Playstation 4 “Orbis” arriving in 2013

Gamers will certainly keep their hopes up that 2012 is not the end of the world, with Nintendo releasing Wii U this year and Microsoft’s next Xbox “Durango” already in the works. Information has leaked that the next Playstation, codenamed “Orbis”, will be released during the holiday period of 2013.

Kotaku sources revealed that the next Playstation will carry an AMD x64 CPU and an AMD Southern Islands GPU. Such specs will allow the “PS4” to display games at an output of up to 4096 x 2160, which can be considered as 4K resolution. This should play well with Sony’s home theater projectors capable of displaying a 200-inch diagonal screen across your living room.

Playstation 3 owners with huge collection of games won’t rejoice that much as the Orbis won’t offer backwards compatibility with PS3 games. New games for the PS4 will be available either in Blu-Ray or as a PSN download. This also means no more used games as every game purchased must be locked to a single PSN account.

It was also hinted that Sony’s latest handheld, the Vita, will play a vital role with the PS4. With the word Orbis, which is Latin for circle, or ring, combined with Vita or Vitae which is Latin for life, will give you the phrase “Circle of Life”. Coincidence or Sony has a penchant for wordplay?

Sony has declined to comment about the information, citing its policy not to comment on “rumors or speculation”, meaning these things should be taken with a grain of salt. But between the end of the world and the PS4 rumor? I’d choose the latter. What do you guys think?