PS3 getting 2 physical releases soon

[Punisher5.0]

Retro city Rampage DX  and Shakedown Hawaii. This is a nice surprise. Didn't think we would see anymore PS3 games.

 

https://vblank.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0eb86f57210b460081fc85609&id=b278ea77d7&e=71f1be82d7

[Steven Pendleton]

Are these actually licensed by Sony or is this like the Dreamcast, where it's completely unlicensed? Very unexpected, in any case.

[Punisher5.0]

7 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Are these actually licensed by Sony or is this like the Dreamcast, where it's completely unlicensed? Very unexpected, in any case.

Vblank is a legit company. I have no reason to think they aren't Sony made.

[glazball]

Yes, this will be an official aftermarket release.  It's actually kind of an ironic situation.

 

vBlank was the first indie dev to get Sony's permission for a small physical run of games with Retro City Rampage DX on PS4 in 2014.  Seeing their success, Limited Run Games started up and did the same thing with Breach & Clear (Vita) and Saturday Morning RPG (PS4).  Many of their uberfans now seem to think LRG started the whole physical indie thing, but it was vBlank.  Back when LRG had forums, the owners did not seem to like to be reminded of that fact.  There is some bad blood/drama between the two companies that I picked up on, but tried to avoid.

 

Since then, LRG has exploded.  They have already released a PS3 game (Oddworld Stranger's Wrath) a while back and I guess vBlank decided to re-release their games on PS3 also.  I find it a little ironic that it was vBlank who started this small-print-number indie physical game craze, but who now seems to be chasing LRG (and the many other small publishers that have popped up since).

[Steven Pendleton]

On 9/25/2022 at 1:22 AM, Punisher5.0 said:

Vblank is a legit company. I have no reason to think they aren't Sony made.

Interesting. I've never heard of them before. I wonder if the PS3 will end up being like the Dreamcast in another decade and get lots of new unlicensed games, though.

[+Gemintronic]

24 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Interesting. I've never heard of them before. I wonder if the PS3 will end up being like the Dreamcast in another decade and get lots of new unlicensed games, though.

 

Probably not.  Working around GDROM issues and self booting have long been a thing for Dreamcast.  PS1 needs a soft modded memory card to boot things.  PS2 has a DVD playback glitch (that lets you load games) that homebrew developers don't want to mess with.  PS3 doesn't seem to have a way to boot homebrew from a non modded system.

[Atariboy]

These aren't aftermarket releases. They're official releases licensed by Sony. The case insert artwork makes that quite clear, not to mention the statement on the page that says "we're going to leave the door open to print more (provided that Sony can still manufacture PS3 reprints)".

Edited September 28, 2022 by Atariboy

[Punisher5.0]

These are now available. There is only around 2500 each so they might go fast.

[Austin]

Looks like these are still available as of this writing. I went ahead and grabbed Retro City Rampage as I've never played it before. Should be a good reason to fire up the PS3 that doesn't generally see a lot of use around here. I skipped Hotline Miami as I picked up the Wii U version when they did those years back. Good quality products.