Microsoft’s Xbox 720 announcement could surface next month, PlayStation 4’s RAM kept secret from third-party developers, and PlayStation 4’s lack of backwards compatibility a “long and hard” decision, THIS IS NICK’S GAMING VIEW!
Hello everyone and welcome to Nick’s Gaming View, you are here with your host, Nick McCandless. According to Windows blogger, Paul Thurrott, and many other reports, Microsoft’s Xbox 720 announcement event believed to have been scheduled for April 24th, has been pushed back to May 21st. Expected to be a small event, the very first details of Microsoft’s next Xbox, code-named Durango and commonly referred to as Xbox 720, are expected to surface with further details releasing during E3 2013. Thurrott believes the console will launch around the price of $500 with a $300 subscription-based model for those lacking the funds for the large initial investment. When contacted about such rumor, Microsoft responded with the generic PR response: “We do not comment on rumors or speculation.” But then closed their response with “We are always thinking about what is next for our platform, but we don't have anything further to share at this time.” With PlayStation 4 already announced and the negative publicity already surrounding the next Xbox mainly in part to its rumored ‘always online’ feature, if I were Microsoft, I would certainly prepare to blow the industry away and neglect all of the negativity currently focused on the unannounced console.
Speaking on next-generation hardware, information has released in regards to the secrecy of PlayStation 4’s 8 GBs of GDDR5 RAM. Despite several development kits shipped to the various third-party developers, developers are claiming that they were told the PlayStation 4 would only include 4 GBs of RAM, which aligns with the rumors of 4 GBs being the original plan for the PlayStation 4. Could the lack of information provided to third-party developers hold back the first couple years of releases? I wouldn’t believe in an extraneous matter, especially since every console cycle has its initial learning curve.
Wrapping up Nick’s Gaming View, Mark Cerny, the PlayStation 4’s lead architect, has spoken out on their decision to abandon backwards compatibility with the PlayStation 4. Using the words and phrases: “struggled”, “long and hard”, and “simplifying”, Mark expressed his belief that migrating to the X86 architecture will prove to be much more beneficial for development reasons despite the inability of PlayStation 4 being unable to play releases from its previous generations. While Sony is committed to the abilities of Gaikai and hope to achieve backwards compatibility through the cloud, I don’t expect to see an expansive library operating efficiently anytime around launch.
Well that concludes today’s episode of Nick’s Gaming View but be sure to follow me on Twitter @NickMcCandless and check back daily for Nick’s Gaming View for your daily access pass to all things gaming.
