Strategy guides heading to PSN

By Fred Dutton Published 13 October, 2010

PlayView service launches in Japan soon.

Japanese gamers will soon be able to view strategy guides through PlayStation Network, Sony has announced.

Andriasang reports that the PlayView for Games service will launch in Japan tomorrow, allowing users to download strategy guides, art books and other game-related printed material.

All content can be displayed in high resolution on PlayStation 3 and PSP. The service boasts zoom and search functions too.

The first game guide to go live will be for Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. It will retail for ¥600 (around £4.60). Although it's a re-release of a printed guide it will come enhanced with video clips and music from the game.

There's no word yet on whether the service will launch outside of Japan.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (11) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • BlackANUS #1 2 years ago

    This will be a pain in the ass for Non-PSP owners if they don't make the guide accessible in game. Having to exit your game and load up the strategy guide and then go back and load up the game would be kind of frustrating every time you get stuck.
    Edited by BlackANUS at 13/10/10 @ 20:36

  • Shikasama #2 2 years ago

    I don't get who buys startegy guides these days. There's rarely anything in them that isn't in the manual or tutorial and theres much more in depth stuff available for free on a myriad of websites.

  • Bearskopff #3 2 years ago

    Oddly, I was hoping to see something similar to this in the near future. With the age of printed media beginning to dwindle, it makes natural financial sense to see downloadable versions of the Brady Games/Prima (etc) guides. Like BlackANUS said though, ideally the guides would be accessible in-game.

    Saying that, I do quite like owning game guides. I rarely use them, I just quite like having them on the shelf. My own little gaming library.

    I need to get outside more...

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #4 2 years ago

    Surely this is just the comic book viewer, if not it should be!.

    Comic book viewer on PS3 and allow other books that arent necesarrily comics, prolly best to keep it game related tho, cant imagine a big uptake on reading novels off the tv

  • GamesConnoisseur #5 2 years ago

    I prefer viewing the guides via PDF on iPad, or even gamesfaq on full screen Perfect Browser, as both works most excellently well!

    PSP with the PSN's guide of course can do as well and certainly be quite useful to have the guide handy while you play, should be easily able to read without putting on the lamp/torch etc!

  • excelexcel #6 2 years ago

    If you can acess the guides while you play then I suppose this could be useful, but if you can't, then with gamefaqs and the like accessible on the browser theres no point to this.

  • Rufus #7 2 years ago

    @Shikasama

    I love printed strategy guides. I know what you mean, pretty much everything is available on gamefaqs and its free, but there's just something so satisfying about the real thing. The quality of the paper (especially in piggyback guides), the artwork, the maps and charts detailing what does what damage etc. I love it. Plus if you wait a while they are always included in sales. I got the Hardcover Resi 5 strategy guide for £3 and MGS 4 guide for £1.99!

    The first guide I bought was for Silent Hill 2 and I would just sit there and study it for anything that I had missed, how to get the other endings and so on.

    You've got to give kudos to the people who write the official guides and even more kudos to the people who write them for free. The inclusion of them on the PSN store will be a great thing if implemented properly, though I will always buy the "proper" guide first before anything else!

  • Tetsuo_Shima #8 2 years ago

    I have an old Perfect Dark game guide I picked up for 1.50 or something back in the day, felt great pulling it back out again for Perfect Dark HD.

  • davisorle #9 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:13 09-05-2012

  • nuanimal #10 2 years ago

    Or... Just use the the PS3 web browser and check out GameFAQs.com or look for a walkthrough on YouTube.



  • man.the.king #11 2 years ago

    For me, the most important thing is that this Guide should be able to be viewed without having to quit the game.

    EDIT: Looks like other posters before me have already put what I was saying in much better words.
    So I'll just say: +1 to what BlackANUS and excelexcel said...
    Edited by man.the.king at 14/10/10 @ 18:44