PIXEL GRAVE

This Autumn both the next generation of Xbox and Playstation will launch in most countries. Though there has always been a ‘console war’ between Xbox and Playstation and a huge amount of fanboyism to either party, this will be nothing compared to what will begin at the start of this year. Looking back at the current gen and by this I mean Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo Wii. The 360 launched almost an entire year ahead of the PS3 and Wii which both launched within days of each other (in the UK). The Xbox had that extra year advantage, a much cheaper price tag and no other innovative and entirely new and cheap console to throw a spanner in the works like the Wii did to the PS3 launch. This is entirely different to what is to come this Autumn. The Xbox One and PS4 will launch, if the rumours are true, within weeks of each other and the Wii-U, which many class as a current gen console, is struggling to make a place in people’s homes and doesn’t seem likely to affect these gaming giant...

On 20th February Sony came and went with a two hour long introduction to the PS4. There was a lot to take in and a lot of questions were left on peoples minds, so, I have come up with the answers for what I think are some questions on peoples’ minds. They showed an image about a load of technical hardware inside the PS4, what the UMD did all that mean? I think that Sony wanted to get this off their chest straight away as the PS3 was quite difficult to develop for. Generally the PS4 runs on PC standard hardware and the x86 (x86-64) which is a 64bit processor and similar to what all Windows PC use is an example of this. In the past, consoles have been 32bit and have been very different to PCs but with this similar hardware architecture it will not only make it easier to develop on the PS4 but hopefully some ports from PS4 to PC will be improved greatly.  I saw 2 people, one wearing a PS t-shirt and some other guy with a Gaikai t-shirt, who are they and what does Gaikai even ...

There are rumours circulating that the next Xbox will be disc-less and therefore support no optical media at all. Though this is inevitably a step into the future of digital media, one that has already been taken in PC gaming, music, mobile phone software and now more and more people are moving on to streaming films and/or TV. Is it time for the next-gen of games consoles to take this step too? As far as the current generation goes, you can download games through Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network and the Wii's Virtual Console. Furthermore, on Xbox 360 & PSN you can buy and download full retail games direct from their respective marketplaces which are then downloaded to your hard drive where they will belong. This alone raises issues for the next generation and whether they will be backwards compatible. One always hopes the next generation consoles will be able to play their games they own for that previous generation. The reason being that gamers won't have to...