Bungie has explained via a blog post that they are not afraid of experiencing a SimCity style launch debacle citing the following

"This isn't our first rodeo"

The blog post continues to say "Bungie is no stranger to anxious mobs of players who rush home after a midnight launch and put our best-laid plans to the test." Bungie states that it hopes to "focus on some less frightening but equally important challenges" for now, worrying about release day problems at a later time.

This is clearly a swipe at the recent series of issues experienced by EA/Maxis during the launch of SimCity.

Microsoft may have only announced its inaugural Xbox Entertainment Awards yesterday, but the service has already been hit by problems.

According to MCV, the voting site was the victim of a security breach which resulted in the names, gamertags, emails and birthdays of 2,892 entrants being posted online. Those accessing the site were also reportedly able to edit or remove the listings they saw.

Shortly after this, the site was taken offline for maintenance, while MCV was provided with the following explanation by Microsoft: "We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with the Xbox Entertainment Awards landing page and have taken the site offline while we investigate."

This is hardly the first high profile breach in recent times and the extent of the damage isn't yet apparent. We've reached out to Microsoft for comment and will keep you updated as the story develops.

In a recent interview, the single player campaign length for The Last of Us, Sony's most anticipated PlayStation 3 exclusive, was revealed. "We're definitely looking at more than 12 hours, maybe 12 to 16 right now is what we're looking at." Naughty Dogs Arne Meyer's stated in the interview playing stealthy and exploring the environment will add more hours
to the campaign length.

Stay tuned for more on The Last of Us, which is set to release June 14th on PlayStation 3.

The Xbox 720 remains unannounced, but today, some more details have emerged about the next-gen console, and they don’t paint an entirely pretty picture for gamers. A new leak suggests that games won’t run off discs themselves, and will have to be installed first – which could be part of a rumoured plan to block used games on the machine.

Website Vgleaks has published screenshots of the Xbox Development Kit, the software which guides developers through making games for Microsoft’s next console, and several sites including The Verge have also confirmed that these are legitimate. The details in the screenshots confirm that you won’t be able to play games straight from a Blu-ray disc on the Xbox 720: they’ll have to be installed onto the hard drive first (“Play from the optical disc will not be supported,” says the XDK).

Now there are pros and cons to this set-up. Games will boot quickly, and the XDK says that it will be possible to begin playing part of the game while it installs – something we’ve heard about before. But it also makes it much easier to block used games: Microsoft could use this and always-on internet verification to make sure that games can not be played on more than one system, something Sony says it will not do with the PS4.

Used games are a major source of contention in the industry – gamers love being able to sell on their completed titles so that they can buy more, but some publishers view second hand game sales as lost revenue. If Microsoft uses this technology in the Xbox 720 – and it’s worth noting that the XDK shots are dated from last year, so things could have changed – it could find itself very unpopular with fans.

Earlier today, a few images of the "Microsoft Durango XDK Documentation Setup" leaked on the internet. This document is for licensed game developers only, and it reveals tons of unannounced information regarding the next-gen Xbox to the public. Much more has been added to the documentation since the last time it was leaked.

What really threw us off was the following:
"All games will be installed on the hard drive. Play from optical disc will not be supported."

What do you think? We'd say this is proof that they will include, at least, a 320GB hard drive in the base console at launch.

We also noticed that upon installation of the documentation, all of the tools and plugins needed for developers to create games are installed to Visual Studio 2012. Older versions of Visual Studio seem to have been abandoned.

Sony's flexibility with indie developers – something it's been driving home for a little while now – also extends to the concept of buy-in-alpha games. It's a concept that's gained acceptance after the wild success of Minecraft and we were curious if Sony was open to the idea, particularly after Steam announced its "early access" program.

"Yeah, if it doesn't have any bugs that are completely destroying the world," Adam Boyes, VP of publisher and developer relations at Sony America told Joystiq last night at the PlayStation Indie Arcade event. "[CCP's Dust 514] is a great example of putting out content that you know is not final. If you want to monetize it, that's fine. I mean, if you want to put out a game that's playable and does pass the checklists and stuff, you can. If it doesn't sell and you can't support, you may not want to support, but we absolutely support that."

Boyes noted the buy-in alpha openness wasn't just for the upcoming PlayStation 4, but could be applied to PS3, Vita or PlayStation mobile.

He continued, "We allow that on all of our platforms, that sort of continually updating and selling. Again, if people buy it and they're passionate about it, and you want to improve it and make it better over time you can."

Get GTA 5 with 1600 MS Points free via Microsoft

Microsoft hopes to draw gamers into pre-ordering the Xbox 360 version of what will inevitably be one of the biggest games of the year with the promise of free Microsoft Points for every pre-order.

The platform holder is offering 1600 MS Points free to gamers who pre-order Grand Theft Auto V for Xbox via the Microsoft Store website.
The offer is open to an undefined number of customers 'while supplies last' (via Kotaku).

Those who take the plunge will receive a redeemable code for their free points via email within 10 days of the game being shipped, and codes will be valid until December 31, 2013.

In January, Rockstar delayed the Grand Theft Auto 5 release date from spring 2013 to September 17. Explaining the move, it said: "The only reason we've delayed the release is because we want the game to be as good as it needs to be."

The publisher recently released the final GTA 5 box art.

Rumour: Next Xbox 'will be expensive', May 21 reveal suggested

Microsoft's next-generation Xbox will be announced at an event on May 21, it's been claimed.

The new console is said to be "expensive" and could cost up to $500 USD, or $300 with a subscription model.
That's according to US reporter Paul Thurrott, speaking via What The Tech and well known in technology circles for his Microsoft leaks.

According to Thurrgott Microsoft originally planned to unveil its next console at the end of April - as first reported by CVG but the firm has shifted focus to an event in May.

[UPDATE: The Verge has backed up Thurrgott's claims and is also reporting plans for an Xbox reveal on May 21.

"Sources familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans have revealed that the event will be at a small venue with a focus on providing the very first details on the next Xbox, codenamed Durango, and Microsoft's plans for Xbox in 2013," it says.]

The next Xbox will be a Windows 8 device and use Blu-ray discs, he said, with a release planned for this November.

"Durango is going to be expensive; $500, $300 with a subscription - that kind of thing," he said.

"Originally, they were going to announce this thing on April 24. Now they're going to announce it on May 21. We know there are events occurring this year where we're going to learn more about Durango.

"E3 is going to occur, Build is going to occur in San Francisco in June when they're going to talk about the developer story - because it's a Windows 8 device. It's going to have the same, or basically the same, developer tools and developer APIs and all that kind of stuff."

The blogger also corroborated the growing number of reports that the next Xbox will require an internet connection to play games, but expressed surprise over the negativity surrounding Durango in some corners of the gaming public.

"Going back and looking at some of the stuff I got a long time ago, it actually says 'must be internet connected to use' - that's in the notes. That's all I have, but it does say that," he said.

"For me everything I've seen has been really positive. It's amazing to me that based on no information at all everyone is freaking out.

"Aside from this online thing, the number one concern I've gotten from people is 'what does it look like?' Who gives a shit?"

Thurrott also claims Microsoft will launch a new Xbox 360 console this year, 'codename Stingray', for $99.

Epic Games vice president Mark Rein seems fairly enamoured with the PlayStation 4, going as far as describing it as a “really perfect gaming PC”.

Rein made this master race-enraging comment in a GDC interview with CVG.

“I think it’s a very smart move on Sony’s behalf to build this sort of enhanced PC architecture and then put so much in it,” he said. “Let’s not forget it has 16 times the memory we had in PlayStation 3 – that’s not insignificant. Knowing that every machine has that, we can do crazy, ridiculous stuff with that.

“The other exciting thing is that when you think about Windows, even Windows for most people is tied to about 2GB of addressable memory space. This really opens up beyond what most PCs can do, because most PCs are running a 32-bit version of Windows. It’s like giving you the world’s best PC.”

Rein said many of the features Sony has announced for the console, like background downloads, are “super convenient”.

“The kind of stuff that they announced that they’re doing, the level of convenience and things like that – they’re making a really perfect gaming PC,” he said.

“I’ve always said that the things in the next-generation that aren’t just brute force hardware are all about the service and simplicity of the experience – the things that make it as fun and easy to get a PS4 game as it is to get a game on your iPad.”

Expect a big announcement from Sony about its next-gen PlayStation 4 console this month or possibly in early May, a source familiar with the company's marketing strategy told PCMag this week.

Sony already revealed some PlayStation 4 specs at a February event in which the company unveiled the console's controller (pictured) and a stereo camera with motion capture capabilities, but not, to the chagrin of gamers everywhere, the PS4 itself.

But Sony may be parceling out information about its coming game console to build up buzz, according to the source. Some industry watchers anticipated another reveal or at least some PS4 news at last week's Game Developer Conference, but the company only tipped some details about the underlying hardware, Ars Technica reported.

GDC was probably the last big stage for the company to talk up the successor to the PlayStation 3 $269.99 at Sony before the E3 gaming conference in June, unless Sony manufactures its own event. That's precisely what Sony plans to do, according to the source, who said late April/early May will be the likeliest timeframe for a full-blown launch of the PS4.

Microsoft, which is playing its cards much closer to the vest with regards to its own next-generation console, has also been rumored to be planning an April event to lift the curtain on what many are calling the Xbox 720. The source had no knowledge of such plans but guessed that an E3 reveal would be more likely given Redmond's recent history—Microsoft unveiled Kinect (then dubbed Project Natal) at the 2009 show and announced both the availability of Kinect $109.99 at Kmart and its redesigned Xbox 360 at the expo the following year.

What's more, Microsoft in January posted a countdown to this year's E3 on its blog, which many have interpreted as a countdown to the next version of the Xbox.
Unlike Sony, which has doled out some information about the PS4, Microsoft has yet to even officially state that it even has a new console in the works at all—though leaks and rumors about the Xbox 360's successor have been rampant for more than a year.

So far, Nintendo's Wii U $349.99 at P.C. Richard & Son is the only member of the so-called eighth generation of video game consoles to have hit the market. Both the PS4 and the unnamed Xbox 360 successor are rumored to be slated for release later this year, in time for the holidays.
Meanwhile, with no console news coming from the Sony and Microsoft camps at GDC, Kickstarter-funded upstarts Oculus VR and Ouya were able to hog the hardware spotlight at the conference. Oculus treated attendees to demos of its Rift virtual reality headset and Ouya announced it will make its $99 Android console generally available on June 4.