What Comes Next for Sony and Microsoft Consoles: PS4 “Orbis” & Xbox “Lite”
Sony and Microsoft are working on their next console releases, and you may be surprised about some of the things we’ve learned. Sony’s project, that the company internally calls the Orbis, is more commonly known as the PlayStation 4, and it will feature tight, feature-rich inclusion with the PS Vita, says gaming blog Kotaku. We suspect Sony may use its traditional naming scheme, but the company may give it its own, original name. Microsoft’s project, the other hand, isn’t focused on next-gen hardware. Taking a bite from Apple and Nintendo, the company aims for a casual approach to gaming with a console some are calling the Xbox “Lite”.
First of all, Sony’s successor to the PlayStation 3 continues the more complex, detailed form of gaming that made the platform so damn successful. Expect dynamic hardware and all that jazz. What has us delighted about fresh developments is that the next PlayStation is called Orbis internally at Sony, which may be related to the term “orbis vita” or “the circle of life”. Does the PS Vita signal the end of life of the PlayStation name? Will Sony’s console take on a very different name?
We don't know, but we would not be confounded either way. There’s a good chance the name will not affect sales at about that point (you know, as long as Sony does not screw up its video-game empire).
Next up, the Xbox “Lite” is Microsoft’s secret plot to take over your lounge or bedroom (wherever you watch Television, basically). Priced and built to battle the Nintendo Wii U and the Apple TV at the very same time, this composite console/media-center set-top box will allow casual game players to enjoy Nintendo-like Kinect titles cheaply. Users may also purchase, lease or stream music, TV episodes, flicks and other media through Microsoft’s own stores and maybe third-party services like Netflix and Hulu Plus.
This is a bold move on Microsoft’s part, there is, however, obviously a consumer demand for an iTunes-like experience in the TV room. And Microsoft is watching Apple run away with the whole money pie as Sony messes up its advantage of owning music, film and game studios that produce great content that can be sold through digital-media stores. Even Apple doesn’t have that advantage.
Hopefully, for Sony’s sake, it can leverage its deep reach into industries that Apple and Microsoft don’t touch. But now that Apple’s the biggest company globally , it could buy motion picture, music and game studios, so that advantage may not last long.
Fausto Mendez is the editor of ReleaseDates.co, a free website and email-subscription service that updates its readers only about the devices, video games and brands they want.