But the PS3 and its hardcore gaming attitude wasn’t prepared for the family gaming revolution. Its high price led more parents to buy their favourite sprog a Nintendo Wii, and many traditional gamers were enticed by the ever-improving Xbox lineup.

The PS3 lost billions of yen for Sony, and it was only after going to the gym to slim down and offer a lower price tag that its fortunes took a turn.

We think Sony has been given enough of a boot up the rear to make the PS4 a real showstopper, and now we hear several internal Sony studios have begun developing games for the next-gen machine.

So how long until Sony unleashes its new console upon the world, and what will be able to do?

Graphics

Call us shallow, but if there’s one big priority on any gamer’s mind it’s the graphics. The PS3 is capable of outstanding visuals — witness this year’s big hits Uncharted 3 and Modern Warfare 3 — but some developers are starting to feel the digital squeeze.

Graphics company AMD claims the next generation of consoles will allow for visuals as lush as those in Avatar. If that seems hard to believe, watch this tech demo by developer Epic for a sign of things to come:

If you think that looks swish, you’ll wet your kecks when you see what Final Fantasy maker Square Enix has been working on. It’s been grinding away at something called the Luminous Engine, which promises photo realistic gaming for the first time.

Try guessing which of the following images are real or computer generated:

Pretty close, eh? The top one is the original photo, and the bottom one is pure digital wizardry. The trick is to simulate the way surfaces reflect every grain of light, and it looks marvellous. Gamers could finally play in a virtual world that looks better than real life.

Of course, the PS4 will need some serious processing testosterone to offer those photo-quality graphics, as well as 3D. Sony will achieve this by simply expanding the PS3′s 8-core Cell processor to as many as 32 cores, Kotaku reckons, rather than spending oodles of boodle inventing another new chip from scratch.

But there’s more to a game than fancy graphics, and a beefed-up processor will allow for realism in other ways too. One notable area is in artificial intelligence, where the wits of enemies will be vastly improved. Imagine those non-playable characters in Grand Theft Auto having a mind of their own, each reacting independently rather than running from your grenade launcher all at once like a herd of sheep than a panicked mob.

Launch date

The PS3 was unleashed on the world in 2006, and Sony has long boasted of its 10-year lifecycle for the console. Of course, that doesn’t mean a new iteration won’t arrive sooner. After all, the PS2 was born in 2000 and it was still selling millions in 2010.

When should we expect a new machine capable of those tantalising photo-realistic graphics? Power geeks know that high-end PCs are already capable of that kind of processing, but you’d need a wallet made of gold to make it a casual purchase.

A top-spec PC weighs in at almost £1,500 these days, according to the Tech Report buyers’ guide. Chips and bits tend to cost half as much each passing year, thanks to trusty ol’ Moore’s Law — so you’ve got a fairly plausible £375 price tag for a comparable machine by 2013.

Sneaky sources at Taiwanese manufacturers think it will arrive even sooner, going as far as saying the PS4 is already in production for a 2012 release.

Take these 2012 claims with a pinch of salt, because industry observers think it sounds like bobbins. The handheld PS Vita is coming out early next year, and Sony staff will need a breather before unloading the future of living room entertainment upon the world.

Having said that, tech leaks do tend to come from the factories that make them. It could be that some kind of upgrade to the PS3 is in production to compete with Nintendo’s Wii U, and to get a foot in the door ahead of a new Xbox. Whether another updated PS3 would offer a boost in graphics ability or just a slimmer case is anyone’s guess.

“I think we’ll see a game of chicken between Sony and Microsoft,” industry analyst Billy Pidgeon from M2 Research told Kotaku. “Sony definitely isn’t launching a successor before 2014 and could stand to benefit by having Microsoft launch first.”

He’s quite right. If Sony waits an extra year, it could offer a better console for a more competitive price — something it completely fluffed last time around. But this game of cat and mouse goes both ways, and the stand-off between the two companies could be the factor that leaves us high and dry for a few more years.

What about the supposed PS4 ad which did the rounds just before the E3 gaming event last June?

Sadly, a Sony PR rep quickly made a statement to Game Informer to say it was a fake. So who made the well-polished trailer? 24-year-old Han West cast his classmates in the starring roles and built the set for less than $500. We wish it were real, but bravo nonetheless.

Controller

Sony researchers have been dancing their glasses off trying to improve on Microsoft’s hands-free Kinect interface.

Sony has published a patent (right) describing plans for a floor sensor and controller loaded with gyroscopic sensors, a mic for voice control, and even an ultrasonic sensor to track your distance from the TV and other players. Expect the family-friendly fun of the Kinect, but with the accuracy of a joypad.

Disc-free?

It’s hard to believe the PS4 will ship with a hard drive big enough to replace a full collection of 50GB Blu-ray games, but smart phones have proven that digital-only stores are more convenient and cheaper — a tasty business model.

Blitz Games CEO Philip Oliver agrees, telling Eurogamer that Sony and Microsoft would be crazy to stick with physical media for the next generation of consoles.

Removing the disc drive would certainly make the console much cheaper, and when you consider that the lifespan for the PS4 will run into the 2020s it seems a future-proof option. Cloud storage will be the norm, so you could save your library of older games online. Sony has invested vast sums in the Blu-ray format, however, so we can’t see the next PlayStation without a Blu-ray drive. Besides, we’d miss breathing on a grubby CD and rubbing it on our t-shirt.

Summary

Early tech demos promise an exciting future for gaming, and we’re giddy at the prospect of Avatar-quality graphics. Throw a 3D telly and motion controls into the mix, and you’ve got a pretty good reason to give up on society and stay at home. With full digital downloads you won’t even have to go out to buy games and movies — bliss.

There are rumours that Sony will release an improved PS3 in 2012, but it seems too early for a bona-fide PS4 to be affordable. If it can wait out the Xbox 720 and release a competitor with a better balance of price and ability, it could reclaim the console crown over the long term. Just don’t expect it to be the cheapest toy in the shop.

Slim PS3 is updated frequently each day with the latest Free PlayStation 3 news.

Its the year of our Lord,1995. Once again invitations to the King of Fighters tournament have found their way to the worlds most powerful fighters.

And their author is none other than the mysterious R! Could the R be that of Rugal, who supposedly blew himself up on his aircraft carrier one year ago? Slim-PS3 is updated frequently per day with the latest Free PlayStation 3 news and reviews.

Yesterday, we talked to Bafta video game committee members Ray Maguire, head of Sony Computer Entertainment UK, and Ian Livingstone, life president of Square Enix, about the state of the games business, the polarisation of the industry and the lack of media attention for interactive entertainment.

Today, a day before the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards, we look at innovation, education and the fragile future of the sector… Where are the interesting things happening in the games industry at the moment? What are the emerging trends? Ian Livingstone: From a purely industry point of view, rather than my personal position, all the excitement seems to be happening in the online space. With the wide penetration of broadband, there’s never been a better time for content creators to reach a large audience. There’s been a major growth in the number of small development teams and with that comes huge creativity, because they don’t have to go through a process – via publishers, via retailers, via people who don’t know as much about games as they do – to get to the public. They can serve the content they want to create, to consumers who are interested. The fact that Minecraft won a lot of rewards at GDC shows what one person can do – it’s a very innovative title and he sold a million copies at ten dollars a piece. Through traditional channels, that wouldn’t have happened. We’re going to see a lot more of that. Even if these people only sell one copy, they have the pride and desire to carry on. There’s never been a better time for creativity to flourish.

RM: At the other end of that spectrum for me, it’s what happens with 3D. We’re seeing 3D as a staple part of the cinema experience now and that will transfer into the home – as it’s already started to do. It’s estimated that by 2014, 40% of homes in the UK will have a 3D-capable device, whether that’s a laptop, a TV or something else. Soon, when people begin to replace their flatscreen televisions, they will probably buy one that just happens to have 3D capabilities built in. That opens up an environment for content providers to invest more money into 3D material. Sony has a lot more games coming in 3D this year, and it does enrich the experience. It’ll be a reasonably long haul to get there, but I think it could become the norm.

Will Sony be looking to encourage indie developers to explore technologies like 3D and Move?RM: There are two ways we interface with people who want to develop. One is through the licensed partnership agreement – via this, we have support systems to impart knowledge and ensure third-parties can create the best content possible. The other side is more of a homebrew-type situation with the PlayStation Minis programme. These are very low budget products by design. It’s an area I’m sure we’re going to develop and make it easier for people to take part. One area that really interests us is tied in with Ian’s report – we need to get people creating something of value, especially at university, and we should give them the ability to publish what they’re doing. That’s something we’re looking into at the moment.

But the process can start with standard retail games that include creation elements. We’re looking at LittleBigPlanet 2 at the moment and how we can use that to encourage creativity. It’s basically an editor, you put levels together, write a story… When you look at the creativity coming out of a million consumers, it’s unbelievable – the stuff they’re coming up with is outrageous. It shows that if you give gamers something that’s easy enough to deal with, you’ll get creativity in abundance.

The area we also need to look at is much deeper, hard coding. We have 5000 secondary schools in the UK, if we put computer clubs into all of those, and we had just one child from each school going to university to study games development, then say we only had one out of every ten of those joining the industry, we’d have 500 people joining the workforce every single year. That would be a great achievement. We also need script writers, fantastic fine artists – we’re reliant on all the other arts to be part of the overall production. But maths, physics and coding are fundamental – games can’t exist without them.

Bafta can help us here. It is a charity and education is a huge part of it. It’s important to reach people through the events we put on throughout the year, and we’re looking to put on more. We also video as many as we can – you can see some great footage on the Bafta website. Bafta is a massive brand, it’s got creativity written through its DNA, it also has access to wonderful people who can bring this stuff to life for kids. There’s a great way we can all interact here – it needs some thinking about, it needs some sorting out, but it will develop over time.

The games being nominated for Bafta awards this year are very much core titles – Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty Halo, etc. In five years time, would you like to see a more diverse range of experiences being put forward for consideration?RM: This is very much a question of push and pull in terms of products and customer demand. Heavy Rain has been successful for us, yet when you look at CoD it’s dwarfed in terms of numbers. Consumers are asking for many different genres, and we will supply according to that demand. We’re looking for a point of difference as well, and the creativity of developers will ensure we’re still pushing in to new areas. But that will be down to consumers – if it’s engaging and appealing, then they’ll buy our product, if not, they’ll reject it and we won’t make any more. I think genres will remain pretty similar but there is potential to tell more and better stories. There is more dialogue, more plot development… we try new genres, some stick, some don’t, that’s just the way of the industry.

And as a console manufacturer, how does the constant evolution of technology affect your business? How will you build PlayStation 4 to allow for the creation of new game types?RM: It’s the same conversation as it was for PlayStation 1, 2 and 3. With the amount of money required nowadays to develop and launch a new platform, you have to have a long lifecycle. With PS1, launched in 1995, we ended up with a seven year active lifecycle and a 10 year overall lifecycle. When we set out to invent a new platform, often it’s something we can’t actually make yet, because technology hasn’t got us into a position where we can make silicon that thin, or where we can manage that amount of heat or power.

PlayStation 3 was the classic example – nobody else could create it for us so we had to build a fabrication plant to make it ourselves. And then there’s a learning curve of how to use the technology to get the most out of it – so classically at the launch you’ll get one or two brilliant games then a lot that struggle to use the power because it’s complicated. Right now, we’re seeing a lot of the power of PS3 being used so the games are looking great, and that’s good for third-party publishers as they start to make good money on the big winners.

Where we go after this is an interesting one. The online side is very interesting and is a big part of our business going forward. But in terms of what sort of technology we’ll be using, it’s far too early to say yet because we’re only half way through the lifecycle of PS3 – there are many years to come on that machine.

Is Britain under threat as a game development nation?IL: I hope not, but there are a lot of urgent issues that have to be addressed to boost the industry. Historically, we are brilliant at creating games – after Sir Clive Sinclair put affordable computing into our hands we had Elite, GTA, Tomb Raider… We got off to a great start, but we didn’t invest in that. It’s a typically British story – we come out of the blocks flying, but then everyone else wakes up to what we’re good at an overtakes us. Foreign publishers see more value in the IP we create in the UK than we do ourselves. So many of our studios are foreign-owned now, and a lot of talent has gone abroad to work in Silicon Valley and Montreal. I would hope that in the indie space there’s an opportunity for the rebirth of UK brilliance.

Do you, as a publisher, have a responsibility toward supporting UK development?IL: I don’t think anyone has a responsibility – even though I’d like to personally. You have to go where the skills are high and the costs are low. As an industry, we’ve lobbied hard for tax credits and have been ignored by the government. So you have to compete with Montreal, which offers 37.5% production tax credits. That’s hard cash in your hands, matched with a very skilled labour force. They’re able to effect a brain drain from the UK because they’re offering very good salaries, a great quality of life and great opportunities.

They’ve achieved in ten years what it took the UK 25 years to achieve, because the Canadian government invested in the industry. They spent half a billion Canadian dollars attracting the likes of Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Eidos to set up shop there – but that in turn has let to $1.5bn of inward investment. They’ve created this fantastic ecosystem for video game development, which we have not done in the UK. You need access to production tax credits to create a level playing field and a skilled workforce, and if the UK can’t match Canada it’s no surprise that publishers will place their development studios elsewhere, which is a tragedy given our heritage.

How about at Sony? Are your development studios in the UK still important?RM: Clearly we’re very proud of the products that are coming out of studios in the UK. We face exactly the same issues – we have to look at staffing costs, the projects, the funding. But we have a responsibility to make sure we’re pushing the boundaries, and we need people who are at the top of their game in terms of R&D. At the moment, Britain is a good place to find them. What would happen if we could no longer find that talent in the UK? I don’t know…

You can watch the Bafta video game awards online via the Bafta site.

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Not only will one of the most incredible games ever made be available cheap, but you also get a treasure trove of DLC included on the “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Game of the Year Edition” disk.
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Thanks to its real-time physics engine and many other improvements, NHL 11 won Game Informer’s “Best Sports Game” award at this year’s E3.  For more info on what to expect from NHL 11, visit their site, and be sure to check out the demo on August 17th.

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Also interesting to note is that the year before this past year, the PlayStation 3 had been outsold by 1.5  million units. As illustrated by the numbers, the year-to-year sales gaps are now closing and if the trend continues, the PS3 could very well overtake Xbox 360 sales in 2011. Will this happen? With the PlayStation Move and Gran Turismo 5 looking to be the biggest system-sellers of the year, it is indeed a possibility. Tell us your take in the comments below.

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