Sony TRC and Nintendo Lotcheck - reference

Full detail for the two NDA-gated console regimes, for platform-cert-overview-reference.

NDA note (applies to every clause below). All Sony TRC and Nintendo Lotcheck specifics are behind gated portals - PlayStation DevNet and the Nintendo Developer Portal. They are cited by stable ID ("Sony TRC" / "Nintendo Lotcheck") per PLUGIN_AUTHORING.md Step 4 fallback; partners with portal access should consult the current authoritative revision. Individual clauses are not re-marked NDA in the sections below.

Sony PlayStation Certification (TRC)

Source of truth

• Document: Sony Technical Requirements Checklist (TRC) - gated NDA portal at PlayStation DevNet.
• Per-generation supplements: PS5 TRC supersedes PS4 TRC; PS5 Pro adds 60-Hz / 8K / PS5 Pro Game Boost guidance.

Structure

The Sony TRC is a numbered checklist organised into roughly comparable buckets to the Xbox XR list:

• Functional - title stability, error recovery, save game.
• Trophies - Sony's analogue to Xbox Achievements (exact count / point limits by stable ID).
• Multiplayer - session lifecycle, presence, voice + text chat.
• PSN integration - sign-in, friends, party.
• Content delivery - DLC, patches, packaging.
• Compatibility - generation matrix (PS4 base / PS4 Pro / PS5 / PS5 Pro), Game Boost, backward compatibility.
• Hardware peripherals - DualSense haptics, adaptive triggers, PSVR2 (where applicable).

Submission workflow

Sony documents its high-level publishing workflow publicly via playstation.com/en-us/develop; the per-step TRC details are NDA.

1. QA pre-cert - partner runs internal TRC dry pass.
2. Submission upload - Master to Sony's submission system.
3. Format QA - Sony's QA team validates the build against the TRC.
4. Pass / Fail decision - fail tickets list each TRC clause violated.
5. Re-submit - corrected master goes back through the same workflow.

Severity vocabulary

Sony classifies findings on a severity scale comparable to the Microsoft CFR / SRI split. Each finding lists the TRC clause it violates and the steps to reproduce.

SLAs

Sony does not publish SLAs publicly. Practitioners budget calendar-weeks for a console-game format QA pass; patch / minor-update SLAs are shorter than initial-release SLAs.

Nintendo Lotcheck

Source of truth

• Document: Nintendo Submission Guidelines ("Lotcheck") - gated Nintendo Developer Portal.
• Public-facing partner portal: developer.nintendo.com (the developer landing page is reachable without NDA but shows only general program info; the Lotcheck document itself requires developer-portal access).

Structure

Nintendo Lotcheck covers analogous buckets:

• Functional and stability - boot, save, error recovery.
• Network play and online services - Nintendo Network authentication, online matchmaking, friend lists, parental controls.
• Profile and user data - Nintendo Account, Mii, save data.
• Storage - microSD / system memory boundaries, save data cloud sync where applicable.
• Compatibility - across Switch hardware revisions (original / Lite / OLED) and Switch 2 where supported, docked vs. handheld mode transitions, joy-con + Pro Controller + detached + paired modes.
• Performance - sustained framerate in handheld vs. docked, thermal behaviour during long sessions.
• eShop metadata + ratings - region-specific (Japan / Americas / Europe / Australia / Korea).

Workflow

The Lotcheck submission workflow is comparable in shape to Sony TRC: pre-cert dry-run, master upload, Nintendo QA pass, fail ticket list keyed to Lotcheck clauses, re-submission. Exact step names and SLAs are NDA.

Notable distinguishing constraints

• Handheld / docked transitions are a Switch-specific test surface with no analogue on Xbox / PlayStation.
• Cartridge + eShop dual delivery complicates patch / DLC layout.
• Joy-Con drift / detached / single-Joy-Con modes add a controller-state matrix beyond the Xbox / PS controller test surface.