Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve been hearing a number of PlayStation 4 rumors over the past few months that discuss its hardware that may be stronger than the next-generation Xbox, its controller capable of touch inputs as well as its retail price.

A new PlayStation 4 rumor is circulating today from a Japanese news outlet Nikkei who is sourcing an unidentified official of Sony Computer Entertainment. The source revealed Sony isn’t focusing as much on its upcoming console’s ability to deliver amazing graphics, instead, it’s focusing more on delivering “new playing options” to its customers. In addition, Sony also has planned to make its next PlayStation a “nerve center” for home entertainment by connecting and sharing information via mobile devices. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Report: Xbox 720 To Feature Siri-Like Voice Control, Sony PlayStation 4 Rumored To Cost Around $400,

Everybody is expecting Sony to announce the PS4 on February 20th that it’s a forgone conclusion at this point. Now rumors are coming out about the price of the next generation system. Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun is reporting that the PS4 will retail for over $400. Expensive? More »

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.

It’s funny what can happen in a single week as last week gamers were probably not considering Sony could announce the PlayStation 4 this year, let alone release it sometime in 2013. And this week, we’re being flooded with speculation due to Sony’s teaser that was released yesterday. It looks as though the speculation won’t end until February 20th, although we might know a little bit about the PlayStation 4 before it’s announced.

According to development sources with knowledge of both the PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox, it looks like the PlayStation 4 is being considered the more powerful console. The specs of the PlayStation 4 are rumored to have 8GB of RAM that include GDDR5, which is capable of data speeds of 176GB per second.

Those who were skeptical of the PlayStation 4′s controller having some kind of touch-based controls should know the PS4 is rumored to have a small touchpad where the Select, Start and PS button are located on DualShock controllers. A Share button will also be introduced with the controller that will allow players to take screenshots and video clips of their game to be published online. The PlayStation 4 will be capable of recording up to 15 minutes of the most recent onscreen gameplay.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: New Sonic Game Rumored For Announcement Next Month, PS4 To Run On Eight-Core AMD CPU; Includes Touchscreen Controller [Rumor],

You may have seen that we covered a “Future of PlayStation” tweet+video from Sony earlier tonight. The date appeared conveniently close to Mobile World Congress (we’ll be there!), so we were dubious that this would be the actual launch of the PlayStation 4 (or Next PlayStation, if you prefer).

In any case, the Wall Street Journal says that Sony will indeed announce the next PlayStation on February 20th, and that the new console would be available by year’s end (supposedly November at the latest). It is surprising that Sony would potentially stall the sales of one of its profitable business for 10 months, but that’s what WSJ believes.

Don’t forget that Sony’s CEO said that the next PlayStation would come out after the next Xbox, but again, we doubt that Microsoft told Sony when the next Xbox would will out, and it could have been a ruse all along. If you remember the initial launch of the PS3, Sony was hurt by arriving to market one year after Xbox 360, so maybe the company does not want to see that ever again. I’ve re-included the video teaser in the full post – try to find any hidden clues if you want. The question is: do you believe WSJ (link: subscription required)? (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sony Teases Something PlayStation Related For The 20th Of February, Hacked Xbox 360 Leads To Police Raid On Unrelated Family,