Here are the details first then I will let you know what this most likely means.
Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat gave an interview with The Guardian and was asked if the gaming community was ready for a console that is always connected to the internet.
“Well, that’s a question you should put to Microsoft and Sony! I would say that a lot of people are already always online through other devices – I would suspect that the audience is ready.”
Now Mallat could just be playing it safe and saying that we would have to ask either Microsoft or Sony, but I am assuming as the head of a major game development studio that he may actually already know if the next Xbox will be always-online or not. Sony has already announced that the PS4 will not require it and there is too much smoke around Microsoft’s camp to not say there is fire somewhere. I am not saying Microsoft will do it, but I am thinking there has been more than serious discussions about it and who knows, maybe their delay in announcing the new Xbox could be a rethinking of strategy after the negative reception to the possibility.
I am not in the practice of posting articles for every single Xbox rumor that passes in front of me. I like to wait and let them marinate and then serve them to you on a nice place setting and watch as you take tiny bird bites and see how you like them. Let’s go over the last few that are making the rounds. Need a refill before we begin?
1. The next Xbox will need to be online. As in always online.
This is the biggie that has everyone up in arms. I am not leaning one way or the other honestly so I will try and give you an objective opinion about both sides. Always online is going to be the future. It is undeniable. There will come a time when almost everything short of a refrigerator or toaster is going to need an internet connection. Microsoft was ahead of the curve when they introduced Xbox Live over ten years ago and made it require a cable internet connection leaving all the 56K users out in the cold. They knew that to have the speed needed it had to have a fast connection and Microsoft also saw that 56K, while being in the majority of homes, was on borrowed time. It was a gamble that paid off, but this is a different gamble altogether. If this rumor is true, Microsoft is hedging their bets on the future of the Xbox brand on it. I know that consoles will eventually require an internet connection for functionality, but I hope that Microsoft is not a generation too soon with it.
The outcry over an always online Xbox may seem like internet fanboy complaining and I hope that is all it is. But there is still a large part of the country that has spotty internet or no internet at all. Hard to believe in this time, but Microsoft has to realize this. I believe that is why Sony has already announced that the PS4 will not require an internet connection to play. They are placing their bets that some people will be turned off by Microsoft making them be online to play and will be waiting on them with arms wide open, ready to accept them into the Sony family. This is not a far-fetched idea when you think about it.
I get the feeling that Microsoft is feeling like Sony after the success of the PS2. They feel they can do no wrong and people will follow no matter what. Sony learned a harsh lesson about that in the first few years of the PS3. They learned they were not invincible and it looks like they are trying to correct a lot of this with the PS4. Be wary Microsoft.
2. The next Xbox will cost $500 straight up with a second model at $300 with a subscription fee.
I think this is a rumor you can go ahead and count on being true. It was most likely the whole reason why they tried the approach last year with the Xbox 360 where you get the console for $99 and agree to a two year subscription to Xbox Live. I think it will be a harder sell for the next Xbox, but that’s not to say it won’t be a success. A $99 360 is an easy sell to some, even with a subscription model. Now, asking $300 for a new console AND a two year subscription may be a bit more of a stretch. If I am going to save and spend $300 on a console I, personally, would just get 200 bucks more and buy my console outright. However, we do buy phones like this so I can see where Microsoft would think this is a viable option.
3. The next Xbox will essentially become your cable box.
This goes back to #1 on the list. Rumors are that the system will be able to connect with your cable boxes and communicate with them. This would fit in with Microsoft’s mission to make the Xbox the entertainment center of your living room. How Microsoft will make this a unique experience like Nintendo TVii remains to be seen. There will need to be some kind of special feeling to this to have some people (me) adopt it. I am sure that Microsoft has some tricks up their sleeve for this.
4. Microsoft is shooting for a late-May announcement for the next Xbox.
May 21 is the date that rumors suggest when the big event will happen. If this is true then it means that Sony will have had three and a half months of time for people to learn the ins and outs of every bit of PS4 info they can find. Did Microsoft wait too long? And because Sony had such a great announcement and Microsoft waited so long, are the expectations unattainable? If they do wait till May 21, why not just do it at E3 a couple of weeks later? Microsoft has wasted valuable time while many have begun to question items about their next console. Let’s hope they blow us all away.
Microsoft are taking so long to announce the new XBOX that Ubisoft will have announced 3 more Assassin’s Creed games by the time they do it
It hurts me to watch the Wii U flounder like it has. It is nowhere near as powerful as what will be offered by Microsoft or Sony, but I still have hope that Nintendo can carve their own niche when we finally get some damn games for the system. This E3 will be Nintendo’s biggest test and show if they are really ready to compete.
Shigeru Miyamoto was interviewed by CNN and gave his impressions on how the Wii U’s second screen will eventually become the standard for gaming and a integral part of the living room.
“There was a period when we first released the Nintendo DS that people would say there’s no way people can look at two screens at once. I almost feel like, as people get more familiar with Wii U and these touchscreen interfaces, that there is going to come a point where they feel like ‘I can’t do everything I want to do if I don’t have a second screen.”
“I feel a device like Wii U, with its ability to continue to offer new features and that network connection and the connection to the TV and the interface, really makes it feel that it’s more than just a game machine, but something that offers a lot of practical use and practical purpose in the living room. I look at it as being a very useful device that can do many different things and therefore really seems to be the device that’s ideal to have in the living room.”
“Our immediate objective over the next few months is to improve the Wii U system and make it a little more stable, a little bit more convenient to use from a system standpoint. Miiverse (a sort of social network that lets players interact) is an example of an ongoing project. We really wanted to be able to leverage Miiverse in something like ‘New Super Mario Bros. U.’ We’re obviously still early on in it and just trying things out, but so far, it does feel like the community itself is doing a very good job of being a warm and welcoming place for people.”
So remember earlier this month when we told you about the RetroN4, the console that would play NES, SNES, Genesis and Game Boy Advanced games? Well it seems that maker Hyperkin is going to toss any of those in the desert with all those lost Atari E.T. cartridges.
At the Midwest Gaming Classic show Hyperkin unveiled the RetroN5. It will play NES, SNES, Genesis, GBA and also Famicom games. SD card slot will be on the system for saves and it will come with an HDMI port and two Bluetooth controllers. Hyperkin hopes to releases the RetroN5 this summer for under 100 bucks.
At this rate you might as well wait until Christmas when they release the RetroN10 which will play NES, SNES, Master System, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Boy Advanced, Game Gear, Phillips CD-i, Jaguar and 3DO games.
Ouya is going to be getting into the hands of Kickstarter backers on March 28th and consumers in June and founder Julie Uhrman is making the rounds hyping up the $99 Android-based console. At a SXSW panel she was asked if the console would be able to play current console blockbusters and she had an interesting response.
“Yes, and why would we? Those experiences are great on those devices. You wouldn’t want to play those games anywhere else. But we are going to have exclusive games. … We’re going to have inventive, creative, exciting content that no one else has. At $99, it’s not an either-or decision.”
Uhrman is really sticking to her guns about keeping Ouya a unique console experience. While on the one hand, it would be great to have a $99 console that you could play Mass Effect 3 on, trying to separate yourself from any competitors could be a gamble that pays off. The entire history of the Ouya has been a gamble and so far, so good.
Shigeru Miyamoto told The New York Times that he knows the Wii U is not exactly lighting the sales charts on fire right now, but he is confident on the system’s future.
“Certainly in the short term I would want to see it performing with probably a little more momentum. I think in the long term I’m not at a point where I’m concerned yet.”
If anything, Nintendo is known for their ability to keep support for their hardware going even through rough sales and Miyamoto still feels that the Wii U can be the entertainment hub of everyone’s living room.
“I think that the Wii U still has a long future. We really view it as being the ideal device that families are going to want to have connected to that screen in the living room that everyone is going to gather around and watch.”
I have no doubt that the Wii U will be around for a while no matter what the sales numbers look like. Nintendo only sold 57,000 Wii U’s in January and 80,000 in February, but there is still ample time to turn this around. E3 is right around the corner and they have promised that Smash Bros. and the new 3D Mario will be shown. I think Nintendo is a big price drop and a solid holiday list of games away from being back in the equation. Just look at the 3DS for example.
There are rumors swirling that Microsoft will wait until April to unveil their next version of Xbox in a big event much like with the Xbox 360. This will put the announcement after this year’s GDC which takes place the last week of March.
If Microsoft is set on doing this it can only strengthen Sony’s chance to make the PS4 shine especially if they now have PAX East and GDC to put more Playstation in the eyes and ears of fans. I thought Microsoft should strike while the iron was hot on the new console talk and announced in mid-March right before GDC and take a little of Sony’s thunder away.
Waiting until April makes me think that this was the set date all along for Microsoft and that Sony’s announcement this past Wednesday might have caught them off guard. Sony had a great first showing and everyone is now thinking that all the pressure is on Microsoft to match up to Sony’s announcement.
For those of you that followed us during our live tweet of Sony’s Playstation 4 announcement we thank you greatly and now that the system is officially real we can begin getting into the guts of the matter.
Sony went into greater detail about the interior workings of the Playstation 4, more than I thought they would and under the hood it is a very, very impressive piece of hardware. So much so that I may have to change my price prediction and match up with the $429 and $529, two-sku rumors flying about.
What Sony announced is swimming around their new monster console:
-AMD 8-core 64-bit X86 Jaguar (not Atari) CPU
-Radeon GPU with 1.84 TFLOPS of processing for graphics, etc.
-6X Blu-Ray drive and 8X DVD drive
-8GB unified GDDR5 RAM
-802.11 Wi-Fi
-USB 3.0
-Bluetooth 4.1
-HDMI, optical out and analog AV
Sony was very forthcoming in saying that they wanted this console to be developer friendly. It is widely known that a lot of developers had problems working with the Cell processor in the PS3 so Sony has done them a great service by making the Playstation 4 more PC-like.
We are only mere hours away from Sony’s Playstation event which, most likely, will reveal the Playstation 4. So I figured we would play a little game of “take a stab at rumors and see if Sony can screw it up”. We will go through some quick points and check back after the event to see how close we were to being in Sony’s head.
Be sure and leave your guesses in the comments below. We want to hear just how in tune with Sony you are.
Alright it is time to check and see how my guesses panned out from last night’s event.
1. Will be called the Playstation 4
Yes. Good Start.
2. Will only come in one version
No answer given. Closer to E3 maybe?
3. 1TB hard drive (I am tempted to say 750GB)
No answer given. Guess I was too specific.
4. Will retail for $399.99
Again, no answer.
5. Will still be able to use the PS Move (I don’t know why)
Yes. Media Molecule showed off a sculpting demo.
6. Will stream games and may offer a game rental service.
Yes. Well Gaikai did say streaming games, but not definite on the rental. I’ll take it.
7. At least two of these games will be shown and/or announced as launch titles: Killzone 4, Uncharted 4, Infamous and Planetside 2
Yes. Now we’re doing good. Killzone: Shadow Fall and Infamous: Second Son were shown.
8. Will launch on October 25, 2013.
No answer. This will most likely be at E3.
Be sure and keep up with all the news here and on our Facebook and Twitter.
All in all I am calling this a win for the good guys. 4 out of 8 right and the four not right are pushes for a later date. Bingo!!
With the Sony Playstation event coming up on Wednesday where the Playstation 4 is expected to be unveiled the rumor bin is in full overdrive. The newest one comes from The Wall Street Journal that reports that Sony will offer streaming games over their new system.
‘The new technology, to be unveiled Wednesday along with the new console, will allow users to play games delivered over the Internet, these people said. The streaming service, they added, is designed to use current PlayStation 3 titles on the new console; the new device is also expected to play new games stored on optical discs.”
This rumor should probably be filed under the section “completely likely to happen”. Sony spent $380 million dollars last year purchasing the streaming service Gaikai and I am pretty sure it wasn’t just to have no use of it.
