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Dulcet-voiced Sony tech god Mark Cerny is better than you at Balatro, joins the 0.1% of players to platinum the whole game

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Who's this Joker?

Jimbo accepts Balatro's BAFTA for best debut game.
(Image credit: BAFTA)

Here are the two things I know about PlayStation lead systems architect Mark Cerny:

  1. He wants to see my ears.
  2. He has the euphonious voice of the seraphim. Seriously, try listening to the guy talk without falling asleep.

Well, today we can add a third entry to that list: he is better than me at Balatro. Per a recent post on X, "The Everything App" (via GamesRadar), Cerny has joined the highest echelon of humanity—the 0.1% of players who have gotten a platinum trophy in the game on PlayStation.

If you're not hip to the console lingo, that means he got every possible achievement. He's slapped a gold sticker on every Joker, won with every deck on gold stake difficulty, completed every challenge run, and, well, done everything. He's done everything. His accomplishment got a shoutout from an official PlayStation brand account, which feels a bit like that picture of Obama giving a medal to Obama, but hey, he is a member of an elite few.

This is Cerny's first (announced) platinum since the one he got in Neon White a year ago. I imagine he's busy designing the next PlayStation and Knack 3 and whatever else it is that people with important job titles do all day.

Balatro - Small Blind: Score at least 500,000

Cerny laughs at these piddling challenges. (Image credit: LocalThunk)



Actually, maybe what they do all day is play loads of videogames. Cerny's not the only console exec out there bragging about his cheevos. Xbox boss Phil Spencer somehow managed to nab a 100% completion rate in Vampire Survivors while at least notionally handling the biggest videogame acquisition in history.

I'm beginning to feel like I've been hornswoggled; these guys are just goofing off with videogames all day! Someone needs to either whip them into shape or get me a seat on this gravy train. I don't mind which. Maybe I have to get more than the paltry two Balatro cheevos I currently have to get there.

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Joshua Wolens
Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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