Sony says numerous 'Uncharted 4' copies were stolen

A shipment of Naughty Dog's new game may have met a thief's end.

Sony's President of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida has just announced that "a number of copies" of the upcoming game Uncharted 4: A Thief's Endhave been stolen in transit. A few copies have surfaced ahead of the game's official release on May 10th -- British site Videogamer reported yesterday that discs were appearing at second-hand stores in the country. Not acknowledging the irony, Yoshida says "Sony is continuing to to work with the police to resolve the matter, which is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation." He urges gamers to be vigilant for potential spoilers resulting from the theft, and says it will be "worth the wait" till May 10th.

There could be a quick end to this tale, depending on the intelligence of the parties involved. It's a policy of CEX, the second-hand store where one copy was purchased from, to require a valid photo ID when buying a game. If the thief in this case used their actual ID, the police will have a very simple job in identifying who was at fault. Additionally, the UK has very strict laws on handling stolen goods, and CEX itself may in trouble for not doing its due diligence (it doesn't seem to care, though). We've reached out to all parties involved for more information.

Keen-eyed among you may have noticed that this all seems to have happened on April 26th, which was once the release date for the game. Despite a criminal enquiry being opened, there's a possibility that this is not in fact a theft, and instead is an early shipment issue. For now, all we have to go on is Sony's word, but we'll update you on any developments to the story.

Source: Sony

Sony made a custom PS4 controller for a gamer with cerebral palsy

A staffer made a DualShock 4 that can overcome movement disorders.





It's tough to use gadgets when you have cerebral palsy -- few of their interfaces take the movement disorder into account. However, a Sony staffer went the extra mile to make sure this wasn't a problem for one gamer. When Peter Byrne wrote Sony complaining that the DualShock 4' stouchpad was difficult to use with his cerebral palsy (he'd inadvertently hit the pad and pause the game), the company's Alex Nawabi made him a custom version of the official PS4 gamepad. The modified controller, which took 10 hours to make, disables the touchpad and uses another button to fulfill that role.

It's an extremely kind gesture by itself, but it gets better: Nawabi built a second controller just in case the first one breaks, so Byrne likely won't have to worry about asking for another favor. While this isn't the same as a full-fledged production model, it shows that it's possible to accommodate gamers' special needs with relatively little effort.

The new era of PlayStation starts today

April 1st marks the official first day of business for Sony Interactive Entertainment.

 The first day of Sony's new PlayStation-centric division, Sony Interactive Entertainment. Over on the PlayStation Blog, SIE president Shawn Layden says that it's going to be a bit before we see exactly what this shuffling of papers means, but says that in the long run, it'll mean "everything." Specifically, it'll allow the company more flexibility to "adapt more quickly to meet the needs of the gaming community" and "drive the consistent and constant innovation" in the video game medium.

Specifically, he calls out PlayStation VR as a result of the new company. Since the announcement this past January we've seen SIE finally give us aprice and release window for PS VR, and, weirdly, word that the firm was going back to the mobile gaming money pit with ForwardWorks. Maybe the latter could be the success that PlayStation Mobile never was. After all, Miitomo seems to be doing pretty well for Nintendo so far.

And hey, the new company's name rolls off the tongue an awful lot easier than Sony Computer Entertainment America/Japan/Europe ever did, so at least there's that. With E3 just over two months away, it probably won't be too long before we see what else SIE has up its sleeve.