PS5 DualSense Lasts 2 Hours With Astro's Playroom – Report

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The PlayStation 5's DualSense controller has wowed its fair share of developers and publications in the past few weeks. However, it's battery life could leave something to be desired. According to Multiplayer.it, the DualSense's battery only lasted for two hours when playing Astro's Playroom.

The title is very intensive with its haptic feedback but there have been other figures going around. Dave Lee on YouTube states about four hours of battery life from the controller when playing Astro's Playroom, though this was from leaving it running in an area that produced consistent feedback. Otherwise, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales offered five and a half hours of life since its haptic feedback was relatively normal.

It's early days yet when it comes to estimating the battery life for the DualSense. But at the very least, with everything that's going on with the adaptive triggers, haptic feedback and whatnot, it seems that games leveraging this will drain the battery faster than others. The PS5 is out on November 12th so expect more details on its battery life and usage in the coming weeks.

The Medium Has Been Delayed to January 28, 2021

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It wasn't that long ago that Bloober Team confirmed the release date for their next-gen horror title The Medium as December 10. However, taking recently to Twitter via the game's official page, the developer confirmed that it has now been delayed.

The delay isn't an awfully long one, and The Medium will launch about a month and a half after its previous release date, on January 28, 2021. In its message, Bloober Team says that this decision has been made due to the COVID-19 situation in Poland, as well as "the current schedule of other games on the market."

Though they have named no specific games, it's likely that the latter is referring to Cyberpunk 2077, which was recently delayed to December 10, which is the same day The Medium was supposed to launch. Recently, Rockfish Games delayed the early access launch of Everspace 2 as well, explicitly saying that they did so to avoid clashing with Cyberpunk 2077's launch (and this isn't the first time they've done that either).

When The Medium launches, it will be available on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

PS5's Game Download Times Are Significantly Faster Than PS4

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Whether or not you have sufficient storage space on your PS5 for all the games you want to play might be a problem that you'll have to contend with for a while after launch, but as far as downloading games is concerned, it seems the PS5 is significantly faster than the PS4- which is a relief, since the latter is notoriously slow on that front.

US Gamer points out in its PS5 review that the console's game downloading speeds are much faster than the PS4. The reviewer was able to download  Disgaea 5 (6.58 GB) on the PS5 in less than 2 minutes, as opposed to nearly 11 minutes on a PS4 Pro. Similarly, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (36.6 GB) downloaded in 7 minutes on PS5, as opposed to over 58 minutes on PS4 Pro.

Of course, how quickly you're able to download games will vary depending on your internet connection and download speeds. But while you might not be seeing those exact same download times, you will be seeing significantly faster downloads as compared to what the PS4 offers.

PS5's lead system architect Mark Cerny has previously also talked about how the console's SSD will help reduce patch install times significantly. Read more on that through here.

PS5 Does Not Have a Quick Resume-Style Feature

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Microsoft have been talking about the Xbox Series X and Series S' Quick Resume feature for a while, which will allow users to suspend multiple games at the same time and quickly swap between them. That might not be a crucial next-gen feature, but it's going to be a huge boon in the ease of use department.

Many have been wondering if the PS5 will have something similar, especially since the console's UI reveal video seemingly suggested that it might. However, it doesn't seem like that will be the case. As confirmed by GameSpot, the PS5 does not have the ability to suspend multiple games and swap between them like the Xbox consoles are going to have.

On the Xbox front, Quick Resume will be even more effective on backward compatible games, while it's been confirmed that suspended software for Quick Resume will be retained even if the console is unplugged.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Announcement Coming Tomorrow – Rumour

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The Mass Effect trilogy's remastered release might just be among the worst kept secrets in the industry right now. Supposedly called Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, the release has been in the rumour mill for months on end, and lately, it's been seeming like its official announcement might finally be on the way.

Recently, it was revealed that BioWare would be doing a "very special" livestream with the trilogy's voice cast and some developers to celebrate N7 Day tomorrow, adding fuel to the aforementioned fires. And now, Tom Phillips of Eurogamer and Jeff Grubb of GamesBeat (who has been at the forefront of these Mass Effect leaks) are both hinting on Twitter that the Mass Effect remaster will finally be announced via BioWare's blog tomorrow afternoon.

And here's the kicker- recently, during their quarterly financial presentation, EA said that they will be announcing several upcoming FY2021 games soon, which, in their words, includes "an EA Originals title and a remastered title." It doesn't take a lot to connect those dots.

In fact, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition was recently rated in Korea as well. The collection was supposedly scheduled for an October launch originally, but got delayed internally to 2021. Stay tuned for more updates/

PS5 Won't Support SSD Storage Expansions at Launch

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It's been known for a while that the PS5 will allow off-the-shelf NVMe SSD expansions as long as they're certified, while Sony also showed off a dedicated slot for the same in their PS5 teardown video. However, it seems SSD expansions won't be supported by the console right out the gate.

In a statement to The Verge, Sony confirmed that external SSD expansions at launch, and that the same is being "reserved for a future update." It's more than likely that this is the case due to there not being any SSDs out on the market that are certified for this, meaning that an SSD that is fast enough to support the PS5 (which is supposedly the fastest SSD currently in existence) simply isn't available on the market. Sony has indicated the same on a few occasions in the past, so this doesn't come across as much of a surprise.

From Demon's Souls to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, we've seen quite a few examples of games having large install sizes on the PS5. The console, which has an 825 GB SSD, only has about 664 GB of actual useable storage space, so hopefully, those SSD expansions won't be too far out.

Meanwhile, it's also been confirmed that PS5 games cannot be installed on external HDDs.

Bloodborne Runs at 30 FPS on PS5, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice at 60 FPS

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More details regarding the PS5's backwards compatibility and how it performs with certain games are being revealed. Of course, for many players, the question always was: Can Bloodborne finally run in 60 FPS on the PS5? The answer: No.

Various sources like Polygon and Digital Foundry (whose in-depth video you can see blow) have confirmed the same. It appears that PS4 titles which were locked to 30 FPS stick to that on the PS5. Meanwhile, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice runs at constant 60 frames per second, which is a significant improvement over its PS4 Pro performance. Naturally, loading times for both titles are very good, reduced by a third on the PS5.

Perhaps one of the best examples of this is Destiny 2, which takes about three minutes or so to reach the character selection screen on PS4 but only 50 seconds on the PS5. Going from the Tower to the European Dead Zone took one minute and 56 seconds on PS4 but only 46 seconds on PS5. And this is without Bungie's supposed optimizations that will be done following the launch of Beyond Light.

The PS5 releases on November 12th – stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

PS5 Games Can't be Installed on External USB Drives

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The PS5's storage expansion solution has been interesting to follow. While it will support external SSD solutions, these won't be available at launch. That's fine as long as you can store them on regular USB drives like HDDs and memory sticks, right? Well, you can't according to GameSpot.

It was expected that games needed to be installed on the SSD to run them. But given the amount of free storage space available (about 664 GB), it was expected that storing games on external drives would be possible. The Xbox Series X/S support this along with SSD storage expansion.

Keep in mind that PS4 titles which are backwards compatible on the PS5 can be stored and played from an external drive. You even have the option to always install PS4 titles to extended storage on the PS5 but you can't decide which game gets downloaded where. Any rearrangement and shuffling has to be done afterwards.

The PS5 is out on November 12th and other details have already emerged regarding its lack of folder support. Stay tuned for more in the coming days.

EA is Unsure if it Will Raise Prices for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S Games

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Multiple major publishers have taken their first steps toward raising the standard prices for games on next-gen consoles, including the likes of Gearbox, Take-Two Interactive, Activision, and Sony, all of whom are charging $70 for their PS5 and/or Xbox Series X/S releases.

There are, of course, still several major publishers in the industry who haven't yet done so. One of them is EA- so do they plan on raising prices for their games on next-gen consoles as well? According to EA's COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen, that's something the company remains undecided on.

Speaking in the company's recent quarterly investors call, Jorgensen said that next-gen pricing is something EA will make a decision on in the future.

"I don't really want to weigh in on that yet," Jorgensen said when asked to comment on the topic (transcribed by VGC). "We've always said that games are getting more expensive, the experience is getting deeper, the time that people are playing games is getting longer. One might argue that that might require a higher price point over time, but we'll address that as we get closer to more games coming into the next-gen console transition."

"What I default back to is, let's stay focused on the excitement of what we can do with the new games and price will follow that, we'll figure that out," he continued. "And I don't want people to read into that, we're going to raise prices or not – we don't know yet. What we do know is we're going to be able to do a lot more things with the new consoles and our partnerships with Sony and Microsoft and others that are making the consoles."

Other publishers have had similarly cagey responses to the matter as well. Capcom remains undecided too, while Ubisoft has said that all 2020 releases are going to be priced at $60, but has refused to comment on any games releasing beyond that. Industry analyst Michael Pachter believes that not all publishers are going to adopt the $70 standard pricing model.

EA have confirmed that Battlefield 6 and Criterion's next Need for Speed title are both going to launch in fiscal year 2022, with the former set for a Holiday 2021 launch. Read more on that through here.

Kerbal Space Program 2 Delayed to 2022

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Kerbal Space Program 2 has had a pretty tumultuous development cycle so far. Originally scheduled for a 2020 launch, the game was delayed to fiscal year 2021 "to make the experience as terrific as possible". Not long afterward, it was hit with another delay, this one to Fall 2021, owing to the development team facing challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, it has been delayed yet again. As mentioned by Take Two Interactive in its quarterly financial report and then confirmed by creative director Nate Simpson on the game's official forums, Kerbal Space Program 2 is now scheduled for a launch in 2022. The aforementioned Take-Two report pegs its launch window as FY 2023, which means it won't be releasing anytime before April 2022.

"We knew we were taking on an immense technical and creative challenge when we started this project," Simpson wrote. "We've heard time and again from this community that quality is paramount, and we feel the same way.
It's not enough to deliver a bunch of new features – those features have to be woven together into a stable, polished whole. We're creating a reliable foundation on which players and modders alike can build for another decade or more. That involves solving problems that have never been solved before, and that takes time."

Development of the game moved from Star Theory Games – who developed its predecessor – to new in-house Take-Two studio Intercept Games earlier this year. Reports emerged some months ago that Take-Two Interactive had poached Star Theory's staff during the process, leading to the studio's closure. Read more on that through here.

Kerbal Space Program 2 is in development for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but following this delay, it's more than likely that the game will launch for next-gen consoles as well.