Sony’s PlayStation 4 Will Launch in 2013

At a press conference on Wednesday, Sony announced that the PlayStation 4 will be released in time for the holiday season this year.

Though the actual PlayStation 4 was not on display at the conference, more information of its specifications were shared. The console will have 8 gigabytes of RAM, a tremendous increase from the 512 megabytes of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It will also have a 2-teraflop CPU, which will allow for games with more sophisticated graphics running at higher speeds.

The PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller was also revealed. Much like Ouya, the controller features a touchpad in the center for web browsing and possible integration into games. In line with the show’s emphasis on the system as a social media tool, the DualShock 4 comes with a Share button. This button will allow gamers to instantly send a twenty-second video of their gameplay to the PlayStation Network for others to see.

Among the upcoming PS4 titles featured at the conference were new installments in popular franchises, like The Witcher 3, Killzone: Shadow Fall, and inFamous: Second Son.

There were also several new IPs  introduced at the show, such as the cartoony Knack and the fantasy RPG Deep Down. There was also an impressive new real-time demo for Ubisoft’s high-tech espionage thriller Watch Dogs, which was announced at this summer’s E3.

Square Enix’s contribution to the conference was “Agni’s Philosophy,” a visually stunning tech demo for their new Luminous Studio game engine. The company has confirmed that they have no plans to license the engine to other developers, according to Destructoid.

The positive reception of the PS4 announcement by shareholder is evident as Sony stock rose 2.4 per cent after the show.

Yearly Installments Announced For Ouya Console

Courtesy of gameinformer.com

Updated versions of the upcoming Ouya game console will be released each year, according to International Business Times.

“There will be an OUYA 2 and an OUYA 3,” Ouya CEO and founder Julia Uhrman said. “We’ll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling.”

Ouya is an Android-powered console for open source games. It is scheduled for release in retail stores in June with a $100 price point.

Uhrman has promised that the annual updates for the console will feature backwards-compatibility for all Ouya games and they will cost $100 dollars at launch. Uhrman said that their business strategy for yearly updates was inspired by the mobile industry.

Ouya gained public attention with its successful campaign on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. The project raised $8.5 million dollars, more than nine times its goal. It reached the $1 million dollar mark in just eight hours, faster than any previous Kickstarter. It also broke the Kickstarter record for highest single-day earnings set by Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Adventure campaign by raising $2,589,687 dollars on its first day.

About 30 launch titles have been confirmed for Ouya, including games like Final Fantasy III, The Cave, and Double Fine Adventure. Some critics are saying that Ouya lacks the killer app needed for it to compete with the major consoles.

In an interview with Kotaku, Ouya designer Yves Béhar described Ouya as being “around the size of a Rubik’s cube.” Each console comes with a controller, but additional controllers will cost $50 dollars each because of the expensive touchpads they feature.