Sony Just Launched an Ethereum Network—Will It Get PlayStation Games?

Sony’s Ethereum scaling community Soneium formally launched Monday, and the community’s creators are billing it as a solution to probably introduce crypto to the plenty. However will that embrace gaming—and particularly, Sony’s juggernaut PlayStation model and its many fashionable franchises?

Sony Block Options Labs Director Sota Watanabe beforehand instructed Decrypt that Soneium might onboard “peculiar folks” into the cryptosphere, working within the background as a technical spine whereas augmenting experiences in areas like movie, music, and gaming.

On Soneium’s web site, guests can filter by purposes which might be at the moment being constructed on Soneium, with “gaming” listed underneath a “shopper” class.

The inclusion begs the query of whether or not PlayStation’s huge franchises like God of Battle, Uncharted, Gran Turismo, and plenty of others might at some point be part of Soneium’s ecosystem.

Whereas PlayStation might theoretically leverage Soneium as a solution to combine digital property into its video games, the community’s staff didn’t have any enter for now, a spokesperson instructed Decrypt.

“As for potential integrations with PlayStation, we’re excited concerning the prospects blockchain know-how brings to gaming, however we don’t have any particular updates to share on that entrance at the moment,” the Sony BLS spokesperson mentioned.

Decrypt’s GG reached out to PlayStation representatives for remark, however didn’t instantly obtain a response concerning potential use of Soneium for blockchain video games.

Soneium is being developed by Sony BLS, a Singapore-based subsidiary of the Japanese multinational company. The agency was established in 2023 as a three way partnership between Sony Group Company and Startale Labs.

However it isn’t the primary time that Sony was contemplating the potential for blockchain tech, even with regards to gaming.

Sony filed patent purposes that bridge blockchain and gaming earlier than Soneium’s staff was shaped: One centered on monitoring in-game property utilizing NFTs, the opposite established “super-fungible tokens,” that are successfully a bundle of NFT in-game objects.

At the moment, customers can entry round a dozen Soneium-based video games, most of which seem like in early improvement. These embrace Derby Race, a “pick-to-earn” horse racing sport that takes the type of a mini app on the Telegram messaging platform, and OverTrip, a battle royale shooter “the place the fun of competitors meets the world of staking” with meme cash and NFTs.

None of these video games are made by Sony or associate Startale Labs, nevertheless. Soneium is a permissionless community that anybody can construct on, and as with different chains like Solana and The Open Community, builders have launched video games constructed round property minted on Soneium.

A PlayStation title that leverages Soneium would characterize a major shift within the blockchain-based gaming house. As of this writing, no PlayStation console video games have front-facing crypto components for gamers to interact with.

Off the Grid, a preferred battle royale shooter that is out there in early entry on PlayStation 5, tracks user-owned objects and different components on an Avalanche L1 blockchain testnet known as GUNZ, with a full mainnet launch and token drop deliberate for someday this quarter.

However a Gunzilla Video games Director of Web3 Theodore Agranat admitted to Decrypt that the crypto components within the PS5 model of the sport must be “dealt with in another way” than on PC. Extra particulars on that entrance are anticipated nearer to the GUNZ mainnet launch. Different crypto video games headed to PS5 are equally reducing or overhauling their blockchain components.

It has additionally been rumored, for nicely over a 12 months, that Rockstar Video games might help digital property in Grand Theft Auto 6, which is about to be launched this fall. Nevertheless, there’s been no official phrase from the online game maker, and it’s banned using crypto and NFTs from player-run Grand Theft Auto 5 servers.

Rockstar Video games mentioned that prohibiting “industrial exploitation” by using cryptocurrencies was in keeping with defending emblems and mental property. Earlier this week, Sony BLS did a lot the identical on Soneium, “blacklisiting” not less than one meme coin that riffed on the title of a PlayStation character.

Edited by Andrew Hayward