It appears that Sony are aiming to release the successor of the PS3 (currently dubbed Orbis) out before Microsoft get their next console out, according to sources. The report, which says that the PS4 has been in design planning stage for about two years, says that Sony are confident “it will have the console at market ahead of the next generation Xbox next Christmas.”
If CVG and VG247 are to be believed, the PlayStation Vita won’t arrive on European store shelves until early 2012. Although the release date has yet to be confirmed by Sony, they are still aiming for a pre-Christmas launch in North America. It would be disappointing if the European release date is in 2011.
Recent rumors suggest that NGP won’t be the final name of Sony’s new portable console. A story by Games Pundit, claims that Sony’s NGP will actually be called ‘PS Vita’ – Vita is Latin/Italian for ‘life’. Naturally, Sony haven’t confirmed the news (lets wait until E3 for official confirmation), so for now, this is filed under the rumor category.
Multiple sources have confirmed that the PlayStation Phone release is imminent, though they failed to agree on an exact release date or time frame. The so-called “Playstation Phone” will be shown at next month’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, alongside a new portable game player, the report says.
If you are looking to get hold of a new PlayStation Handheld, you can expect the PlayStation Phone to be announced in February next year. Rumors suggest the phone will be announced in February, followed by a launch in April. In the meantime Sony has trademarked several names in relation to “mobile phones and accessories for mobile phones.”
Just like the God of War Collection, Team Ico is expected to bring out their own collection consisting of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. TheSixthAxis was told unofficially that the collection is on the way and is due in early 2011. Both titles will be available on Blu-ray disc for the PlayStation, presumably on the same disc and with optimised graphics.
If last year was anything to go by (when the PSPgo was announced), Sony could be prepping another big announcement for the PSP. According to MVC, a number of publishers are waiting for an announcement of the next iteration of the PSP before announcing their games line-up for the portable console.
Another recent rumor circulating the Internet suggests that PlayStation Home may be losing it’s current region-locked areas. Currently, users from a particular region (e.g. US) must be invite to visit another region (e.g. Japan) from a friend, it also means you can only socialize and play games players from the same region – the new change would mean everyone is in the same place.
A recent rumor going around suggests that Firmware 3.40 will be available to download soon. According to TheSixthAxis, the firmware was released to developers late last week, so it will take a few weeks of testing before a public release. Unfortunately, no details on the update are actually available, so we don’t know if anything new has been added.
