now get a more complicated response than before. There's no doubt that the 60fps mode with global illumination on PS5 Pro remains the best experience, without any real asterisk, but plenty of people might end up with only the Switch 2 as their option.

In that case, I think it seems like a perfectly fine place to play through what is a really great game. There's no doubt that Shadows will be an interesting early technical statement from the Switch 2, and I look forward to seeing what more intensive assessments of its performance tell us about how the hardware is handling such a big game.

It's finally Black Friday itself, and while that hasn't necessarily meant a deluge of brand-new deals from all corners, it does mean that time is running out to actually buy many of the offers that have been available this week. That's worth pointing out in particular where this PS5 deal is concerned.

For the first time in the console's lifespan, Sony has discounted every version of the PS5 this week, and while the headlines have been filled with the PS5 Digital Edition and its lowest-ever price, I think most people would be smarter to go with the standard PS5 for £100 off.

I've long argued that people shouldn't be buying the digital version of the PS5 unless they've got no other choice – doing so locks you into two futures. Either you only ever buy games from the PlayStation store and accept that you'll pay whatever the price on that one storefront is, or you buy the PlayStation 5 Disc Drive to add to your console at a later date.

The latter plan is decent enough, but why wait? If you can afford to cut that part of the plan out, just buy the full-fat PS5 now and you'll immediately be able to reap the benefits of buying pre-owned games on disc, borrowing games from friends, and have way more flexibility in general.

Plus, your PS5 will also then be able to take its place as a media centre, since it'll work with 4K Blu-rays, normal Blu-rays and DVDs for movie nights and boxsets the old-fashioned way.

In my opinion, the added value of the disc drive is basically massive, which makes this my pick of the PS5 deals on offer right now. That said, all of those deals will likely vanish at some point on Cyber Monday, so be sure to grab one while you can.

The PlayStation 5 launched to such insane stock shortages that it feels like we've been waiting years and years for it to get properly discounted on Black Friday. Sony just didn't have a reason to cut its price while it was selling out, but now that it's more of a steady part of the market, it's the subject of some big deals for Black Friday 2025.

The big star this year is the biggest ever discount on the PS5 Digital Edition in its newer slimline variant – the smallest and most affordable of Sony's consoles is now cheaper than it's ever been, at £289 here in the UK across a range of retailers. Here's the thing, though: I don't recommend you buy it in that deal.

Don't get me wrong, it's a stellar price and by far the cheapest this console has ever been, brand new. However, I think you should first think long and hard about whether you want to give up discs, since it's a driveless console. I'm a huge believer in having a disc drive, whether it's to play 4K Blu-rays or because it lets you borrow games from friends and trade them in much more easily when you're done with them.

The best deal on the PS5 right now

In that light, though, there's thankfully another stellar deal at Very. It has a bundle including the optional extra of the PlayStation 5 Disc Drive that you can swap into your console, along with the latest Call of Duty, and you still save a huge chunk of money.

Black Friday is all about the deals, of course, but the biggest wins come from taking a beat and making sure you're buying the right one, rather than just going for what seems most immediately cheap. If you use the PS5 you buy for a few years, the extra cash you spent on the disc drive can earn itself back extremely quickly through trade-ins and discounted games.

After all, if you keep your console as a digital-only experience, you're always going to be locked into whatever pricing the PlayStation Store offers at a given moment, which isn't the most competitive buying situation. If you need a disc drive on its own, of course, you can always pick one up later – so you don't necessarily need to get it right at the same time as you buy your console.

The PlayStation ecosystem has never been more full of options – even if you already own a PS5 or PS5 Pro. Whereas back in the days of the PS3, you only had a few accessories to choose from before entering the world of third-party devices, you can now pick up dozens of official add-ons for your console.

One of the most high-end and impressive has, for a few years now, been the PS5 DualSense Edge, Sony's own in-house pro controller for the PS5. It's a thing of beauty, but despite being an avid gamer, I've never quite managed to convince myself to shell out to buy one. This Black Friday deal might change that, though.

Rather than the DualSense Edge, I've spent the time since the launch of the PS5 using a Scuf controller, and I do love the thing to death. That said, it suffers a little in comparison to the Edge simply because it's third-party, so I can't have per-game buttons maps and it isn't integrated into the UI all that well.

This makes it a doozy for competitive play, but the Edge is still clearly the superior option, and this deal even makes it way more affordable, too. In fact, it's the lowest price for a new Edge that I've ever seen, and the lowest that Amazon's ever listed, which is quite some going.

You can also pick up the controller in either black or white, depending on your tastes. I'm agnostic, but I have to say that the black version really does look nice and stealthy, so it could be the one I'd go for. I'd expect this deal to last until the end of Black Friday weekend, which means I've got a good few days ahead of me to see if my resolve to not spend money is tested to breaking point.

Alongside its new Steam Machine and controller, Valve recently also announced a new Steam Frame VR headset – and that's excited a fair few thanks technologies like foveated streaming and eye tracking.

However, there's already a PS5 and PC compatible headset out there with similar tech (and more), plus 100s of games ready to play right now. And it just so happens to have had a massive price drop for Black Friday.

The Sony PlayStation VR2 (PSVR2, for short) is an extremely impressive piece of gaming kit – even more so since Sony expanded support for PC games too – and it has hit under £300 / $300 for a limited time. That's a drop of up to 25%.

It's available at those prices in the UK and US from a number of retailers – including Amazon, Very and Target.

The PSVR2 was originally designed for use with a PS5 (and subsequently PS5 Pro). However, after launch Sony added the ability to connect it to a gaming PC, via a separate adapter.

This enables play for hundreds of VR games and apps on Steam.

Thankfully, Amazon also has a deal on the PC adapter in the UK, while a third-party version is available in the Black Friday sales in the US, too.

Of course, if you want to make the most of the PSVR2 headset, we thoroughly recommend the PS5 Pro – which has certain enhancements to particular VR games.

Thankfully, that's also on offer for Black Friday – with a big slice off the usual price.

Here are some of the best deals available today.

Back when it launched in late 2024, there was no dressing up the PS5 Pro as a mass-appeal console. Most people want to play the biggest games, but they don't necessarily need those games to perform as well as any console can possibly manage.

Well, I'm sadly not most people, and I've done enough pixel-peeping to have known that I needed the PS5 Pro, which is why I sold my launch PS5 to offset the cost. That worked okay, but still ended up very expensive, which in turn explains why I'm feeling pretty envious of the very, very enticing Black Friday deals that just went live in both the UK and US on the PS5 Pro.

Once you get your hands on a PS5 Pro and start playing some of your favourite games, it won't take long to dispel the idea that it's just the same as the standard PS5. I've seen enough titles get upgrades, and played enough games on it to see the difference in a whole heap of ways.

Most games run better, whether that means smoother, higher frame rates or sharper resolutions, and it's a safe bet that if you have a 4K TV that's much over 55 inches or so, you'll be able to tell the difference. On smaller TVs, I would say the base PS5 is likely more than enough to be happy with, to be fair.

This is the most powerful home console ever released, after all, and I have to say I think it's potentially the best I've ever bought. It certainly stands out as the most expensive one, too, which makes these deals on both sides of the Atlantic well worth jumping on if you're eyeing one up. Just remember to also order a PS5 disc drive if you have any physical media you want to play!

Over the last few years, I've been steadily gathering additions to my PS5 – not least by entirely replacing it with a PS5 Pro when the chance came. I've got the best gaming headset you can get your hands on, a pro-level controller, and play on a great monitor, so what more could I need?

Well, Black Friday is here, and it has a way of showing you what you're missing in the form of great deals. It's done just that with a tidy little discount on the PlayStation Portal, the remote play device that became so much more powerful recently when it finally enabled streaming for your library of PS5 games.

The deal is live on both sides of the Atlantic, too, so I've included both the UK and US versions below for you to check out.

PlayStation Portal UK deal

PlayStation Portal US deal

The Portal has been a quiet beauty of a machine, according to colleagues who actually have one, but it really did completely change when it got its latest system update. Rather than relying on a connection to your actual home console for all of its gaming, it can now be the cloud streaming device that it always seemed suited to being.

That means you don't need to worry as much about your home's Wi-Fi network, and makes it much easier to get into a game using any decent internet connection you can find on your travels. That might even mean hot-spotting from your mobile signal, if it's strong enough.

It's got a really large, vibrant 8-inch screen at its heart, sandwiched between what are basically the two halves of a DualSense controller. That means you get all the haptics and responsiveness of that controller, and the comfort of using the Portal really is much better than many handhelds out there as a result.

I've been eyeing one up for some time, so I might have my resistance tested this Black Friday, as there's every chance that this deal might last until the end of November.

Even though many retailers have already kicked off their Black Friday sales, PlayStation has so far staid its hand. However, we only have a few days to go before its deals become available – and they could very well be worth waiting for.

That's because, from Friday 21 November, PlayStation's offers will go live and will include big discounts on PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles, along with the PS Portal handheld and the DualSense Edge controller.

The deals will be available from the official PlayStation Store online, as well as a whole load of bargains on games available on the consoles themselves. The likes of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, God of War Ragnarök, and Astro Bot will have money off, and you can expect discounts on PlayStation Plus memberships too.

The offers will be available across multiple regions, including the UK, US and Europe. We've also found out the sorts of bargains you can look forward to, including £90 / $100 off the PS5 Pro, and £135 / $100 off a PS5 Digital Edition.

The new PS5 Fortnite Flowering Chaos Bundle will be available for just £389.99 / $449.99, with the Digital Edition version down to £294.99 / $399.99.

Additional details can be found on the official PlayStation Black Friday deals website, and we'll bring you all the best offers right here on T3 as soon as they start.

There will be plenty of deals available through third-party retailers too, including Amazon, so we'll bring you those as well.

Come back and check often. Certainly, if you're in the market for a PS5 or PS5 Pro, or are just looking for a new controller, accessory or PS Plus subscription, these are exciting times.

We might only be five years into the life of the PlayStation 5, but if you’ve been on the internet in the last few months then you’ll know that speculation is already rife about its successor – which, let’s face it, is almost certainly going to be called the PS6.

While I’m more than content with the PS5 Pro that currently sits underneath my telly, I can’t help but dip into the rumours, and there are a number of reasons why I’m already daydreaming about what the PS6 could bring to the table.

Here are three that have caught my eye.

1. It could be a fair bit cheaper than the next Xbox

Consoles are getting more expensive all the time, and with the PS5 Pro coming in at £699 ($699 / €799) you can be pretty confident that the PS6 will be a very costly investment. That’s the bad news. The good news (depending on your platform allegiance) is that it could come in at quite a bit cheaper than the next Xbox.

Xbox president Sarah Bond recently told Mashable that the company’s next-gen console would be a “very premium, high-end curated experience,” or in other words (according to the reliable Windows Central) a Windows-toting PC in Xbox-branded clothing that lets you play games from other launchers and platforms as well as Microsoft’s.

This is likely to be very expensive indeed, and could very well be a different direction to the one Sony will take.

If, as rumoured, Microsoft could be considering a $1,000+ console and PC hybrid, then the more traditional alternative of the PS6 should in theory do less damage to your wallet.

It’s only speculation at this point, so take with a generous spoonful of salt, but a known leaker has estimated the difference could be as dramatic as $600 for the PS6 vs $1,200 for the next Xbox.

This seems very unlikely, but if the final outcome is even close to those figures, it’s easy to imagine the PS6 being the choice for the vast majority of people.

2. It could launch alongside a complementary handheld console

It’s pretty obvious that Sony is interested in getting back into the handheld space. It kind of already is with the much-improved-from-launch PlayStation Portal, and given the success of the Switch 2 and the burgeoning gaming PC handheld scene, it would be crazy for Sony to sit out of the fight in the upcoming generation.

The Portal has been a surprise hit for Sony, despite it not being capable of running any games natively, and as time has passed the remote play accessory has started to look like a rough draft for a more fully-featured handheld.

That’s certainly what the rumour mill has been saying for months, and if you believe the supposed leaks, a new PlayStation handheld could arrive at the same time as the PS6.

It would act as a companion to the main console and could gazump the recently released ROG Xbox Ally and even the Xbox Ally X in the specs department.

Sony recently introduced a new Power Save mode for the PS5 that allows you to play some games with reduced performance in exchange for the console sipping less energy. Many have speculated that this could be the necessary groundwork for a handheld device that is considerably less powerful than the PS6 but still able to run the same games.

Personally, I still want a Vita 2 that is the same size as Sony’s beloved handheld of old and excels at indies and weird games, but I’ll happily take a portable PS6 for my backpack too.

3. PSSR could get even better in the next generation

When properly utilised (and that unfortunately hasn’t always been the case so far), one of the most impressive features of the PS5 Pro is PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR).

Sony’s AI-upscaling tech uses machine learning to make a lower resolution base image appear sharper and more detailed on your TV without performance being sacrificed in the process. Essentially, it uses AI to make your games look better.

Sony made a big deal about PSSR when the PS5 Pro launched last year, and it’s likely that the souped-up PS5 is a dummy run for the next version of the tech in the PS6.

Reliable YouTuber leaker Moore’s Law Is Dead has speculated that a planned update to PSSR on the PS5 Pro could offer 4K/120fps performance, as well as 8K at 60fps. I’m personally far less interested in resolution than I am high frame rates, but the thought of being able to play AAA games in their smoothest possible form while still being able to enjoy UHD fidelity does excite me.

Given the issues some developers have had with PSSR so far, it feels like we’re a long way from the tech working as it’s supposed to in every game, but if the PS5 Pro ends up being capable of the kind of numbers quoted above, the PS6 could be seriously enticing for frame rate freaks like me.

I'm a big fan of the PlayStation Portal – Sony's gaming handheld that lets you stream your PS5 games for remote play. But it's always been a bit lacking in features in comparison with other portable devices.

The gaming giant added the ability for PS Plus members to stream games over the cloud as part of a major update last year, but the list of supported titles was limited during the beta phase.

That's all changed now, though. The cloud gaming functionality has now launched fully and adds cloud streaming of games you own, as well as the selection available in the game and classics catalogues.

Sony boasts that thousands of titles are now available to play remotely. If you own any of those supported, you can stream them to your Portal without needing a connection to your PS5 or PS5 Pro.

The list includes the likes of Astro Bot, Borderlands 4, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Ghost of Yōtei, with new releases being added all the time. And, as you don't need to rely on your own home network to stream when out and about, you should get a better experience on your travels.

It makes the PS Portal much more attractive for sure – and is another string in the bow for PS Plus Premium members, as the new feature is exclusive to that tier.

Other new PlayStation Portal features

As well as expanded cloud streaming, the PlayStation Portal has received a refreshed user interface, with three new tabs on the same homescreen.

You can access your Remote Play, Cloud Streaming and Search screens from the one location (rather than having to boot into the option you'd prefer on start-up, as before).

The handheld now supports 3D Audio on select games, when listening through compatible headphones or earbuds. And a new Network Status Screen will give you the heads up on your current connectivity, to ensure you are getting the best experience possible.

Additional extras include a new in-game store to purchase in-game items on the Portal itself, and the ability to send and receive game invitations to and from friends who are also on the Cloud Streaming network.

The PS Portal update is available to all owners now.

It's the question on everyone's lips – when are we next going to get a glimpse of GTA 6? It's been months and months since the last trailer dropped, but there's still a long time to go before the game is ready to actually come out in May 2026, so Rockstar will have to give us more to digest soon, right?

Well, there's really no guarantee there at all, but I've been thinking about the huge upcoming blockbuster in light of what I've played so far this year, and one of the conclusions I'm increasingly drawing is really surprising to me. I've been playing on PC more and more this year, with an RTX 5070 Ti to rely on, and it's made performance more of an interest in new games.

If I scroll through the new games I've played in recent months, one has stood out for its technical optimisation – Battlefield 6, which runs like butter on a wide range of machines, and is particularly handsome on its highest settings. Its team made the impressive decision to ignore ray-traced lighting, sticking with older techniques to leave more headroom for reactivity and destructible environments in its maps, and that approach has paid dividends.

The game looks stunning, and while its PC performance is super impressive, it's on consoles that the benefits shine – especially given GTA 6 won't even hit PC at launch. On consoles, Battlefield 6 is a 60fps title by default, with no mode that drops this down to 30fps, and it also includes an unlocked performance mode that gets you more like 80-90fps even in big multiplayer games.

That means everyone gets smooth 60fps gameplay as the floor of the possibilities, and makes for a current-gen title that really feels superb to play, at the same time as looking and sounding great. From what we've seen of GTA 6, it might be an envelope-pusher in terms of visuals, but if all that comes at the expense of running at 30fps, I worry that it just won't feel that great to play.

Indeed, with its release date now in mid-2026, one could start to suspect that Rockstar's plan involves an inevitable upgraded version of the game on PlayStation 6 and whatever device is next for Xbox, allowing players to enjoy the game more smoothly. This would also be a repeat of how GTA 5 worked, releasing on PS3 and Xbox 360 before coming out again in a markedly better state on PS4 and Xbox One consoles.

Remembering the ropiness of those first GTA 5 versions, if GTA 6 releases in 2026 and doesn't have 60fps performance even on PS5 Pro, I'll count myself sorely disappointed.

This console generation has been solid in my opinion, but it's fair to say that it hasn't delivered consistently smooth frame rates without upscaling and other wizardry to make things look like they're rendering in 4K, and the same goes for expensive techniques like ray-traced lighting. Battlefield 6 has demonstrated that players might be more interested in smoothness and playability than the most bleeding-edge technical options, and I'll basically be super interested to see how Rockstar's approach firms up next year.

It's a bit of a mind-melter to consider, but this console generation is already at least halfway done – the PlayStation 5 came out all the way back in 2020, and the PS5 Pro in 2024, meaning we're likely much closer to the PS6 than you might first assume. While rumours abound about what it'll change on the technical side, and how it'll move things forward in terms of fidelity and possible portability, I've been testing a new 8BitDo controller that shines a small light on one important feature.

The 8BitDo Pro 3 is the latest version of 8BitDo's retro-inspired controller lineup, and it's a bit of a barnstormer if you want a Bluetooth controller for your PC or Nintendo Switch (or indeed Switch 2). It has really fun stylings that make it look like exactly what it is – a retro controller with all the modern mod cons that you'd hope for.

That means TMR joysticks (which are way less susceptible to wear and drifting), triggers that you can easily swap between full motion and instant clickiness, and a D-pad that feels genuinely superb when used. However, it's the button layout that has grabbed my attention.

8BitDo has added four extra buttons to the Pro 3. Two are next to the shoulder buttons (R4 and L4), giving you more options up there; another two are on the controller's rear side, where your fingers rest when gripping it (PR and PL). These open up a huge range of possibilities for easier control schemes in games of all types, and are hardly revolutionary, as much as they're very well-implemented.

In fact, Nintendo's own Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller also includes extra buttons on the grips, and you can remap these super easily whenever you like. So, what does this mean for PlayStation? Well, in short, I'm hoping that the next-generation controller we get with the PS6 includes grip buttons as standard.

Sony can't claim to have its head in the sand on this, after all. It released the DualSense Edge years ago, a super premium controller option that included grip buttons – swappable ones, in fact, that could change to a more paddle-like shape if desired. I'm not expecting that level of component, but the inclusion of simpler buttons like those on the 8BitDo Pro 3 seems extremely doable.

I don't want to overstress the point, but I also think that these buttons say more about the state of gaming than you might think. 10 years ago, extra buttons were the preserve of the extreme enthusiasts and competitive gamers (and synonymous with Scuf and other esports brands). Now, though, they're desirable enough to the mainstream that Nintendo's including them on its controllers.

The reality is that the number of people who grew up with controllers in their hands is shooting up all the time, and people are getting better at games all the time. You only have to compare playing a casual game of Call of Duty 10 years ago against the experience today to see how much more competitive the average player has become. So, give them extra control options and they'll love it, in short.

So, 8BitDo has helped me conclude that this is a small but meaningful improvement that I'm hoping we get with the PS6, whenever that console becomes more of a material reality.