RUMOUR: Wii 2, PS4, Xbox 720 release dates?

Davey Winder
Friday, 09 January 2009 16:57

Your IT - Entertainment

Uprated graphics, massive storage for digital games distribution and a pumping up of the Cell Processor count for true future gaming are all on the cards. One thing that is in doubt, however, is the Blu-Ray drive.

Unless hardware costs drop like a brick why on Earth would Sony continue to make a loss on every console sold when dumping the Blu-Ray would solve the profitability issue?

And it is that profitability issue which makes me think that 2010 will be the year of the PS4 as well.

Which just leaves us with the Xbox 720 to think about. If ever a console needed a complete upgrade, then the hardware hell that is the Xbox 360 is it.

Sure, the new Jasper versions hitting the shops should solve many of the overheating and red ring problems, but this being seen as just a stepping stone to the next machine.

Talking of which, while there has been little leaking out from Microsoft about what the 720 will look like or how it will be specced, some developers have been less careful. At the Games Convention Developers Conference in Leipzig, Germany last year one let slip the likely arrival date for the 720.

Cevat Yerli, CEO of FarCry and Crysis development house Crytek, gave a keynote which talked about the new CryEngine 3 system and stated that it will arrive at the same time as the 720. Which he said would be in 2011 or 2012.

Of course, if that is indeed the case, then it would put Microsoft behind Nintendo and Sony instead of beating them to the punch as with the 360. For me, that's a good thing. At least by taking more time Microsoft might actually release a console which works properly right out of the box this time around.