Welcome to this week’s Beyond Co-Op, where we look at interesting news around the gaming and entertainment industry that may not directly pertain to cooperative gaming culture. This week we have a major event booking, developer opinion of the gaming industry, and a great iOS game that went on sale.
***
Microsoft Books Xbox Event
This past week’s big news of Sony PlayStation 4's unveiling obviously has the gaming industry and community abuzz. Microsoft, in turn, has immediately begun planning its own event to keep up with Sony. The event planner, Eventcore, who helped put together Microsoft’s E3 media show last year, has registered the URL XboxEvent.com the day after Sony's event transpired.
We agree with many other news sites that this upcoming event from Microsoft will most likely reveal the next generation Xbox console to the public, rumored to be the "Xbox 720". CVG has stated that other game industry people, as well as a Sony official, said that the event may take place sometime in April, but only time will tell. Either way, this is going to be one hell of a year for everyone involved in the video game industry.
Source: Destructoid
Ubisoft Wants PS4 and Next Xbox to Have a Short Lifespan
Ubisoft has never been a company to like consoles lasting more than a few years, and this opinion remains true for the upcoming generation as well. Ubisoft recently went on record to express their feelings towards the next generation console’s lifespans, hoping for their decline sooner rather than the PS3's and Xbox 360's have been. CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, spoke about this in an interview with MCV:
No, we don't want to wait seven years for the next one. We will have cloud gaming that will improve over time, for sure. And we certainly have enough novelties for a few years. The consoles have taken a long time, we've been saying it for a long time. It's really once those consoles come that we can let creative people more risk, and they feel they can take more risk because new consoles can be more open. They have so many features that they can play with. It's easier to be a creative person with new consoles, because after four years of people using all the capacity, it's harder to be innovative. With PS4, we will see new ideas and new ways to approach gamers. And that will excite consumers and excite creators.
People may not agree with this on many levels, but I believe this current generation of games consoles won’t be remembered as the ones that have taken risks or promote massive innovation from one to the other. Time has shown that consoles are slowly beginning to decline compared to their PC counterparts in almost every aspect of the industry, and companies will probably stick to what’s familiar than not. This new generation of game consoles probably won’t bring back their past glory, that is, until the industry begins to change the way it does business overall.
Source: MCV
Plants vs Zombies Goes Free on iOS
One of the greatest iOS games available, Plants vs Zombies, will be absolutely free for the rest of next week. Whether you own an iPhone or iPad, this full-featured app will be up for grabs to anyone looking to kill some time and undead. Already have it on your phone? Get it for your tablet free, and vise-versa! If you don’t own either, there’s always the XBLA or Steam versions still available for purchase, and are quite good!
PvZ has been one the best-selling game apps on the Apple Store ever, on par with even the ridiculously popular Angry Birds series or Fruit Ninja. Developer, PopCap, is already in the middle of making the sequel and should be releasing it sometime in spring of this year.
Source: PopCap Games