Breaking Bad VR experience coming to PlayStation, Sony execs announce
40 per cent of new PlayStation games sold are digital, says Sony exec
Sony confirmed Monday it is working with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan on what it's calling a "virtual reality experience" based on the TV show for the PlayStation VR headset.
The announcement was part of a wider collaboration with Sony's PlayStation and Sony Pictures divisions. Sony showed off its PlayStation VR tech to several other show runners, including The Blacklist's David Shore and Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore.
"They just played around with VR. Several of them were intrigued, but Vince was the one who said, 'I really want to do something with this. I want to experiment with this," Global chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment Andrew House told Variety.
No further details about the VR experience were released, including who is working on the project, what the final product will look like or when it's planned for release. It's too early, then, to label this project as the return of Walter White or something similar.
Over 1 million PlayStation VR sets sold
The announcement came the same week as a number of lengthy interviews with Shawn Layden, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America.
Among other key details from the interviews:
- The PlayStation VR headset has sold around 1 million copies since it launched last October. The headset, which is used in conjunction with the PlayStation 4 home console, costs $549 alone or $699.99 packaged with a camera, Move controllers and a game. "We don't see it as a fad, it's a brand new medium, not only for gaming entertainment, but non-gaming entertainment," Layden told Time's Matt Peckham.
- Digital sales are a growing portion of video game sales: 40 per cent of new PlayStation games sold are digital downloads, rather than physical discs. February's PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn, for example, sold 3.4 million copies in total, and about 915,000 of those were digital, according to Glixel's John Davison.
- "Almost one in five" new PlayStation consoles sold since November were the more expensive, more powerful PS4 Pro model, Layden told Glixel. The more powerful Pro model goes for $150 more than the basic model (starting at $350) in exchange for better frame rates and 4k resolution support for many games.
- PlayStation users cumulatively spend the equivalent of about 50,000 years every week playing games. According to Polygon's Brian Crecente, that works out to about seven hours each week spread out across the roughly 60 million PS4 consoles out in the wild.
Sony will hold its annual press conference at the E3 video game industry show in Los Angeles next week, revealing new trailers and announcements for the next year and further ahead for the brand.
Layden hosted last year's press conference, which revealed games like a new God of War, a new Spider-Man game and Death Stranding, directed by Metal Gear's Hideo Kojima and starring a naked Norman Reedus.
Many games featured last year didn't make it to stores, and in some cases still don't have a release date. Gamers and journalists expect Sony to revisit these games at this year's presentation, revealing new footage or substantial details for the first time in a year.