Bridging the Generational Gap with the PlayStation Family App

Launching new features across multiple hardware generations is a challenge for any technology company. As innovation accelerates, the gap between what your newest systems can do and what your existing platforms were designed for keeps widening.

On Innovation & Tech Today, I explain how Sony Interactive Entertainment created a unified system to support the launch of PlayStation Family app, a tool that helps parents monitor and manage their children’s gaming activity, across PlayStation 4 (PS4) and PlayStation 5 (PS5), despite the architectural differences between the two consoles. Instead of rewriting multiple legacy systems, my team introduced a new streaming layer using Apache Flink. This layer processes from both consoles, applies privacy enrichment, and produces a single view of gameplay activity. The approach reduced risk, simplified deployment, and enabled a day-one launch that served both platforms.

Read the full blog here.