Welcome to another instalment in our weekly news digest where the team at PSU Towers picks our favourite slices of gaming gossip from the past seven days, before proceeding to offer our two cents on each story for good measure.
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MotorStorm dev says next-gen will be ‘a big leap’
Evolution Studios has chimed in on the subject of next-generation consoles this week, suggesting the likes of PS4 and Xbox 720 will offer a substantial leap over current machines. While it’s doubtful anyone was expecting anything less than a pure powerhouse from Sony next round, Evolution was keen to point out that PS3 still has a lot of leg room left in it, dropping the rather tantalizing tidbit that a number of as yet unannounced exclusive games are currently in development. And, while obviously excited over future platforms, it’s not ready to make the jump just yet. Of course, we’ve heard all this before from Sony themselves, with Jack Tretton only last week reaffirming the firm’s commitment to PS3 and PS Vita. As for Evolution’s mention of more exclusives, fingers crossed for an E3 reveal.
Crytek’s seminal sci-fi blaster Crysis 2 was an absolute powerhouse in terms of visuals, and while the core gameplay was criticised by some as being a tad formulaic, it sold by the bucket load. As such, a sequel seemed inevitable, and Crytek itself has openly expressed its desire to cobble together a third game, even going so far as to plan out where the story will go next. While nothing concrete has emerged as of yet, a job ad posted by EA has given us our strongest hint yet that Crysis 3 is in development. The ad specifically mentions knowledge of the CryEngine as being a valuable asset, setting off Internet murmurs that a threequel is in the pipeline. Of course, this is all conjecture at this point, but in all honesty, the notion of Crysis 3 arriving in the next couple of years isn’t really all that hard of a pill to swallow.
Nearly a third of U.K. PS3 owners ‘seriously considering’ getting a PS Vita
By the time you read this PlayStation Vita will have launched across the U.S. and Europe, and from the sound of things punters in the U.K. are pretty eager to get their mitts on the handheld. That’s at least according to a recent survey from Playr2, which polled 1321 PS3 owners on their interest in PS Vita, 32 per cent of who said they were planning on picking up the portable in the near future. Pleasingly, a massive 72 per cent admitted they were ‘excited’ for the handheld’s launch. Of course, quite how the broader gaming public feel about PS Vita is anyone’s guess, but with Sony pouring a heap of cash into its marketing efforts for the portable, we can only hope that its generated sufficient interest in not only hardcore gamers, but casual observes to boot. Monday morning should give us an idea of how well Vita software fared on launch week, so stick around for more coverage.
The Last Guardian gets help from western developers
The Last Guardian’s development has been an arduous affair to say the least, a fact perhaps best illustrated in the fact Sony has now roped in several western developers to help out with the Team ICO offering. Among the list of studios lending a hand to the ambitious project include God of War masterminds Sony Santa Monica, which is encouraging news considering their pedigree for delivering top-notch titles. However, while the game is apparently in playable form, it’s still not at the stage where Sony can flirt with possible release dates, so it remains to be seen when we’ll see the game. Could it slip into 2013? At this point, I think it’s definitely a possibility. If anything though, we can take comfort in the fact Team ICO doesn’t appear to be compromising the vision laid down all those years ago, so the final product should be well worth the wait.
Sony reveals why North America, Europe won’t get UMD Passport
Future PS Vita owners were understandably a little miffed upon discovering Sony had opted not to adopt its UMD Passport system for western regions. Fortunately, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida decided to shed a little light on the situation during a chinwag with Wired. At the end of the day, it sadly all boils down to the fact Sony doesn’t foresee much demand for the service in the U.S. and Europe. After all, PSP was and still is hugely successful in Japan, with plenty of games still in the pipeline; however in the west the aging portable didn’t quite take off in the same manner. This combined with the fact PSP games retail for more wallet-friendly prices in the U.S. means that it wouldn’t make much business sense to bring the Passport system overseas anyway. Fair enough, chaps.
Rumor: PS4 to be powered by AMD graphics chip
This is perhaps the most substantial PS4-related gossip to materialise in quite some time, hailing from a Forbes profile on AMD bigwig Rory Read. Apparently, the hardware giant is in the process of cobbling together a new chip for use in Sony’s as-yet unannounced console, seemingly replacing Nvidia’s efforts in PS3. Of course, AMD is no stranger to powering home consoles, with the Xbox 360 utilizing a custom GPU known as Xenos. That’s about all we have to go on right now, though it’s still tantalizing stuff. Techno wizards will no doubt have a lot to say about AMD’s involvement, though it’ll apparently be the cheaper option. Sony is definitely in some shape or form preparing for next-gen, but PSU still stands by our belief that we won’t see anything until mid-late 2013 in terms of an announcement. As Sony itself keeps reiterating, PS3 and PS Vita will be the main focus for the next year or so, and it simply doesn’t make business sense to distract from that by lifting the lid on PS4 in 2012. Apart from that, in this cash-strapped economic climate, people simply can’t afford to splash out on more hardware. Still, by the sounds of things, the new platform will be packing some particularly meaty innards. Colour us excited.
Jet Set Radio coming to PSN, XBL?
Sega’s Dreamcast classics output thus far has been so-so, with many of the beleaguered but brilliant console’s triple-A offerings conspicuously absent from the line-up. I mean, where’s Shenmue? Soul Calibur? House of the Dead 2? Skies of Arcadia? Fortunately, that all looks set to change if a recent teaser is anything to go by, with graffiti outing Jet Set Radio looking to make the jump to PSN and XBL. Nothing has been officially announced at the time of writing, but a video featuring game’s logo and the message ‘Guess Who’s Back?’ is more than enough to confirm the cult classic is on its way. We’ll have more as it breaks.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter unveiled
EA confirmed this week that the new Medal of Honor title will be subtitled Warfighter, and is scheduled for an October 2012 release. Of course, this comes on the back of numerous rumors on a follow-up, though technically, developer Danger Close outed the project as far back as January 2011. Regardless, most of us expected a formal announcement to drop at GDC next month, though for one reason or another EA decided to let the cat out of the bag early. No doubt we’ll receive plenty of details come early March, however. For now, all that’s known on the game is that Danger Close is working on it exclusively, with no involvement from DICE as far as the multiplayer component goes, and that it’ll utilize the Frostbite 2.0 engine. 2010’s Medal of Honor wasn’t quite the critical darling many expected, though it still sold five million units worldwide, so hopefully the fact a sequel has been green lit will give Danger Close plenty of opportunity to improve upon things second time around. Watch this space.
The Best of the Rest…
God of War PSP dev hiring for next-gen project
Buy a Mass Effect armor case for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Killzone 3 multiplayer to be released as a free download