It’s that time of week again when we take a fond look back at the top five news stories from the week.  Welcome to the Weekly Wrap-Up. Below you’ll find a brief summary of the stories, but for the full articles, click on the hyperlink. Feel free to let us know if you agree or disagree with our choices; if you have suggestions for future entries, feel free to email me at jeremy.tyler@bagogames.com.

Enjoy!

Number 5

EA Backtracks; Is Actually Developing For Wii U

You may remember that we recently posted a news story that looked at the story that Electronic Arts had confirmed that they had nothing in development for Nintendo’s next generation console, the Wii U. The story, we said, could be the ‘final nail in the coffin’ for the console which is struggling to shift even a modest amount of units around the world as it’s rivals, the PS4 and Xbox One, get forever closer.

However, in less than a week, EA have backtracked and said that they are actually developing games for the Wii U, almost ignoring the quote they gave previously.

Number 4

PlayStation 4 Hardware Reveal Set for June 10th

The PlayStation 4 hardware is set to be revealed on June 10th, during Sony’s E3 press conference, according to a teaser video released today.

The video, shown below, has a blurred out image of what appears to be the PlayStation 4 (it’s a black box!) and quickly cuts back and forth between the blurred out image and close-up shots of the system.

Sony’s E3 press conference is scheduled to start at 6:00 PT/9:00 ET.

Number 3

Xbox One Hard Drive Can Not Be Replaced By Users

It seems that many gamers have become irritated and even enraged by Microsoft’s new next generation console, the Xbox One, after a conference of talking about television shows, Skype and very little about actual games. The company also irritated gamers across the globe by saying that there will be a ‘fee’ for used games and even though they did not go into specifics about this scheme it was obvious to anyone that this wasn’t going to go down well.

So could things get any worse for Microsoft as we get closer to E3 and actually begin seeing some games on the new system? Well how about a non-removeable hard drive, which cannot be touched by users? Yup.

The Xbox One will come with a 500GB hard drive which will obviously fill up pretty quick as Microsoft plans to make you install each and every one of your titles to your new console allowing for fast access. Every cloud has a silver lining however and this one came from Microsoft senior director of product planning, Albert Penello, who spoke to Engadget and said that users can use external storage devices through the consoles USB 3.0 port to add extra memory if need be.

Number 2

There May Be a Fee to Play Secondhand Xbox One Games

The Xbox One may be changing the way people share games in the future, as it has been reported by Wired that secondhand titles may require a fee before being played.

On the Xbox One, games are installed from the game disc to the hard drive. Once completed, the disc is no longer needed, as the game can be loaded up and ran from the hard drive it has been installed to. This could lead to people installing the game and returning it/passing the disc off to a friend, but the next person that gets an already used game will be met with the option to pay a (hopefully small) fee before installing the game on their own system.

According to Wired: “Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.”

Number 1

New Xbox is Called Xbox One

At the Xbox Reveal today, Don Mattrick came onto stage and spoke about the next Xbox, stating that the system will be an ‘all in one’ entertainment box. He then went on to reveal the name of the system, as well as what is actually looks like.

The next Xbox is officially called the Xbox One.

Honorable Mentions

This week had a lot of big news and the news staff and I found it hard to narrow it down to the usual five stories:

• PS4 Headed for Europe This Year Says Tweet
• Xbox One is Not Backwards-Compatible With Xbox 360 Titles

If you missed out on the big news items this week, you can check out our weekly podcast and get an audio update of this week’s madness from our podcasting team. Listen to us as we talk about some things seriously and a few other things not so much. We guarantee this episode will make you shake your fist at times and nod your head at others.