Computer and Video Games magazine (C&VG) reports that Microsoft’s response to the Sony PlayStation 4 will be seen during April. Hopefully that means we will see a bit more of it than just the controller… A one-off media event penciled in by Microsoft for early April is expected to showcase the NextBox.
C&VG’s source for this story was, rather oddly, a “senior Sony official”, who was asked not to be named. The Sony official was telling the magazine that the PS4 unveiling in New York had caught Microsoft off-guard, “We definitely ruffled some feathers” the official boasted. Now Sony wants to spoil Microsoft’s surprise, that’s not so nice.
The NextBox 720 may also be powered by an AMD APU
Also today Bit-Tech has a report quoting AMD's vice president of global communications and marketing, John Taylor. The tech news site reads between the lines of Taylors quote saying that “the PS4 is the first announced design win based on semi-custom AMD APUs” to mean that there’s another design win to be announced. Does he allude to the next Xbox? Furthermore Taylor added “This is going to be a very exciting year for gamers, especially for those with AMD hardware in their PCs and consoles, as we have even more game-changing (pun intended) announcements still to come.” Unless Nintendo are releasing another console this year (nope) this again points to Microsoft’s new console.
If AMD can be the power behind both of these upcoming new consoles that would be a great boost for the company, it could hope to manufacture and sell millions of APUs to the console makers for years to come. It doesn’t have to worry so much about which platform gets the most success, only that the under-TV console is still relevant by Christmas next year and continues to hold the interest of gamers.
However the big three console companies’ adoption of AMD APUs can only be good for AMD. BitTech points out that cross-platform “games developers will be likely to optimise for AMD first and Intel and Nvidia a distant second”. That could have a positive impact on PC component sales and laptop design wins.
