With E3 just around the corner, many are calling this year’s conference the war of the console releases.  But what exactly separates Sony’s next-gen hardware from Microsoft’s, and which is positioned to come out on top?  Here’s everything we know so far.

Most of the information we’ve received about the two new Next Gen consoles has been about their specs.  Here’s a basic breakdown of what’s under the hood for the two boxes:

Component	Xbox One	PlayStation 4
CPU	8-core Jaguar AMD	8-core Jaguar AMD
GPU Cores	768	1152
Peak Shader Throughput	1.23 TFLOPS	1.84 TFLOPS
System Memory	8GB 2133Mhz DDR3	8GB 5500Mhz GDDR5
Disc Drive	Blu Ray	Blu Ray

You’ll notice if you’re looking carefully that the PlayStation 4 actually has better processing power than the Xbox One.  This is no real surprise when you

    

    This is more of a personal topic of mine but I would like to express my feelings regarding to the current manuals that are be put into games. Although the topic of being more green is evident, I would prefer to get my moneys worth on a game. To some players this topic will be irrelevant to them as they don't care about the manuals but for other players like me, the game manuals are an important factor in a game. With the game, art cover and manual, more and more games are being published with great games, and art cover but with thinner more useless manuals. 

    I have always taken great pride buying games that include manuals as it helps me with my struggles in the beginning. So don't get confused with the strategy

While browsing around, I came across an article at VideoGamer.com. In the article, according to the chairman of UKIE, which stands for UK Interactive Entertainment, they believe that Sony and Nintendo should stop their efforts in making new handheld consoles and instead focus on putting their games on cellphones instead. Taking (At least Nintendo, since Sony does make Cellphones) out of the hardware game for handhelds and make them focus more on content only.

While I agree with them that cell phones are making their own ripple in the gaming industry, and more and more developers are making content exclusive to cellphones, including big names like SquareEnix, I myself still prefer a good ole’ handheld to playing something on a cellphone. That may be a bit biased since I am not big on c

 

For years now, the ESRB has operated on a human based analogue, where a bunch of guys gather in a room, look at a particular game, and give it an appropriate rating based on the content of that game. And it's worked fairly well, for the most part. Perhaps too well depending on which country's version you have to deal with.

Today, the ESRB has jumped into the digital age, employing the use of computer programming to help the Board sort through the increasing number of games released online (Xbox Live, PSN, etc.). This is being done by sending game companies a digital questionarre, which they are required to fill out according to what forms of adult oriented material the game has.

The questionarre has several different categories for marking, including those for sexual actions, violent

With the explosive growth of MMORPGs on the PC, people are probably asking themselves when MMORPGs will come to consoles. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening… ever. Sony gambled by releasing their famous “Everquest” title to the Playstation 2 and the end result was failure. The game simply didn’t attract enough attention from gamers.

The console MMORPG market is simply too small. Let’s look at the numbers for a minute. For this scenario we will only look at the United States. Let’s assume that a fictional game publisher, Altay Games, wants to make an MMORPG for the console market. Let’s also assume that this MMORPG will be published on all three of the ‘next gen’ consoles, Wii, Xbox360 and Playstation 3. If you all up all the ‘next gen’ console sales, you’ll end up with approximately 29 million units. There are over 200 million internet users in the US. Those numbers alone are discouraging enough for a game publisher to even consider trying to bring an MMORPG to the console, but let’s go a bit further. For a game publisher to release a game on any console, they have to pay the company that own

If you’re a gamer, most likely you don’t have a straight, out of the box desktop. You have modified your PC, be it with changing your tower, updating your graphics cards, or just adding ram. The world in which the average desktop tower is a beige colored, bulky piece of equipment has come to an end. As for consoles, the idea of a console has also changed drastically since the original Magnavox Odyssey, a bulky white and brown gaming console that matched your Eight-Track. Since then, consoles have moved forward, pushing to new heights that were never expected when they were first introduced.



Games began to make it’s move from arcades to in-homes with the introduction of the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. The breakthrough introduced Pong to home gamers, spawning several versions. In 1976, otherwise called the beginning of the 8-Bit era, the Atari took the lead of Second-Gen with Space Invaders, along with the exclusive rights to popular arcade games, even though the Colecovision had rights to Donkey Kong. Third-Gen consoles are probably considered the most popular with the introduction of the NES, the upgraded Atari, and the Sega Master System in the early 80‘s thro

I remember the first time I played console games with the Nintendo system. Those were Street Fighter and the famous Super Mario Bros. It me took countless hours of playing - until I finished the game and then play them all over again. Meanwhile, new Playstation and PS2 games have been published to grab a significant portion of the market share.

With the evolution of technology, game developers have crossed through another medium called the Internet and massively multiplayer PC games have been produced. Thus was born the MMORPG.

Which is better? You decide.

CONSOLE GAMES

A big advantage of console gaming over online games is that you don’t have to update the hardware to play. Console games are also compact, you can bring it whenever you want to. Another advantage of console games is you can feel at ease playing. Just sit back and relax while playing with your friends.

Now let’s look at the darker side, a somewhat negative aspect of consoles would be new developments and upgrades in software and hardware. This means you will have to buy their new product just to play. An example is Sony’s PS2 to PS3. Another setback: some game titles are offered in other consoles but not on the rival ones

Here, I will tell you perfect Xmas gifts to give to people you love and care about. They're especially thought about by me, for gamers specifically. Do not forget to read the ending, though.

1. Consoles - Who wouldn't love a brand new console? Who wouldn't love an Xbox 360, a PS3 or a Wii? That's right, everyone would love one of these new, and powerful consoles. If you're a gamer, you'd love those gifts a lot. You'd be thanking the ones who gave you those until you've reached death. Ok, that probably was a little exaggeration... But nevertheless, it's a great gift. Combine this with 2-3 games for the console, and that person will simply not get enough of it.
2. Games - Games? Of course! Get your loved ones some games for Christmas! Whether they're console games or PC games, it doesn't matter as long as you bring them a gift; but knowing what game they desire is more of a plus. Make sure they're ORIGINAL games though. And make sure they're properly covered as if they were just brought out of the factory where they were created. They won't love this as much as a new console; but it's surely a good present.
3. Computers - Computers are still a powerful gaming machine. The