2013: The Year of The Next Generation Console Systems

Apparently being optimistic does pay off, at least with respect to the future of video game consoles. If you recall in last week’s post, I brought up the possibility and hope that in 2013 the world could come to expect new gaming consoles from both Microsoft and Sony. While neither has made any official announcement, and probably will not until at least the second quarter of next year, there is however a ton of information out there stating that new console may indeed be on the horizon. Since Nintendo released their brand new Wii U system this past season, one can only expect that the rumor mill begin to churn about the other two giants’ activities.

Microsoft Xbox

            Whether their next console will bear the name Xbox 720, Durango, or what ever else the Internet conjures up, reports are being published left and right about Microsoft’s next system being a reality in 2013. Just a day after last week’s post on this blog, Yahoo! Games reported about the likelihood of Microsoft releasing their next system in time for the holiday season of 2013. What made this report, and the possibility of a new system next year, more believable was the fact that they, themselves were reporting on a posted Bloomberg.com article talking about the exact same thing.

New Xbox?

            What can we expect from a new Xbox? Honestly, your guess is as good as ours at this point. There have been dozens of reports and articles providing rumored tech specs for the system. The one thing they all have in common is that they certainly all at least “upgrade” the current model. The same Yahoo! Games article states that a Blu-ray player is definitely a must for the system since the 360 currently lacks those capabilities since Microsoft initially decided to bet on the now-doomed HDDVD drive. Or is it? Matt Hawkins of Gameranx thinks that Microsoft could indeed bring back the doomed HDDVD format for use in gaming purposes. Can it beat out Sony’s Blu-ray capabilities? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out to see what is really underneath the hood of the next Xbox.

Sony PlayStation

            As for the next PlayStation, the name everyone expects it to be is simply PlayStation 4 or PS4 for short. The name Orbis has been floating around the web, serving as what many believe to be the code name for the PS4 within the Sony camp. And just like Microsoft’s next-gen system, Sony’s PS4 is also a hot topic amongst Internet chatter.  In an interesting article on Examiner.com, writer Steven Ruygrok brings up some news as to the future of Sony’s system. First, he brings up some rationale as to why the name PlayStation 4 is an unlikely candidate for Sony ‘s next console. It all focuses around the Japanese translation for the number 4, when translated, the word for “4” is similar to Japanese word for death. Any marketing novice could see why this association in Japan would not be easy to sell, nor much less seem appealing to the consumer. The second point Mr. Ruygrok brought up is something that PlayStation loyalists have harped on since the third or fourth generation PS3 came out on the market with no backwards compatibility. What that means is that from that generation model on a consumer could play any of their old PS2 or PSone games directly on their new PS3 system. Sony did this mostly to help drive up sales on their PlayStation Network (PSN) store and basically force people to download games they already own to play on that new system. Well the news Mr. Ruygrok brings to us may or may not surprise you, in which according to reports the PS4 will from the get-go lack backwards compatibility with all of the previous PlayStation catalog and library. Now as much as we, who are avid gamers ourselves, hope this is not true, when rationalizing the information given there are some things that we just cannot help to point out. The first is that as the company continues to move in a more digital direction, users have already grown accustomed to the PlayStation Network store. Many people have already begun to build digital libraries of games to cross-play between their PS3 system and their PS Vitas & PSPs. If the PS4 were to be released without the ability to play any of these already released games, we are more than sure that, that decision will certainly affect the bottom line of Sony’s initial PS4 initiative. For these reasons, and the fact that the PS4 games will also be released in Blu-ray format, backwards compatibility, at least with the PS3 catalog, should be something that is to be expected of the next-gen console system.

New Sony PlayStation?

            Some other news from the supposed PS4 comes to us in the form of a presumed patent application on behalf of Sony. Expert Reviews shows a drawing of what seem to be the next system’s new controller peripherals and how they interact with the console. The interesting thing to take away from this is how the classic PlayStation controller and the PlayStation Move become one joint peripheral. The idea is an interesting and realistic concept, but is this the controller we will have in our hands in the years to come? The last thing we all may see implemented into the next-gen console is Sony’s Gaikai service. Gaikai is a video game streaming service that Sony took over some time ago. With their recent revamp of the Gaikai company website, one can only assume Sony is working on a way to introduce this into the PlayStation community. As we have said before, only time will tell.

What Can We Expect?

            The truth may very well be that what we are witnessing here is the start of a very long marketing and placement campaign from both tech competitors. For all we know, both companies may still hold out a couple of years before bringing their consoles to market. We say this because, at least from the Sony camp, we have all known since the release of the PlayStation 3 that Sony fully intended to give that system a shelf life of up to 10 years, and its only been about six so far. Whether or not Sony will stick to its initial plan is for the future to show, but we can be certain that if either one of the tech giants announce any plans for a new console, the other is almost guaranteed to follow shortly after. As I said last week, I can only stay optimistic and hope that by this time next year I am expecting a next-generation console sitting underneath my Christmas tree.

As always, this topic is always one that gets people talking so we here at Pencils and Vectors encourage you to share your thoughts with us and let us know what you think. With that said, we wish you all a Happy Holidays!