Convention - Paris Games Week Restart : Discover the Playstation booth

By Mulder, Paris, Paris-Expo, Porte de Versailles, 01 november 2022

After 3 years of waiting, the time has come to meet again the major players of the industry who promise a more festive experience than ever. The PGW Restart offers a varied program of games and licenses to discover, test and share the passion of video games. Major publishers will be present at Paris Games Week 2022, including: Bandai Namco Entertainment, Capcom, Nintendo, PLAION and its partners SEGA and Koei Tecmo, PlayStation, Square Enix, Ubisoft and Xbox. 

PlayStation is a video game brand that includes five home video game consoles, two handheld consoles, a media center and a smartphone, as well as an online service and several magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a division of Sony. The first PlayStation console was released in Japan in December 1994, and worldwide the following year.

The original console in the series was the first console of any type to sell more than 100 million units in less than a decade. Its successor, the PlayStation 2, was released in 2000. The PlayStation 2 is the best-selling home console to date, having reached over 155 million units sold by the end of 2012. Sony's next console, the PlayStation 3, was released in 2006 and has sold over 87.4 million units as of March 2017. Sony's next console, the PlayStation 4, was released in 2013, selling one million units in one day, becoming the fastest selling console in history. The final console in the series, the PlayStation 5, was released in 2020[6] and sold 10 million units in its first 249 days, dethroning its predecessor as the fastest-selling PlayStation console to date.

The first portable game console in the series, the PlayStation Portable or PSP, sold 80 million units worldwide in November 2013. Its successor, the PlayStation Vita, launched in Japan in December 2011 and in most other major territories in February 2012, sold more than four million units by January 2013. The PlayStation TV is a micro-console and non-portable variant of the PlayStation Vita portable game console. Other hardware released as part of the PlayStation series includes the PSX, a digital video recorder integrated with the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, although it was short-lived due to its high price and was never released outside of Japan, as well as a Sony Bravia TV with a PlayStation 2 built in. The main controller series used by the PlayStation series is the DualShock, a line of vibration feedback game controllers that has sold 28 million units as of June 2008.

The PlayStation Network is an online service with approximately 110 million registered users (as of June 2013) and over 103 million monthly active users. (as of December 2019) It includes an online virtual marketplace, the PlayStation Store, which allows for the purchase and download of games and various forms of multimedia, a subscription-based online service called PlayStation Plus, and a social gaming network service called PlayStation Home, which had more than 41 million users worldwide at the time of its closure in March 2015. PlayStation Mobile (formerly PlayStation Suite) is a software framework that delivers PlayStation content to mobile devices. Version 1.xx supports both the PlayStation Vita, PlayStation TV and some devices running the Android operating system, while version 2.00 released in 2014 targeted only the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV. Content planned for release under this framework currently includes only original PlayStation games.

Seventh-generation PlayStation products also use the XrossMediaBar, which is an Emmy Award-winning graphical user interface for technology and engineering. A touchscreen user interface called LiveArea was introduced for the PlayStation Vita, which integrates social networking elements into the interface. In addition, the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 consoles also supported Linux-based operating systems, Linux for PlayStation 2 and OtherOS respectively, although this feature has since been discontinued. The series is also known for its many marketing campaigns, the latest of which is the "Greatness Awaits" ad, and then "Play Has No Limits" in the United States.

The series also has a strong lineup of top-tier games thanks to SIE Worldwide Studios, a group of many studios owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment that developed them exclusively for PlayStation consoles. In addition, the series features a variety of discounted re-releases of games by Sony, with different names for each region; these include the Greatest Hits, Platinum, Essentials and The Best selection of games.

The PlayStation 5 (PS5) was released worldwide on November 12, 2020 and, alongside the Xbox Series X and Series S released the same month, is part of the ninth generation of video game consoles. The first news about the PS5 came from Mark Cerny in an interview with Wired in April 2019. Sony wants the PlayStation 5 to be its next-generation console and to ship worldwide by the end of 2020.  Earlier in 2019, Sony's financial report for the quarter ending March 31, 2019, stated that a new next-generation hardware was in development but would ship in April 2020 at the earliest.

The actual specifications were released in October 2019. The console is expected to use an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on AMD's Zen 2 microarchitecture, built on the 7-nanometer process node. The graphics processor is a custom variant of AMD's Navi family using the RDNA microarchitecture, which includes support for hardware acceleration of ray tracing rendering, enabling real-time ray tracing graphics. The new console comes with custom SSD storage, as Cerny emphasized the need for fast load times and higher bandwidth to make games more immersive, as well as to support the content streaming required from disk for 8K resolution. In a second interview with Wired in October 2019, more details about the new hardware were revealed: the console's built-in Blu-ray drive would support 100GB Blu-ray discs and Ultra HD Blu-ray; while a disc-based game install is mandatory because to take advantage of the SSD, the user will have some fine-grained control over how much they want to have installed, such as installing only the multiplayer components of a game. Sony is currently developing an improved suspended game state for the PlayStation 5 to consume less power than the PlayStation 4.

The system's new controller, the DualSense, has adaptive triggers that can change the player's resistance as needed, such as when shooting an arrow at a bow in a game. The controller also features powerful haptic feedback through voice coil actuators, which, combined with an improved controller speaker, are intended to provide better in-game feedback. USB-C connectivity and a more powerful battery are other improvements to the new controller. The PlayStation 5 features a completely redesigned user interface. The PlayStation 5 is backwards compatible with most PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR games, and Cerny said the transition to the new console should be smooth. In a later interview, Jim Ryan talked about the PlayStation 5 being able to play "99%" of PlayStation 4 games, an estimate derived from a sample of "thousands" of people. At CES 2020, Sony unveiled the official logo for the platform.

Check out our photos from the Playstation booth on our Flickr page

A meeting place for all communities and all generations, PGW will offer many animations that reflect the plurality of the ecosystem. Young and old will be able to meet cosplayers on the Imagin'Con association's booth, which will offer many animations and activities, and to travel with the family through the 50 years of video games on the MO5 association's retrogaming space. You can also visit the PGW Shop, which will offer a range of Paris Games Week collector's items, and the FNAC store area to discover new products, animations and demonstrations. PGW, which takes place during the All Saints' Day vacations, is naturally a meeting place for all families. The PGW Junior area will offer activities and games to try out for budding gamers and parents alike!

Key information :
-,Open to the general public from Wednesday 02 November to Sunday 06 November 2022 
- Opening hours : 8:30 am - 6:30 pm
- Paris Expo - Porte de Versailles, Hall 1
- Ticketing (only online) : here

Photos and video : Boris Colletier / Mulderville

(Source : press release)