ReadSpeaker Brings Dynamic Runtime Neural Text to Speech to PlayStation®5 and PlayStation®4 Consoles

BOSTON, December 5th, 2022 – ReadSpeaker is pleased to announce that its runtime neural text-to-speech (TTS) plugin for Unity and Unreal Engine is now available in the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 Tools and Middleware program.

Multi-platform support now included for PS5™ and PS4™ consoles

ReadSpeaker’s Game Engine plugin enables developers to embed AI-driven runtime text-to-speech voices into any game – and now provides full support for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles.

ReadSpeaker’s neural voices for gaming are powered by the company’s Deep Neural Network (DNN) TTS engine which allows neural text to speech to run as a stand-alone solution locally on the device.

The unique runtime plugin now also enables the compilation of neural speech-enriched games for release in PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 games, alongside Windows, Linux, and Android.

With ReadSpeaker’s Game Engine plugin, PlayStation® game developers can easily implement an embedded Voice User Interface (VUI) that speaks to gamers in real time. This can be used for interactive voice dialogs and in-game UI narration or audio cues, for example.

On top of the ready-to-use plugin, if game developers prefer to work in an engine other than Unity or Unreal, ReadSpeaker is able to provide the same high-performance neural voice capability for other custom game engines through the ReadSpeaker speechEngine SDK.

The Game Engine plugin can generate dynamic, runtime neural speech synthesis in over 30 languages, supporting global deployment. These languages include Japanese, US English, UK English, Mexican Spanish, Spanish, Canadian French, French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Korean.

“Integrating ReadSpeaker’s text-to-speech plugin took around twenty minutes, and automatically gave a voice to each line of dialogue created within my character engine. There was a lot of nuancing to get the right tone, timing, and intonation, and then settings for turning on and off etc., but essentially Acolyte went from a text-only experience to a fully-voiced game – with almost infinite lines of VO – in less than half an hour.”

– Jamin Smith, Director and Lead Designer at Superstring Ltd.

Custom voices for PS5 and PS4 games via the Game Engine plugin

By using the dynamic runtime TTS plugin for Unity / Unreal Engine, developers can also have the option to add a custom or ethically cloned voice, based on a voice actor or narrator specified by the developer (with written consent of the voice actor). With a custom voice, a game studio can secure a digital carbon copy of a unique character voice and ensure continuity into the future, without needing to go back to the recording studio.

Leveraging expressive speech through the Game Engine plugin for PS5 and PS4

ReadSpeaker’s neural TTS is also able to produce humanlike speech that expresses a range of emotions, including joy, sadness, and anger.

Give it a spin!

If you’d like to try our neural TTS voices and hear how they sound in your PS5 and PS4 games, look for the ReadSpeaker Game Engine plugin in the PS5 and/or PS4 developer portal.

“PlayStation”, “PS5”, and “PS4” are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.