So far it is Microsoft’s next Xbox that has really got everyone talking, as there are continued rumors that the next console won’t be able to play used games. The PS4 rumors on this subject has been muted in comparison, however infamous industry analyst Michael Pachter has revealed that SCEA president Jack Tretton is ‘totally opposed’ to blocking the use of used games.

Pachter states on the latest episode of GT Bonus Round that he specifically asked Tretton for his opinions on playing used-games on next-generation consoles. Aside from being opposed to blocking used games, he also thinks that it’s a great idea that consumers can buy used games and that it would be ‘anti-consumer’ of Sony if they were to take that away in the future.

However, he also mentioned that it would essentially be out of his hands if Sony execs in Japan decided that they wanted to follow through with such an idea. It if does happen though, you can bet that Sony would come in for some considerable heat, likewise for Microsoft too if they introduce a similar idea for their next Xbox.

The online pass system that is currently being used seems to be working to an extent, so we see no reason why this shouldn’t remain for next-generation consoles. If you take away the ability to even play used single-player games, then it will be a sad day indeed for consumers whilst at the same time being a victory for corporate greed. There are ways to combat piracy but blocking used games isn’t the way forward. Give us your thoughts on this as digital distribution threatens to take over the world.

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If you consider that Sony originally charged $499 for the 60GB PS3 back in 2006, it is a scary prospect to consider what they may demand for the PlayStation 4. Most recently, many people were not too happy with the $299 asking price for the PS Vita either, so with all the excitement to come on what kind of hardware we may see, it may well turn to horror once Sony and Microsoft finalize their pricing in the years to come.

However, there could be one amazing twist to this which Microsoft may have just given an insight to with a new strategy for their Xbox 360. The company has just revealed a $99 Xbox 360 console which is tied to a two-year monthly subscription to Xbox Live. In a similar way in which phone contracts work, US consumers will now have the convenience of picking up a console for next to nothing and then pay it off gradually with monthly payments of $15.

In reality, the total cost of $460 when adding all the monthly costs up is obviously greater than the standard $250 you would usually pay as well as a $120 two years subscription to Xbox Live gold that you would need as well. However, paying just $99 and $15 a month may seem like a much better deal in the long run for those that don’t have enough cash to pay in one go. Also, if the move turns out to be a glowing success for Microsoft, then don’t be surprised if we see a similar move for their next generation Xbox console either. It is very clever from Microsoft’s part you have to say.

Monthly installments are a great way to manage your overall bills and extending this with your home gaming console may prove to be a stroke of genius by Microsoft. Will Sony adopt a similar approach with their PS3? There may be additional barriers for Sony to overcome though if they go down this route as online gaming via the PlayStation Network still remains free compared to Xbox Live.

Put it this way – would you prefer to pay a monthly subscription with your next generation console combined with say a $150-200 one off fee for the console? Or would you just prefer the traditional method of paying one lump sum for everything? It is going to be interesting to see how well Microsoft’s new strategy performs – this could well phase one of their transition into next generation gaming on the Xbox.

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Just bear in mind that the Xbox 360 launched a full year earlier than the Sony PS3 and Sony has made no secret of their plans to not have history repeat itself twice. We told you back in October 2011 that Sony could be getting the jump ahead of Microsoft in the race to release next-gen consoles first, and this week we have had the strongest rumor yet about this becoming a reality.

Well informed sources have told VG247 that Sony are ‘completely in the belief’ that they will release their PS4 console before Microsoft release theirs. Developers are apparently already aware of Sony’s plans and that developers such as Ubisoft are even thought to be hard at work on the system already.

At the moment there is no further information on the possibility of the PS4 being named the ‘Orbis’, but it would obviously be a major coup for both Sony and the legion of PS3 owners if the company manage to finalize their PS4 before the next Xbox. As for when that will happen, we’re hearing that Sony will aim to release their console before Microsoft during the Christmas period.

Furthermore, it looks like Sony and Microsoft were not kidding when they both said that they will not be revealing any next-generation hardware at E3 2012. However, the E3 2013 event is expected to unveil the consoles for the first time, and Sony has apparently already told developers this information.

What is your reaction to this? After seeing the Xbox 360 release before the PS3, we’ll be very surprised if Sony actually manage to reverse the process for their next-generation effort. We also think it looks set now that we will not see any official information on both consoles at E3 2012, but since developers are apparently in the know – that always implies the possibility that leaks will come out. Remember the exact same thing happened when a NetherRealm Studios dev outed the next-generation PSP rather prematurely.

Do you think the PS4 will release before the Xbox 720? Does it really matter if this happens?

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It sounds a strange name at first doesn’t it? But then again, that’s what we all thought about the Vita. Here’s some brief background information to the name though – Orbis in Latin means circle or ring, suggesting that the next PlayStation may have a circular design. Here’s the exciting part – combine Orbis with Vita, and in Latin you get the translation: ”Circle of Life” – that certainly doesn’t sound like a coincidence to us and it may be an early indication that the recently released Vita will feature some major interaction with the next PlayStation console.

With the name aside, let’s get on to the other major talking points. According to the scoop by Kotaku, it’s meant to be releasing during the holiday season of 2013 – which is quite remarkable if true, given all the recent talk that the PS3 is far from finished etc and Jack Tretton’s own admission that the PS3 is just ‘hitting its stride right now’.

Promising: So what will the ‘Orbis’ be able to churn out though in terms of hardware grunt? We’re hearing that the system will be based on AMD architecture (again matching up with previous rumors), more specifically an AMD 64X CPU and a AMD Southern Islands GPU, which is based around Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics cards. That’s some pretty decent processing power available there and don’t forget this is all without the use of a Cell Processor, which is equipped in the PS3 at the moment.

While some of you hardcore graphic nuts may be disappointed with a 7000 Series card, further details suggest that the Orbis will be capable of outputting a monster 4096×2160 resolution, and will be able to churn out 3D games in 1080p – a first, since the PS3 can only handle 3D games in 720p.

Controversial: All this sounds really mouth-watering we agree, but there are some major talking points to discuss – controversial ones at that. The report also includes information that the Orbis will NOT play PS3 games, ie no backwards compatibility whatsoever, and it will not play used games either. You may have read recent rumors about the next-gen Xbox also removing support for used-games as well. Sony may be taking extra measures to prevent piracy by locking all Orbis games to a PSN account, similar to the way in which the PS Vita operates at the moment.

Such a move could have serious repercussions with the likes of GameStop and other retailers that use pre-owned game sales as a core means of business. Infamous analyst Michael Pachter has already chimed in with his thoughts on the Orbis rumors by saying that GameStop may actually refuse to carry Sony’s new console and games if it does turn out that the system doesn’t support used games.

No PS3 support is obviously another major blow though – Sony would have to have some major guts to follow through with this move if true. What would it mean for games such as The Last of Us and GTA V which may both end up being 2013 release titles – you just can’t play them anymore when the new console is out? That would be quite ridiculous, especially since The Last of Us is a Sony published game. We’re guessing that Sony is plotting a compromise around this for all 2013 PS3 titles, so let’s hope we get some clarity on this in the coming weeks.

So much to discuss here folks – what’s your initial reaction to the ‘Orbis’? You may want to head to this official URL by Sony – it certainly is without a doubt the most promising PS4 rumor seen yet. No backwards compatibility with PS3 titles and no used game support though is controversial to say the least.

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Capcom share that vision as well, perhaps more than others are willing to divulge at the moment. Christian Svensson, the main man behind the US division of the company has given a fascinating interview with Gamasatura, in which he has stated that in five years, game discs will be replaced by tokens that come bundled with soft toys and figurines.

We’re not joking either. While he doesn’t think that retailers will be eliminated entirely, he feels that gamers will instead buy games as an impulse purchase, rather than an intended purchase. But tokens, seriously? Surely we are a long way off that happening, where we no longer receive a shiny game disc inside a box.

We understand his logic though. In a way it is similar to some of the product-game deals that we have recently seen before in the US anyway. Remember the Dr Pepper Battlefield promotion in which you could get some free dog tags by using promo codes featured on bottles and cans? Well we’re guessing that this is exactly the idea that he expects to see a lot more of, only that there will be a bigger emphasis on the game content you’ll be getting with these ‘figurines’ or ‘soft toys’.

Most of you will probably think he’s on another planet though – but we wouldn’t like to bet against the idea of something like this happening in the future – just not in five years, as that is too soon. For example, imagine a scenario where you could only pick up Capcom’s latest Street Fighter game on next-generation consoles if you bought a limited edition set of Street Fighter figurines – that wouldn’t be feasible right now would it?

The interview is well worth checking out, as there’s a lot of interesting quotes from Svensson. At the moment, these feel like pipe dreams to us which won’t happen soon, when in reality, the company should be providing evidence in the real world why they didn’t include local online co-op on the Xbox 360 version of Street Fighter X Tekken, or why they locked away 12 extra characters on the console disc, which they plan to charge gamers for at a later date.

Going back to the digital debate though – what are your thoughts on this? Do you think discs will become obsolete in five years time or not?

More About: Capcom, Sony PS4, Xbox 720

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The company are obviously famed for their Crysis and Far Cry titles, with their latest effort Crysis 2 arguably one of the best looking games on consoles at the moment. Now though, the company has given the public an exact idea of what they have been working on following on from Crysis 2, as they appeared at the recent GDC 2012 event in San Francisco to give everyone a glimpse of their next-generation CryEngine 3, which will power the company’s upcoming releases over the next few years.

To say their tech demo is impressive is probably not doing Crytek justice. There was one particular moment in the clip shown of their next generation character models, which featured a male face amusingly bearing a resemblance to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. That aside, the amount of realism shown in the face was nothing short of mindblowing, as was the new tessellation effects that the CryEngine 3 will bring to the table as well.

Skyrim fans will enjoy this video for sure as well, as there’s another segment from the clip which suggests that Crytek could do a fantastic job on an open-world Bethesda style game as well. CryEngine 3 has been developed for games on existing hardware, but there’s no doubt that some of the visuals seen in the video could find their way onto next generation hardware from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo as well.

Check out the clip below for yourself and let us know what you think of it – We’re dying to find out who composed the music that Crytek used as well, so if you know who it is be sure to let us know! Do you think the CryEngine 3 could be the most impressive games engine seen so far, or did the recent Quantic Dream tech demo of Kara win you over more?

More About: CryEngine 3, Sony PS4, Xbox 720

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This seems to have come out of nowhere, but there is little doubt that everyone is talking about it on the likes of Twitter at the moment. The Steam Box story is according to a report over at The Verge who suggest that Valve may be planning to reveal the new hardware at the Game Developers Conference, which kicks off this week in San Francisco.

Further more, The Verge has even got a potential list of specs for us to drool over, specs which were apparently discussed at CES 2012 back in January. If legit, Valve may be announcing the Steam Box with specs such as an Intel Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM and graphics from NVIDIA.

8GB of RAM sounds pretty good to us, but what would a console from Valve mean for the industry – more specifically, how would it make Sony and Microsoft feel since both companies are almost ready to announce their PS3 and Xbox 360 successors? There has always been a big gap from console to PC, but the idea of having a compact box in the living room which could handle the equivalent of Battlefield 3 on PC, may be a tempting idea for many gamers who have previously been reluctant to make the jump from console to PC.

What’s more interesting, is that this huge rumor has come days after Gabe Newell was quoted as saying ‘if we need to sell hardware, we will’. Coincidence perhaps guys, or a real indication that Valve are ready to enter the console market? Let us know your initial feelings towards a Steam box from Valve and if you would choose it ahead of the Sony PS4 and the next Xbox console. Kotaku has a image of a rumored prototype model here – well worth a look.

The idea of playing PC-quality games in the living room is an interesting one, but we would definitely like to see it happen as a fourth console option is always better than three.

More About: Sony PS4, steam, Valve, Xbox 720

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PS Vita is a new generation handheld that has learned from the PS3 – We’ve seen a number of hints inside Sony’s PS Vita that show how the PS3 could’ve done certain tasks better, and one of the most demanded features since the release of the PS3 has been cross-game chat, which will likely never arrive on that platform.

The PlayStation Vita features cross-game chat and does it extremely well, which we found out when playing a few games while chatting to someone in Hong Kong (we were in the UK). The voice was very clear and you couldn’t hear the game they were playing, and this feature alone makes gaming with friends around the world much more appealing for handheld and console gamers.

The PS4 will need to learn from this generation – for starters it can and will include cross-game chat from the outset, which is proven thanks to its inclusion in the Vita but of course we’d expect the PS4 to release the hardware potential with a twist for voice chat while gaming. How could faster processors and more memory help with innovative voice features for a next-gen PlayStation console?

Backwards compatibility has received mix reactions by PS3 owners and while some people wanted all PS2 games to work on the PS3, there are gamers that cannot understand why you’d “want to play last generation games” on a next-gen system? Seasoned gamers know the classics will live forever and you can already see the new PS Vita hardware being used for some classic PSP games like the Sega Genesis Collection. You can read an article here that we posted two days ago, which looked at recent rumors involving backwards compatibility for Sony’s PS4, and the possibility it might not be included although this would be a real shame in our opinion.

Now is the time to enjoy PS Vita games and don’t procrastinate for a PS4 release date that will not come anytime soon – hearing about potential graphics hardware for the PS4 can make a nice read but we’ve got to remember that Sony has stated clearly about any release date being a while yet, and they officially confirmed the PS4 is a “distraction” to their current plans, which involve the PS Vita.

When we see forums filled with questions like “shall I buy a PS Vita or wait for the PS4?” we think “wake up and smell the coffee“, because there is no point waiting for something that Sony has confirmed as a distraction. We’d love to buy the next-generation Sony console as soon as possible, which our reasons are for owning both the Xbox 360 and PS3 since launch – years ago – and feel it’s time for a new generation, although that is not going to happen anytime soon. If you’ve owned any current generation console from launch are you crying out for next-gen?

To see why the current PS Vita is well worth a buy right now – or later this year once Sony iron out issues – then you should read about the mystery new PS Vita games, the cross platform potential for certain franchises, and let’s not forget cross-game chat that really makes the gaming fun as we found out in our hands-on.

Have you jumped onboard the PS Vita train yet? If not, let us know what would be your next hardware purchase for gaming?

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Maintenance cannot be avoided sometimes, we understand that – but you have to question Sony’s timing for some of their maintenance periods sometimes as more often than not we see the PlayStation Network go offline at the worst time when you are just about to head on for an online session after a hard days work or study.

It was just earlier this month that we told you about the last maintenance period which involved the error code 80023102, but now we have some important information for PS3 users this week as well – the entire PSN will be offline this Thursday. Sony has announced on their official blog that the PSN will be offline on Thursday March 1 and key services will be unavailable for a staggering 14 hours. Usually these maintenance periods were annoying, but didn’t affect most users who were already signed in as they could still play online – but not this time.

Sony has also confirmed that during the maintenance period, nobody will be allowed to sign-in and those already signed-in will be signed-out. The PlayStation Store will also be unavailable, as will account management and access to PlayStation Home. Here’s the key timing of the outage plans for you to make a note of:

March 1 outage begins at: 8am Pacific time, 11am Eastern time, 4pm UK time
March 1 outage resumes (fingers crossed) at :10pm Pacific Time, 1am (Friday) Eastern time, 6am (Friday) UK time.

As you can see, that isn’t ideal at all for many of you and it basically means that on Thursday you won’t be able to play the likes of Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3 as you normally would. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect for gamers though, is the fact that Sony hasn’t given any sort of explanation for the 14 hours of time other than the usual ‘sorry for any inconvenience caused’ message. We have a feeling that most of you wouldn’t mind so much if Sony would communicate with their customers a little better, state a real reason and choose a different day and timing to perform their maintenance.

With online gaming, account management and the PS store all out of action, it does give the impression that there’s a serious problem that needs sorting out. 14 hours is quite a big deal at the end of the day, so let’s hope that Sony provide some answers to this on their official blog – just expecting customers to put up with the frequent outages every week with no explanation isn’t really good enough.

One other factor which is probably worth mentioning is the PlayStation 4. These outages seem to be occurring a lot at the moment, and we would hate to think that Sony would bring their maintenance issues over to the PS4 as well. The company needs to design their next console so that they have certain contingency plans in place so that when a problem does occur, it’s something that the new hardware would be able to deal with effectively and at minimum hassle for users. One possible idea for this could be to handle all software issues on the PlayStation 4 all through an internal cloud server, which Sony can operate and fix problems without affecting online game play. Once maintenance is finished, messages can come through to gamers via the PlayStation network telling them to re-sign in to issue the update to the system.

That’s just one idea of course, but let’s hope that Sony is seriously thinking about a solution which doesn’t involve three maintenance periods per month. Let us know your thoughts on the 14 hour maintenance outage this week and any ideas you have to reduce outages on the next console.

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Despite early worries by some gamers the Microsoft Kinect has proved to be a hugely successful product, and continues to evolve with the device now available for Windows PCs. Meanwhile Sony came up with the PlayStation Move, which is being outsold by the Kinect by a considerable margin. According to a report on PlayStation lifestyle are looking to their own version that can track movements as well as depth.

A recently published patent has revealed that Sony has started work on a new 3D camera, which has the potential of coming with the next PlayStation. The patent was originally filed back in October last year, which is around a year after the Microsoft Kinect smashed records regarding sales. Sony has said before that they had looked into 3D camera technology before the Kinect was launched, but decided on the PlayStation Move instead.

The patent has been published by Dr Richard Marks who was responsible for the creation of the PS Move and the PS Eye, and hints that the company is again looking at a system along the lines of the Kinect. In the description for the paten it lists an invention that offers a “real-time” 3D environment that uses a device that senses depth.

Similar to the Kinect the patent says the camera will use infrared to determine the depth. Sony producing a Kinect like system for the next PlayStaion makes sense, as Microsoft is thought to be bringing a new Kinect system with the next Xbox console.

Sony will have to be careful to offer something different to the Kinect though as it will be accused of copying Microsoft. The next gen hardware from both companies will hopefully bring some innovative ideas and technology to the table, which will only benefit the gamer. Would you like to see a Kinect type system on the PlayStation?

More About: Microsoft Kinect, PS Move, Sony PS4

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