Opinion – New Consoles At E3?

E3 is the gaming worlds biggest event.  It's an opportunity for the all players in the industry to showcase either their new games or in the case of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, its a chance to show off their plans for the year ahead, make massive announcements, like Microsoft's announcement at last years event that it would be bringing backwards compatibility to the Xbox One.  It also gives a chance for the major 3 to showcase new hardware to the world's media and the world in general.  This year's E3 looks like it could be the most important one in recent history with all 3 companies rumoured to be busy with new machines.  Sony has it's PlayStation NEO, an upgraded PS4 that allows for maybe 4K gaming, Nintendo has the NX, which is supposed to be as powerful as the PS4 or the Xbox One depending on where you are reading about it, the NX is set the replace the Wii U which has being a bit of a disaster for Nintendo and last we have Microsoft, who have officially nothing to announce but the rumour mill has being in full swing over the last few weeks that they are set to unveil a new machine that will blow the PlayStation NEO out of the water.

We are going to start though with Nintendo and the news that the NX will more than likely not be showing up at this year's E3 at all.  Like all the rumoured consoles that may or may not be announced at this year's event, very little is actually known about Nintendo's new baby.  We could see it launched by the end of this year or in the first quarter of next year, but one thing is clear here, the Wii U is dying a horrible death, it's going to prove to be the worst machine that Nintendo has ever built and they know that they need to release a replacement pretty quickly.  Nintendo has a habit of trying to do things a little different from it's competition.  The Wii used motion controls to stand out from the crowd and proved to be a massive success for Nintendo.  The Wii U had a tablet like controller, it is big and bulky and is let down by a machine that was badly underpowered and abandoned by developers left right and centre as they focused instead on the more powerful PS4 and Xbox One machines. 

With the NX, Nintendo might well try again to stand out and be different, the supposed specs are again not that impressive, it's as powerful as hopefully the PS4 at least but Sony released the PS4 two and a half years ago, Nintendo in my opinion has a chance to make the the world's first 4K gaming console to make it stand out but instead it looks like we might see a new gimmick to try sell units.  The rumour is that the NX is a console-portable hybrid, that you can disconnect it from the TV and take it on your travels with you.  Nothing new in that but if it's a portable machine that's as powerful as the PS4 then maybe Nintendo might have a chance of  success.  Time will tell but we might have to wait till later this year to find out.

Next up is Sony and its PlayStation Neo. The Internet is 100% sure that this thing is in development by Sony and that we might well see it at this year's E3.  Now why Sony would release a new machine so soon after the PS4 is mind boggling, the reason for this is because of the run away success of the PS4, 40 million units sold in two and a half years is staggering and it has left all it's competition face down in the dirt.  Remember also that the PS4 is already more powerful than its nearest competitor the Xbox One, so why bother at all?  Well lets take a closer look.  

The games industry is about to go through a little change, it looks like after many many many failed attempts and false dawns that VR is about to finally take off and offer up a brand new way to experience the games we love and give us gamers new ways to play in the future.  Sony is keen to get in on the VR action and is set to release it's PlayStation VR in October of this year.  Now I'm in no way an expert in hardware specs and what makes a console tick on the inside, but the reason why we might see an upgraded PS4 in the near future is that when the you compare what the PlayStation VR is going to churn out in terms of frame rates and resolution against what the capabilities of the PS4 actually are, the numbers don't really add up, that the current spec PS4 is not up to the task of delivering what Sony is promising what their VR headset can do.  It is believed that the PlayStation NEO will address this shortfall in pure horsepower to run the the PlayStation VR to the it's maximum potential as well as deliver games in 4K on your TV set at home.  With the rumoured release to be later this year too, there well might be some truth to this.  Hopefully all will be revealed at E3 and that we might actually get to see this new spec PS4 in action.

Last up here we'll take a look at Microsoft and what they may or may not announce at E3.  Now listen up folks, everything that I'm about to tell you next must be taking with large grains of salt, this is utter speculation and in some cases utter silly to be honest.  Phil Spencer, who is head of Microsoft's Xbox division recently talked about how he wasn't interested in doing an Xbox One.5, that he'd be more interested in taking a massive step forward, while still keeping the ability to play older games on any new machine that might be released, much like how gaming on a PC works,  at the time I did article about it which you can check out HERE if you like. 

As I've mentioned earlier as regards to the upcoming change in the industry with the launch of VR and how Sony might be releasing a new spec machine to cope with the horsepower required to deliver games in VR, Microsoft have no plans to release it's own VR system but it is very closely partnered with Oculus, every single Oculus that is sold will be done so with an Xbox One controller and you can also stream your Xbox One games to the Rift and play them in it's virtual theatre mode.  Now this partnership is all well and good but it still leaves Microsoft without a VR system of it's own.  No matter how close Oculus and Microsoft are, the terrible truth of the matter is that the Xbox One is in no way powerful enough to actually run the Oculus Rift.  The Rift requires a pretty decent PC to get the most out of it, it completely outstrips the PlayStation VR in terms of field of vision and in resolution and if the current spec PS4 will struggle to power the PlayStation VR then the poor Xbox One has no chance in hell of powering the Rift.

So what's the solution for Microsoft here?  Well folks, this is where things get interesting and just a little silly.  The rumours that have being do the rounds over the last few weeks is that Microsoft is going to launch a new machine that will be 5 times more powerful than the PlayStation NEO.  A machine that is capable of 10 TFLOPS, that's 10 trillion instructions per second people, display games in 4K and run them at 60FPS.  This is utter rubbish in my opinion, For comparison, Nvidia’s GTX 980 Ti can only go up 5 TFLOPS and the Titan X can go up to 7 TFLOPS, the cost of the Titan X is around $1000 and it falls 3 TFLOPS short of the supposed specs so I've no bloody idea at all how Microsoft are going to put this monster together and when it is together how much the thing will cost.  Considering that the Rift is $200 more expensive than the PlayStation VR, and it seems that Microsoft expects you to re-mortgage your house to be able to afford it's new console, who the hell could afford the two together.  I really think this is a pile of crap to be honest.  If we do see a new console announced at E3 by Microsoft, I'm pretty sure it will be no where near the spec you see here.

So there you have it people, all 3 companies may have new hardware to announce at E3 and they all have their own reasons for doing so.  E3 kicks of on the 14th of June and with a bit of luck we may just catch a glimpse of the future at this year's event.  Only a few short weeks to wait.

Image Taken From – wccftech.com