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. This week we look at the Xbox Live Gold Family Packs, the cost of the Xbox One controller and LBP rumors and more. 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
Microsoft Splitting Up Xbox Live Gold Family Packs
The Xbox Live Gold Family Pack will soon be making some big changes to the way it operates as each member of the family will have their account changed to individual Gold subscriptions.
Keep in mind however that due to the parental controls families can still prevent access to certain features of Xbox Live if they want to make their children’s accounts safer such as preventing purchases from Xbox Live.
These changes will be made from August 27th.
Number 4
Sony Says PS4 Losses to Be Far Lower Than PS3
Since Sony lost over $3.5 billion on the PS3 in its first couple of years there have been a couple of investors who are a little worried that phase may replay itself with the PS4. However, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House addressed the situation while on an investment call.
“We will not generate anything like the losses we did for the PS3,” said House.
Masaru Kato, Sony CFO, also weighed in on the concern and specifically touched on the fact that since the PS4 is built upon the architecture of a PC, the amount invested in it is much less than the PS3. Since the currency rate will be changing in March 2014 by about 10% Sony’s game division is expecting a loss. The rate would go from 96.6 yen to $1 today and then on to 106 yen to $1 in March. Since parts for the PS4 is paid in a dollar amount this will sufficiently cause a loss.
Number 3
Xbox One Controller Was a Million Dollar Project
When Zulfi Alam, the Xbox Accessories department manager went to his bosses and told them that he wanted to redesign the current Xbox DualShock 3 controller, they weren’t too thrilled. In fact, they didn’t really see the need to change something that was perfect and that most Xbox owners and players loved. What resulted was a million dollar project trying to nail down the final new Xbox controller.
Alam went to the players and interviewed hundreds of them to really see what improvements they would like to see in the next controller. Then, the advancements were added to the 360 controllers and were tested to see how well things worked for the players. Alam said that during the process they were actually writing levels of games to test those advancements. Also during this time he said that testers weren’t even aware that they were holding the beginning prototype of what could be the next Xbox controller.
“The final Xbox One controller may not look different on the outside, but inside its remarkably different,” said Alam.
The core of the million spent was on the design of hundreds of pad prototypes, thousands of hours in testing, and a creating some new tooling and construction facilities. Total time spent on the project was about two-and-half-years. Alam said that many on his team felt like they would be fired after working so hard and for so long on what may have ended up being an under developed controller. As far as being underdeveloped, the main executives at Microsoft weren’t angry and everything came out okay.
Number 2
12GB Flash-Based PS3 Coming To North America?
Sony’s 12GB Flash-Based PS3 may have just been outed as retailers have let advertisements leak in both Canada and the United States.
Engadget spotted that Canada’s Future Shop had already began to sell the currently European and Hong Kong exclusive variation of the console last fall but it seems that the console may be making its way to North America and Canada just before the PS4 is released to next-gen hungry gamers.
The 12GB PS3 listing online has since been pulled but was being sold for $200 whilst a “do not sell until” sticker suggested that it will be made available August 18th.
Number 1
Sony Prepping “Exciting Announcement” For LBP
Sony has confirmed through it’s official Twitter account that it will be making an “exciting announcement” in regards to the LBP (Little Big Planet) series tomorrow.
The tweet reads:
“There’s no weekly LBP Update today but stay tuned to the @PlayStation Blog because we have an exciting announcement coming tomorrow instead!”
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:
- Next Xbox 360 Update Implementing Local Currency
- Microsoft Confirms Next Free Xbox Game With Gold Games
- GameStop Snags Exclusive-Retailer Rights To Sell Skylanders Swap Force Dark Edition
- Microsoft Reveal Xbox One Season Pass Guarantee Program
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.