Next Gen Console News & Updates

[Bucman 891]

It's one dude (one asshole, rather). Microsoft has already come out and completely disowned him and apologized for his remarks. Wish they would just fire the guy...

What goes up can bring you down. Wait, that’s not right…

 

Following last week’s Twitter outburst, Microsoft Creative Director Adam Orth is now former Microsoft Creative Director Adam Orth, Game Informer reports. According to the magazine’s sources, Orth’s departure from the company appears to have been a resignation, though they can’t confirm whether it was a voluntary or forced decision.

 

Of course, like the comments themselves, the move doesn’t necessarily confirm anything regarding Microsoft’s plans. Obviously Microsoft still hasn’t acknowledged anything regarding the always-online issue outside of apologizing for Orth’s comments. He could be departing for talking too much about company secrets… or for poorly representing the company in public.

 

We won’t know the truth until Microsoft unveils the next Xbox, which will supposedly take place next month.

 

Source: Game Informer

[Bucman 891]

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has been very vocal in the recent weeks in regards to the video game market’s transition from one generation to the next. Pachter has long held the view that the next Xbox will launch at the lowest possible price point, allowing Microsoft to build an install base quickly. In order to make back the profits that will be sacrificed by selling the console at a loss, Pachter believes Microsoft will team up with outside sources, such as cable companies, to offer subsidized entertainment packages with longterm subscription fees.

 

At this year’s SXSW Interactive, Pachter stated that he believes the PlayStation 4 will launch at around $600, but today he offered a different view. When Microsoft announces a cheap-to-buy console with a longterm commitment plan – something Pachter believes is an inevitability – Sony is expected to follow suit, leading to the cheapest starting price points in console history.

 

In a preview note sent to investors, Pachter outlined the thought process behind his predictions.

 

We think that the next-generation consoles will perform a wide range of multimedia functions. We should learn more in the coming months, but we expect the next Xbox to have an IPTV tuner that will allow an MSO to deliver services over the Internet outside of the MSO’s regulated geographic boundaries. If we are right, any of Microsoft’s MSO partners will have an incentive to subsidize the purchase of the next Xbox in exchange for a long-term service commitment (similar to the cell phone model). If the subsidies are steep, it is likely that the next Xbox will appear more affordable to many consumers than currently anticipated, and it may capture market share faster than many expect. We don’t expect Sony to sit idly by watching, and believe that the PS4 will follow Microsoft’s lead in short order, suggesting to us that next-generation consoles could have lower starting prices than any in history.

 

So I think the price for the next Xbox is going to be subsidized either by a cable TV company or an internet service provider. I think ISPs have a reason, if you add broadband to get the next Xbox, we’ll give it to you for 100 bucks. If you subscribe to our cable TV and sign up for a couple of years, we’ll give you the next Xbox for 100 bucks.

 

Video game consoles have been moving in the direction of general purpose home entertainment device for some time now, and Pachter expects this trend to expand exponentially in the next generation. Sony and Microsoft have launched consoles at a loss before, but selling a powerful, next-gen system for only $100 would represent a huge gamble for both companies. In the case of Sony, it may be too big of a risk for a company that has recorded four consecutive fiscal losses.

[Vin+ 3,121]

Pretty interesting read. Three pages (click the link) and a lot of tech speak though.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/191007/inside_the_playstation_4_with_mark_.php

 

The PlayStation 4 is due out this fall, and its technical specifications have been largely under wraps -- till now. While the company gave a presentation at GDC, the system's lead architect, Mark Cerny, hasn't talked publicly in any great depth about the platform since its unveiling this February.

 

Cerny approached Gamasutra in the hope of delivering a "no holds barred PlayStation 4 hardware expose," he said, during the interview that resulted in this story. "That certainly is what we're here to do," said Cerny, before speaking to Gamasutra for well over an hour.

 

What follows is a total breakdown of the hardware from a developer's perspective: the chips on the board, and what they're capable of.

 

Questions on the UI and OS were off the table. What was up for discussion is what the system is capable of, and the thinking that lead Cerny and his team to make the decisions they made about the components they chose and how they function together.

 

To get to the heart of this deeply technical discussion, Gamasutra was assisted by someone with an intimate knowledge of how console hardware really works: Mark DeLoura, THQ's former VP of tech and now senior adviser for digital media at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

 

 

The Beginnings

"For me, this all started in late 2007," said Cerny, remembering how he embarked on the road to becoming lead architect of the PlayStation 4. "Because we'd been doing postmortems on the PlayStation 3 -- a very broad group of people across the Sony Computer Entertainment team were evaluating how well that had gone."

 

That lead, naturally, to thoughts about what to do next. Musing on the architecture of Sony's next system, Cerny spent his Thanksgiving holiday reading up on the history of the X86 architecture -- realizing that not only had it evolved dramatically over the years, but that by the time the PlayStation 4 shipped, it would be powerful enough for Sony's needs.

 

It had evolved into something "that looked broadly usable by even the sort of extreme programmers we find in the games business," he said.

 

Realizing how passionate he was about the PlayStation 4 project, after Thanksgiving, Cerny went to Sony's then-execs Phil Harrison and Masa Chatani, "and asked if I could lead the next generation effort. And to my great surprise, they said yes."

 

 

"The Biggest Thing" About the PlayStation 4

Cerny approached the design of the PlayStation 4 with one important mandate above all else: "The biggest thing is we didn't want the hardware to be a puzzle that programmers would be needing to solve in order to make quality titles."

 

The PlayStation 3 was very powerful, but its unfamiliar CELL processor stymied developers. "There was huge performance there, but in order to unlock that performance, you really needed to study it and learn unique ways of using the hardware," said Cerny.

 

That situation led directly to the PS4's design philosophy: "The hope with PlayStation 4 was to have a powerful architecture, but also an architecture that would be a very familiar architecture in many ways."

 

In fact, this is something Cerny returned to again and again during the conversation. "We want to make sure that the hardware is easy to use. And so having the familiar CPU and the familiar GPU definitely makes it easier to use," he said.

 

Later, when asked about whether Sony considers the fact that many third party developers will also have to create versions of their games for the next Xbox, his response was, "when I say that our goal is not to create puzzles that the developers have to solve, that is how we do well in a multi-platform world."

 

But ease-of-use is far from Cerny's only goal. As a 31-year veteran of the industry, he well knows that the PC will march onward even as the PlayStation 4 stays frozen in time.

 

"Ultimately, we are trying to strike a balance between features which you can use day one, and features which will allow the system to evolve over the years, as gaming itself evolves," said Cerny. The "supercharged PC architecture," that the team has come up with -- to use Cerny's term -- is designed to offer significant gains the PC can't, while still offering a familiar technological environment for engineers.

 

To design the PlayStation 4, Cerny didn't just rely on research, or postmortems of the PlayStation 3. He also toured development teams and spoke to middleware partners to find out precisely what they wanted to see in a next generation console. The result? You'll read about it below.

 

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Man. Vin loves boring stuff.

 

This is a few days old, as I saw it on my XBOX dashboard, but... here it is anyway.

Microsoft has just sent out a round of invites to the press to attend a special event at its Redmond, Washington campus on May 21 at 10 AM PT. The event is associated with the hashtag #XboxReveal, and promises to show off a “new generation” of Xbox, so it’s safe to say we’ll get our first glimpse of Microsoft’s next-generation home gaming console at the event.

 

This follows earlier reports that indicated we’d see Microsoft launch the Xbox at an event in late May, ahead of a full preview at E3 in June. The event will be live streamed via Xbox.com and Xbox LIVE, and also on TV via Spike TV for viewers in the U.S. and Canada, according to a blog post from Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb. The event will be a first glimpse at Xbox’s next-gen console, and will be followed up by a more extensive look at software at E3 19 days after the initial reveal.

 

A late-May Xbox event was originally pegged by Windows expert Paul Thurrot (who specified May 21, in fact) and later confirmed by The Verge’s Tom Warren. It’s unclear what exactly will be on the agenda, but Microsoft’s Hyrb previously ribbed Sony for not showing any hardware at its own PlayStation 4 reveal earlier this year, so we’ll probably get eyes on the console itself.

 

We may also get our first official word on speculation that Microsoft’s next Xbox will require an always-on connection to the Internet to function, and a more detailed explanation of how exactly it will interact with other living room entertainment devices like cable set-top boxes.

 

TechCrunch

[RANGA+ 1,210]

Looks like I'm getting a PS4 at this stage. Microsoft are just getting worse and worse. First the failure of Windows 8, then the laughable Surface tablet. Now if the new XBOX "always-on" crap requires you to constantly have to log in to some server to play games, a la Diablo 3 and the new Sim City, it will be a disaster waiting to happen.

Edited April 26, 2013 by RANGA

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

That press conference is on my birthday... So it's gonna be a good one...

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Microsoft set to reveal the first gender confused gaming console...

 

[Vin+ 3,121]

Requires a fee to play used games? That's interesting.

[Bucman 891]

Yeah screw Xbox, I'm not gonna pay an extra free to play a used game.

[RANGA+ 1,210]

Worst name in console history...

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

I thought it was a joke when a friend posted it online... Lol. I was like, how cute is this, somebody Photoshopped an Xbox and Playstation together and called it XBOX One. So very clever.

 

But no... It was real.

[Bucman 891]

 

Edited May 22, 2013 by Bucman

[Thanatos 2,847]

"One of the fascinating new additions to your squad is a dog. This is someone you care about."

 

...

 

"Unlike all those other mofos in your squad, them other army guys. No one cares about them, am I right?"

[blotsfan 2,112]

Heh, I was thinking that maybe once I got out of college and started making real money that I would buy myself a console.

 

Not gonna be this one.

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

http://news.xbox.com/2013/05/qa

 

Q: Does Xbox One require an “always on” Internet connection?

A: No, it does not have to be always connected, but Xbox One does require a connection to the Internet. We’re designing Xbox One to be your all-in-one entertainment system that is connected to the cloud and always ready. We are also designing it so you can play games and watch Blu-ray movies and live TV if you lose your connection.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-22-phil-harrison-tries-again-to-clarify-game-ownership-second-hand-sales-and-always-online-in-xbox-one

 

"So, think about how you use a disc that you own of an Xbox 360 game," he began. "If I buy the disc from a store, I use that disc in my machine, I can give that disc to my son and he can play it on his 360 in his room. We both can't play at the same time, but the disc is the key to playing. I can go round to your house and give you that disc and you can play on that game as well.

 

"What we're doing with the digital permissions that we have for Xbox One is no different to that. If I am playing on that disc, which is installed to the hard drive on my Xbox One, everybody in my household who has permission to use my Xbox One can use that piece of content. [so] I can give that piece of content to my son and he can play it on the same system."

 

Harrison then explained what happens when you want to take that game beyond the borders of your own home and into a friend's place.

 

"I can come to your house and I can put the disc into your machine and I can sign in as me and we can play the game," he explained.

 

"The bits are on your hard drive. At the end of the play session, when I take my disc home - or even if I leave it with you - if you want to continue to play that game [on your profile] then you have to pay for it. The bits are already on your hard drive, so it's just a question of going to our [online] store and buying the game, and then it's instantly available to play.

 

"The bits that are on the disc, I can give to anybody else, but if we both want to play it at the same time, we both have to own it. That's no different to how discs operate today."

 

That makes the issue of game ownership a lot clearer than it has been at any point so far. Once you install a game, it is tied to your Xbox login, and in this way Microsoft can avoid scenarios where you buy a game, install it, then just give the disc to all your friends so they can install and play it without paying for it.

 

The next issue is what happens when you finish with a game and want either to trade it in at a store or sell it on in another way.

 

"We will have a system where you can take that digital content and trade a previously played game at a retail store," Harrison said. "We're not announcing the details of that today, but we will have announced in due course."

 

My english reading comprehension sucks, so I got basically nothing from that article, but someone tried using it to explain to me this whole buy/sell used game thing. But IDT any company would be stupid enough to make you pay a fee to play used games.

 

This event I thought was going to put everything to rest about all the question marks. All it seems to of done is raise a whole bunch more.

 

But it's weird that it seems all of you hate the look of the new one. Everyone on my facebook page was raving about it except a few Europeans...

[Bucman 891]

I don't see whats to rave about. I didn't see really anything that made me go WOW. Maybe that will come next month at E3. But right now, I'll buy the PS4 over it.

[Tridentdawgpound 1,043]

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Lmao... Sounds like some bush beating by Microsoft.

 

It doesn't require you to always be connected, but it requires an internet connection? That doesn't answer anything.

 

They better wow me at e3.

[Bay 2,003]

yay Se7en.

[Bucman 891]

Don't jack my stuff

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

 

Not my opinion, but kinda funny... I guess..