Rumor: Sony readying PS4/PS Vita bundle, Hitman: Absolution hits PlayStation Plus

There is an interesting rumor doing the rounds today that revolve around a supposed PS4 bundle that comes with a PS Vita for $500. If true, this could be the best deal seen to date on both units.
The PS4 costs $400, and the PS Vita is priced at $250. If Sony were to bundle the two together, there would be a savings of $150, dropping the price of the Vita to $100.
According to Inside Gaming Daily, a “well placed anonymous source” has revealed that the P4 and PS Bundle exist. The source also revealed that the bundle will costs $500, which is the same price as the Xbox One. While Sony has not revealed any price drop plans publically, the company has emphasized plans to make PS Vita support mandatory on all PS4 games. Every PS4 game can be remotely played via the PS Vita from any location.
Could Sony be gearing up for a major price drop or bundle deal at gamescom? It does seem farfetched that Sony would introduce a new bundle after pushing the existing pre-order bundles aggressively. However, with dwindling sales of the PS Vita it does seem like the right time to drop the price on the unit.
In other news, Sony has just revealed its new PlayStation Plus lineup of free games for this month. One of the free games revealed is Hitman: Absolution, which is actually a fairly recent game. Other free games include Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower, Runner 2, Star Wars Pinball and Machinarium. Select games will also receive deep discounts for PS+ members. For those that may have missed out on the fantastic Rayman Origins game that released not that long ago, can now be picked up for $5 with PS+ down from $20. Vita owners can pickup the handheld version for $6.75.

Check out the PS blog for the full list.
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Low-cost “iPhone M” expected to outsell iPhone 5S next year

An UBS analyst said in a note to investors that the upcoming low-cost iPhone will outsell the new flagship iOS smartphone next-year, although it may not be as profitable for the company as its more expensive brother. Interestingly, the device is expected to launch this quarter.
Analyzing Apple’s future, Steve Milunovich looked at the company’s various mobile products including the iPhone, iPad and iPod, reiterating a “Buy” ratting for Apple stock with a price target of $500.
However, Milunovich cut estimates for next year, saying that the iPad and “iPhone M” may have a negative effect on Apple’s profits. Milunovich expects for Apple’s fiscal year 2014 a $179.9 billion and $42.29 per share net profit, and a gross margin of 36.6%, down from $185.1 billion and $43.36 per share.
Milunovich refers to the low-cost iPhone as the “iPhone M” – various reports seem to believe that the phone will be sold as the iPhone 5C – while the high-end seventh-generation iPhone is called iPhone 5S.
According to the analyst, the iPhone M will have tremendous success with the public, selling anywhere from 92-99 million units in Apple’s fiscal year 2014 – Apple’s new fiscal years start in October of each year.
iPhone M will account for 53% of sales next year, and they’ll make up for 3% of iPhone sales this year – thus, the analyst is also suggesting the new low-cost iPhone may be arriving before the September quarter ends, which is Apple’s fourth quarter in fiscal year 2013.
However, the analyst notes that these are just estimates for the handset, and it’s not yet clear how it will impact Apple’s business. Milunovich expected the iPhone M to cost $379, but to only offer Apple a gross margin of around 32% compared to the 55% gross margin of the iPhone 4/4S, which the iPhone M would replace:
“Because the M has such a lower gross margin than the 4/4S, the M reduces earnings in our model. iPhone gross profit declines by 4% or $1.6bn with the iPhone 5/5S profit up $4.9bn and the 4/4S/M profit down $6.5bn. The net iPhone impact is a reduction to F14E EPS of $1.16.”
He further explains that at 92 million iPhone M units sold, Apple’s profit would be diminished, while at 99 million “the gross profit impact would be neutral.”
Milunovich’s report also looks at iPad and iPod sales, with the analyst concluding that growth is slowing for both devices when compared to the iPhone.
The analyst says that the iPad growth will be lower than of the iPhone, explaining that, surprisingly, the whole tablet market is growing slower than expected. Even so, Apple is expected to sell 84 million iPad units next year, and 74 million this year – the Street expects the company to sell 87 million tablets next year.
However, the launch of new iPad models may affect the growth of the tablet:
“With two new tablets anticipated over the next few quarters, perhaps the iPad is in a lull and will jump to a higher unit plateau as seasonality proves more important than saturation. Our view is that the iPad is being accepted faster but likely will not be as important as the iPhone over time. This story could play out in other new categories Apple proposes—a fairly fast benefit with rapid acceptance but a shorter half-life of earnings impact.”
Milunovich sees Samsung and Lenovo as the main tablet rivals for Apple next year.
Overall, the analyst says that the tablet market will increase to 235 million (2014), 301 million (2014) and $367 million (2015).
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LG G2 manual leaks

The LG G2 smartphone is already on the way. French tech blog Nowhereelse.fr is the one who supplied the slides of the alleged LG G2 manual, where it will use the nano-SIM standard that is similar to the Motorola Moto X and the iPhone 5. Other than that, there is also confirmation of a 2,610mAh battery underneath the hood, which can be removed. Apart from that, there is also a microSD memory card slot for expansion purposes, and a button at the back that is located between the volume buttons which happens to be a power/lock key. Learn more about Lg G2 on August 7, 2013.

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Samsung beats Apple in satisfaction stakes

Samsung Galaxy phones have overtaken iPhones as the models with the highest level of satisfactions according to a consumer survey phone. But it’s a fractional difference and for the most part, people who’ve got a high-end phone are pretty happy with it.
The figures come from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a company that regularly surveys the public on their attitudes to the products and brands they have bought. For the smartphone study, they questioned handset owners (the firm hasn’t revealed the size of the sample group) and converted the responses into a score out of 100 for each model. (The figures take into account varying levels of satisfaction in individual users, so the score isn’t simply a percentage of people who are “satisfied.”)
This time round, the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II topped the index with scores of 84; the Galaxy S 4 came too late for the study. Those scores were just ahead of the iPhone 4S and 5, both on 82, and the iPhone 4 on 81.
Other models and brands were more variable: the Motorola Razr Maxx HD scored 80, the Galaxy S II 78, and the basic Droid Razr model 77. BlackBerry handsets propped up the table with the Curve on 67 and the Bold on 64.
The problem is that without details of the actual responses, there’s no way of telling how much of this is potentially subject to sampling error. Regardless of which model scored the highest, when the top six handsets were all within four “points” of one another, all that’s really certain is that most people are happy with iPhones and premium Galaxy or Droid models.
For what it’s worth, which likely isn’t much, ACSI noted that in a similar survey in South Korea the iPhone 5 took top spot.
The firm also noted that across all models, smartphones score an average satisfaction rating of 76 out of 100, compared with 69 for feature phones. It added that, much as you’d expect, people generally like everything about a smartphone except the battery life.

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Office 365 subscribers rejoice! You now have an Android app.

One of the selling points for most of the Microsoft cloud based Office 365 subscriptions is the ability to use the software on mobile devices. Up until recently, however, there wasn’t an Android app that would let you use your subscription directly from your phone.   Now there is.

According to Phandroid, the Android companion app for Microsoft Office 365 is finally available.  It only took two years longer than expected but it has finally hit the Google Play store. You can download the app for free but you can’t use it without a subscription to Office 365.
You also have to have the right subscription or you won’t be able to use the app.  According to Microsoft’s Office Home comparison the subscription version of the software will allow you to use it on up to five computers and five mobile devices including Android and iOS.  With the business versions of Office 365, you can access and edit documents with the Small Business Premium and Midsize Business versions on Android phones and iPhones but you don’t have that option with the basic Small Business Version.
Right now it looks as if Microsoft is limiting the mobile feature to its own Windows phones, iPhone and Android phones.  The only tablets with the ability to access and edit Office 365 documents are Windows tablets. Apps are not available (yet?) for Android or Apple tablets. At the rate that Windows RT tablets are not selling, that could change.
Most people purchase Microsoft products and use them until they have to purchase a new computer which can be three years or more.  They don’t particularly bother with purchasing the updates until they have to.  With the subscription home versions, you pay a yearly fee to use Office 365.  True that means that you will always have the latest version but that also means that you will be paying considerably more than if you purchase the Office product once and use it for three years or more.
The new Android app is free, as is the iOS app, adding a bit more convenience to Microsoft’s Office 365 users. Still most people are not going to be using their phones for any major editing of Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents. Now if they expand the apps to Android tablets and iPads it could be a different story.
Posted in Android, Android apps, Apple, Applications, iPhone, Microsoft, Windows Mobile | No Comments » Read more from Susan Wilson
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Microsoft overclocks Xbox One GPU clock speed by 6%

In a recent podcast with Marc Whitten, corporate VP of Xbox he revealed that the company was able to safely bump up the performance of the GPU on the console by 6-percent. Whitten didn’t elaborate much on this statement, but he did indicate that developers will be able to push the system a little harder.

During Major Nelson’s podcast, Whitten stated:

That’s the time where you start tweaking the knobs. Either your theory was right dead on, or you were a little too conservative, or you were a little too aggressive. It’s actually been really good news for us, an example of that is we’ve tweaked up the clock speed on our GPU from 800mhz to 853mhz.

He also talked a little bit about new drivers that help take advantage of the GPU better called “mono driver.”
Microsoft’s Albert Penello elaborated on this improvement on NeoGAF boards recently. According to Penello, Microsoft set “aggressive targets for reliability, performance, yields, and noise.” This all makes perfect sense considering that the Xbox 360 was notorious for having a very high failure rate made popular by the Red Ring of Death stigma. The Xbox 360 originally sounded like a jet was taking off before several iterations of refinements were made to the console.
It seems like the company set out to improve on these things as the Xbox One is reported to be stealthily quite.

We want it to be DEAD quiet (and let me tell you, X1 is quieter than the new Xbox 360 we just released). And we wanted killer game performance. But those targets are in conflict with each other.

Penello adds that through testing, the team was able to find that the console could safely handle the bump in clock speed despite pushing the GPU beyond its set parameters.

What we’ve found through the development process is we were able to actually exceed our goals on the thermals and acoustics.
This gave us headroom to increase the clock speed without any hit to noise, reliability, or heat, so we took the opportunity to bump the GPU. I get it’s only 6% or so, but that could translate to a few FPS in the real world.

Posted in Games, Hardware, Industry, Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 5 Comments » Read more from Mike Ferro
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Carmack won’t be surprised if Kinect Camera gets hacked spied on

John Carmack, genius programmer at id Software talked a little bit about Microsoft’s challenges with the Xbox One at his Quakecon keynote speech. While he stated that many of the things people fear about the Xbox One are probably true, he also defended things like Kinect spying on you as something that it is inevitable.
Carmack talked about Microsoft’s recent woes with its used game and always online policies as well as recent backlash over the always listening and watching Kinect camera. Carmack stated paranoia around a living room camera watching constantly is most likely a “temporary” vision of how things are perceived with the concept.
He stated that everyone is scared that the government is going to gain backdoor access into everyone’s Kinect and watch what’s going on in your living room. He then said “well, yea that’s pretty much the situation,” with the audience eruptin”g in laughter.

Carmack talked about some of the incidents reported in the media about laptops cameras getting hacked remotely and turned on. Back in December, reports revealing that the cameras built into some of the Samsung TVs could be hacked had the media in a frenzy.
This negative publicity has caused Samsung to back away from pushing models with web cams built in as aggressively.  Carmack stated, “we will just get used to it” regarding having a camera always watch you. Carmack does have a good point in that advances in technology will happen eventually and even believes that there will be some sort of major scandal involving the Kinect in the future.
He gave an example paralleling it to the introduction of tracking GPS through cell phones. While having GPS capabilities in smartphones has allowed the government to have the ability to track you, most people view the tradeoff to be well worth it if it.
However, so far Microsoft has yet to really show how the Kinect will revolutionize things. Besides big brother gaining access to your Kinect camera remotely, there is also the threat of an external attack on our systems. 
Posted in Games, Hardware, Industry, Microsoft, PS3, PS4, Sony | 14 Comments » Read more from Mike Ferro
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