Hasta La Gadget!

This week the Microsoft Xbox 720 specifications are flying like leaves off a tree, and today’s bit of information comes from none other that former Microsoft executive Joachim Kempin. This man was the Vice President of Windows Sales at Microsoft for a whopping 20 years and has, since his retirement, released a book that’s lambasted Steve Balmer and made it clear with IGN Microsoft originally created the Xbox “to stop Sony.” Now he’s ready to speak about the possibilities in the Xbox 720, and it’s starting to look a whole lot more like Windows 8.

With Kempin it would seem that “there’s no doubt about” the nature of the Xbox 720 specifically in how “more Windows 8-like.” He went on to note that “maybe it even gets a touchscreen” and that he wouldn’t be surprised if the next-generation console is a lot more Windows 8-like than it is today. He also went on to remind the public that “on the [console] itself there is no profit,” going on to note that it’s from sources like royalties from game developers and profits from each release of a new Halo game.

Image above via “Xbox Surface 7-inch tablet rumors reappear post from back in November of 2012. Check it out! Note also that Microsoft declined to comment on those rumors then and has since given no new word on an Xbox Surface device. Image below from 2011 film Real Steel:

Much like suggestions made earlier this week, Kempin also suggests that for the Xbox 720 to succeed, it will need to be more than just a specifications bump of a beast. Noting that Microsoft “need[s] to find out hot to get this whole PC environment into the 21st century”, Kempin went on to make the key clear: “You have to make these devices work together.” Sound like a bit of the ol’ Xbox SmartGlass to you, folks?

Have a peek at our lovely Xbox 720 tag portal for more information than you can possible handle on this machine that’s not yet even really been confirmed by Microsoft itself. Keep your eyes to the timeline below to see the most recent blasts from across the tip and rumor-sphere and make sure you stick to SlashGear for the next big splash from the gaming console underground soon!

[via VG24/7]

Xbox 720 specs “suggested” by former Microsoft exec is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the developers behind Grand Theft Auto V (aka GTA5) have made it clear that the delay they’re experiencing with the release of their next-generation game has nothing to do with Microsoft and Sony releasing new consoles this year. While Take-Two chief executive officer Strauss Zelnick’s words didn’t explicitly confirm nor deny the idea that the Xbox 720 or PlayStation 4 will exist in the very near future, the idea that GTA:V will be released on those mystical machines seems to have been clearly dashed.

According to Venture Beat, Zelnick today denied the idea that the GTA delay “had anything to do with the next-gen systems.” This confirmation takes the game out of the hard place that exists between the release date of either of the new console gaming systems, but it puts its own release in a new odd spot. This spot is one where GTA:V could be one of the last big-name games to be released for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

So here’s the question for you gamers out there – if this new GTA game does indeed live up to the hype that Take-Two is issuing today, will you still feel like it’ll be worth the purchase even when a new console might be yours in the near future? Zelnick spoke up about this idea this week as well: “There is not one gamer who is going to sit out Grand Theft Auto V hoping that something down the road will be better.” Sound pretty definitive to us!

Zelnick also once again supported the idea that Grand Theft Auto V would be released inside September of 2013. This release date will keep the game as the only “major” release for the whole month unless something else comes along between here and there – we shall see! Zelnick’s assurance that GTA:V will “blow people away at a level people don’t anticipate” has us more than pumped to see it live!

Grand Theft Auto V for next-gen consoles: not so much is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

After OUYA‘s immense Kickstarter success, the company is looking to branch out and go mainstream. The portable Android-powered gaming console will begin selling in select retail stores starting in June. Best Buy, Target, and GameStop will sell the console for $99, the same price that Kickstarter backers have been paying for the device.

The console will also be available online at the company’s website and on Amazon. Of course, though, Kickstarter backers will be the first to get their units. Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman says that Kickstarter backers will receive their consoles in March, while orders from the OUYA website will go out in April, and retail stores will begin selling them in June. You can pre-order the console now through Amazon, Best Buy, or Target.

The console will sell for $99.99, and it’ll come with one controller. An extra controller will cost you $49.99 in retail stores, while getting one on OUYA’s website will only cost $40 shipped. Paying $50 for a controller certainly isn’t outrageous, but it raises some concerns when a controller costs half the price of the console itself. Uhrman says that $49.99 is a “premium price” for a controller, indeed, but she says that the touchpad built into the controller makes up for the cost.

The OUYA console raised more than $8.5 million on Kickstarter and has been taking pre-orders for the consoles on its website. There are over 68,000 consoles that need to be shipped out so far, with potentially even more orders to come no doubt. The tiny Android-powered gaming console is already a huge hit, and we’re pretty excited to see how the OUYA community will grow once the consoles start selling.

[via WSJ]

OUYA to be sold at retail stores starting in June is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you believe the hype, then Sony will be revealing the next PlayStation in just a few short weeks at a February 20 event. The announcement of a new console is all well and good, but once the party’s over and the reveal has been made, Sony then faces the difficult task of making the next PlayStation successful in the new generation. It’s something of a blank slate – the other competitors in the console space are releasing new machines as well, so the platform wars can begin anew. Sony did a lot of good things with the PS3, but in order to make the PS4 a smashing success, it’s going to need to ramp it up in a few areas.

First and foremost, Sony needs to get even more serious about securing exclusive games for the PS4. Throughout the entire generation, Sony has offered some excellent exclusives to PS3 players. Microsoft had some good exclusives for the Xbox 360 throughout most of the console’s life, but these days it seems that the company would rather make timed-exclusive DLC deals. That’s all well and good, but timed-exclusive DLC is a poor substitute for exclusive full games. Sony not only needs to make sure the PS4 has a solid exclusive games library, but it also needs to kick it up a bit.

In the next generation, Sony can’t be stingy with its money – it needs to go out there, find good titles, and then plop down the cash needed to make those games exclusive to PS4. If it can offer a large number of exclusive games, that will drive consumers to the console, especially when its still in the early days after launch.

To give you an example, I have a friend who recently went out and bought a PS3 so he could play the US release of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. It’s hard for gamers to resist the lure of a really awesome-looking game, which is why I’m willing to bet he isn’t the only one who bought a PS3 for Ni No Kuni. Good games that players can’t find anywhere else will always pull in more consumers than fancy technical specs, despite what the technophiles of the world will tell you.

That being said, Sony needs to get better at recognizing when a franchise doesn’t need any new releases. God of War: Ascension seems to be the God of War title no one was asking for, while a number of Ratchet and Clank games released this generation have been a far cry from the Ratchet and Clank games of the PS2 era. Instead of putting money into franchises that could use a rest, Sony could take that money and invest it in exclusive titles from promising third-parties, or it could even take a risk and develop some new franchises of its own. The temptation to keep milking a franchise with a loyal fanbase is definitely great, but by releasing title after title, you end up alienating gamers who have fond memories with the series. Unfortunately, many of those gamers aren’t going to come back when you’ve finally figured out how to bring something new and exciting to the franchise.

I think Sony should look to Japan more often in the next generation, too. We’ve got a lot of interest in Japanese games at the moment – Persona, Ni No Kuni, Xenoblade, Pandora’s Tower, The Last Story – all of them have been popping up left and right here in North America. They’ve all been getting attention as well. Sony has an advantage over Microsoft in this case, as Japanese developers aren’t making too many games for the Xbox 360. Until Microsoft learns how to effectively tackle the Japanese market, that will remain to be the case, leaving Sony with a flood of unique and interesting titles for its own console.

Why not publish more promising Japanese titles with the intention of bringing them to western markets in the next generation? There seems to be a belief that western gamers aren’t all that interested in Japanese video games, but I think this generation proved that’s more a misconception than anything else.

Sony also needs to pay more attention to indies in the next generation. PSN is already a great place to find indie games, but it seems to be more or less on par with the offerings over on XBLA. It needs to be better with the PS4. Indie games exploded this year, and Sony needs to take a bigger slice of that pie for itself. It needs to make a PSN where it can try new and different things, unlike the by-the-books nature of Xbox Live. Granted, Sony is already doing better than Microsoft in the online market area, but I’d like to see it take even more risks with PSN in the future.

Above all else, though, Sony needs to admit when things just aren’t working out. When you launch something like Move or PS Vita and it doesn’t do much else other than fester, the correct course of action is not to pretend everything is okay and let it fester some more. Move is a cool peripheral, and as far as the other motion control peripherals go, I think it has the Wii remote and Kinect beat. However, that doesn’t matter much when there aren’t any games for it. The same is true of the PS Vita – here we’ve got some excellent portable hardware, and it’s not doing anything but collecting dust because no one’s buying it and no one’s making games for it.

Staying the course doesn’t help in cases like these. If something isn’t working with the PS4, Sony can’t just leave that problem hanging there and hope it gets better on the promise of cool things to come. It needs to get creative and shake things up a bit. I’m not entirely sure how you fix the problems with the Vita, but I’m positive that Sony’s current way of handling these issues isn’t working. Let’s not allow that to happen with the PlayStation 4.

PlayStation 4: What Sony must do is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Last night, Sony released a new teaser that seems to point to an incoming PlayStation 4 reveal. The Wall Street Journal today is reporting that Sony will indeed reveal the next PlayStation at this event on February 20, and that the console will be releasing sometime this year. That’s a pretty exciting claim if true, but keep in mind that we won’t know Sony’s real plan until at least February 20.

We’ll probably be waiting for more details beyond that suspected launch event too, as there’s a chance Sony will wait until E3 2013 to talk about pricing and a release date. In any case, the Wall Street Journal‘s anonymous sources – who are said to be “familiar with the matter” – claim the next PlayStation will be arriving this year, with Sony targeting a pre-holiday launch. They also claim that Sony was considering ditching the optical drive in the PS4 at one point, be ultimately decided against it.

Good thing too, since many gamers these days still don’t have their consoles connected to the Internet. There’s also the problems of large download files and storage space, so requiring players to download their PS4 games probably wouldn’t be the best idea. Luckily, the optical drive has since been restored to the work-in-progress console, or so these sources claim.

WSJ‘s write-up also says that Sony is focusing on the social aspects of gaming with the next PlayStation, so it sounds like Sony may be taking a few cues from Nintendo here. Just as well, apparently the company is putting more importance on improving the way people interact with their console than it is on improving hardware. Perhaps Move will play a larger part in Sony’s next generation console? We’ll hopefully be finding out soon.

PlayStation 4 reportedly hitting shelves this year is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.