The name Xbox 720 is becoming so loud especially when several rumors sprouted from the internet. With media making little stories big enough to catch attention, Next Generation Xbox is in the limelight with no clear information ever confirmed by Microsoft.

Microsoft has been so aggressive in its campaign to capture every living in the US that it’s doing every update needed to make the system better. But anyway, here are some of the rumors that spread through the internet about the Next Generation Xbox:

Next Gen Xbox Name – Xbox 720 is the most common name given by gamers to the next gen, although it hasn’t been confirmed by Microsoft yet. However, there is a great possibility 720 wouldn’t be used for the next system. There could be a twist or a new name for it. If you can remember Natal, it was greatly expected that Microsoft would use that name but in the end, the company preferred Kinect.

Oban Chip – one of the rumors that really struck Xbox 360 gamers is the Oban chip rumor and speculation. Reports say Oban is now in production and would be made ready for Next Gen Xbox by the end of this year. Oban is a 32nm chip manufactured by IBM for Xbox and is not x86-based. If rumors were correct, Xbox would become more powerful than it already is.

Radeon 6670 – earlier reports suggested Microsoft would be using the ATI 7000 series but IGN and other gaming community suggested otherwise. According to them, Next Gen Xbox would more likely to use the existing modified Radeon 6670 which is also capable of supporting DirectX11.

Release Date – analysts predicted Xbox 720 might be launched in 2014 but the Oban rumors made the release date a little earlier in 2013. More often manufacturers produce chips a year prior to the release year of the device that would be using them, since Oban is scheduled for final production in the last quarter of this year, it is therefore predicted that Xbox 720 would be released in 2013.

So far, there are no other rumors about the Next Generation Xbox except for these already mentioned here.

There’ll maybe hundreds of video games planned to be released in February for North America, however, only a handful of them have been confirmed. Xbox 360 plays a very special place in the hearts of the Americans that’s why Sony’s PlayStation is always on the second place outside Japan and UK.

For American Xbox gamers, here is a list of confirmed video games scheduled for launch in February:

Two Worlds II: Pirates of the Flying Fortress – this is the second iteration of the popular Two Worlds franchise developed by Reality Pump. It’s scheduled for launch on February 3rd under TopWare Interactive. It’s first episode, Two Worlds, was critically acclaimed with almost all gaming communities gave good reviews and high ratings.

The Darkness II – the first episode seemed to have left gamers hanging with its almost unfinished story, now we know why it happened like that. This second iteration will continue what Jackie Estacado has been started. Digital Extremes continued the development and it will be released under 2K Games on February 7th.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – this game seems to be promising as it combines third person combat with deeper exploration. The characters were developed immensely to catch gamers’ attention. Big Huge Games, the developer, could just make this game a hit. Electronic Arts will be the one to release this game on February 7.

Zumba Fitness Rush – what do you exactly expect from a fitness game? Well, for this you can expect 40 new cool soundtracks and hot choreography. It’s scheduled to launch on February 13th by Majesco Games.

UFC Undisputed 3 – perhaps, it could be the best in the UFC Undisputed series. Being the best-selling MMA video game really means a lot to Yukie’s Osaka that this iteration will simply add the things lacking in the first two iterations. It will be released for Xbox 360 and PS3 on February 14th.

Grand Slam Tennis 2 – this could just another hit for EA Sports. Grand Slam Tennis series is actually the most preferred tennis video games in the world because of its realistic properties. So, it’s safe to say that what you’ve experienced in the first iteration, you can double it for this release. It’s slotted for February 14th release.

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend – scheduled on February 14, this game uses the classic 2D platforming which may be just appropriate for yet untested game. Arc System Works, however, has a history of developing really good games so it may be worth a try.

Syndicate – it’s not another Yakuza or Mafia game but the theme may be similar as you will be brought to an underground community without government where you will struggle to survive. It may just become a big break for Starbreeze and it will be published by Electronic Arts on February 21st.

Sledge Hammer – this game is developed by Maximum Family Games and it is just about crashing, bumping and slamming. Yes, if you’re good in doing those things then you could be a champion in this game. It is set to launch on February 21.

Outdoors Unlimited – it’s never another skateboarding or skiing game. Ironically, it’s about fishing, hunting and camping being made possible by role-playing game system. Mastiff is responsible for this game. It’s for February 21st release.

Heavy Fire: Afghanistan – when you read the title, what do you expect? Yes, it’s war and violence. But it may be worth a try to see if it’s faithful to the reality of what really happened in Afghanistan. Mastiff will release it on February 21.

Asura’s Wrath – CyberConnect2 goes fantasy. This game is about a god betrayed by his fellow gods, now he seeks revenge and that he will do with your help. Capcom publishes this game and scheduled it for release on February 21st.

Binary Domain – it is a futuristic game and you will be put in the middle of human-robot battle in 2080; the place will be Tokyo, Japan. But it’s no surprise as this game is developed and published by Sega and scheduled for launch on February 28th.

There could be more games to be released next month but as of now, these are the only games that have been confirmed with information available over the internet.

Sony said that its popular PlayStation consoles and handhelds closed year 2011 with a bang amidst speculations that the company had lost millions in revenue because of the hacking attack that happened in April. The Japanese electronics company, however, boasts that they were able to sell 6.5 units of PS consoles before 2011 was over.

“According to the December NPD, PlayStation 3 closed out a banner 2011 with a bang, showing increases in hardware, software and peripherals year to date,” said Patrick Seybold, the Senior Director of Corporate Communications of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), in a response to the most recent data released by research firm NPD.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was hailed top-seller for the year 2011 but Sony couldn’t just hide the excitement of selling more than 6 million units of gaming consoles despite all the misfortunes that happened in the company last year.

“As we reported earlier this week, consumers flocked to PlayStation consoles and handhelds this holiday season with more than 6.5 million units sold worldwide,” Seybold added.

In the most recent sales report from Sony which was announced at CES 2012, the 6.5 million of units was a combination of sales made by PS3, PS2, PSP, and its newly-launched handheld gaming device in Japan PS Vita.

In an attempt to start the year with a good sales projection, Sony scheduled the release of PS Vita on February 22nd. In truth, it is one of the most anticipated electronics product in the first quarter of 2012. In Japan, Vita was reported to have sold 500,000 units by January 5th.

PS Vita is the only thing that will keep Sony Computer Entertainment alive in 2012 and 2013 because PlayStation 4 is not expected to come until 2014.

“With the highly anticipated U.S. launch of PlayStation Vita on February 22, featuring the biggest and best launch lineup across the history of PlayStation platforms, 2012 is already shaping up to be another exciting year for PlayStation,” Seybold said.

While the Americans prefer Microsoft’s products when it comes gaming devices, Sony can still hope for the best for its Vita in European gaming market.

Sony’s brand is greatly dominating in the UK.

Despite speculations that Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3 will beat Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, sales charts show otherwise. According to the GfK Chart Track, the latter topped the UK game sales in 2011 putting BF3 on the lower rank which was actually expected by majority of video game analysts.

The Call of Duty franchise captured the top spot three years in a row. Modern Warfare 2 was a big hit in 2009 followed by Black Ops in 2010.

MW3 has become the highest-selling video game of all time while second highest-selling entertainment product in 2011. Popular singer Adele’s album topped last years entertainment sales charts.

Battlefield 3 has made a lot of hype in gaming communities making it one of the most anticipated games last year. But it wasn’t really converted into cold cash unlike what MW3 did.

Modern Warfare 3 was not released until the second week of November but it has beaten all the game sales made since the first month of 2011. While others believe it couldn’t acquire more sales before the end of the year, they were wrong.

Activision made it a habit to release new iteration under the Call of Duty franchise every year and this could have helped MW3 a lot to generate revenues more than it is expected. People don’t need to be told that a new title is coming because they know there should always be one. So, they’ll just have to wait until the product is released.

In comparison, Battlefield 3 sold 1,186,895 units last year. It is way lower than Modern Warfare 3′s 2,814,609 sales. In truth, BF3 didn’t make it to the top ten of entertainment sales chart;

1. “21″ Adele – Album – 3,924,985
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Game – 2,814,609
3. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 – Video – 2,532,551
4. FIFA 12 – Game – 2,193,302
5. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 – Video – 2,147,606
6. The Inbetweeners Movie – Video – 2,074,652
7. The King’s Speech – Video – 1,882,175
8. “Christmas” Michael Buble – Album – 1,349,195
9. “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” Bruno Mars – Album – 1,264,763
10. “19″ Adele – Album – 1,264,273
11. Battlefield 3 – Game – 1,186,895

Aside from the sales, Modern Warfare 3 still dominates in the hearts of the gamers as it has received more positive reviews than Battlefield 3. IGN gave it 9 out of 10 which is too high a score for very meticulous gamers.

Game Arena, an Australian Gaming Community known for giving accurate video game reviews, gave it 9.5.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 deserves all the accolades it is receiving now. With new DLC coming soon, fun is just beginning.

Blizzard confirmed reports that the third iteration of popular hack-and-slash Diablo series will be brought to consoles and that it is currently in development. Micah “Bashiok” Whipple, Blizzard community manager, answered to a question in Twitter earlier this week.

“Yup,” Whipple said. “Josh Mosqueira is lead designer for the Diablo console project.”

Although Blizzard didn’t confirm what console Diablo III will run on, it is safer to assume that PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will be considered. It is expected to be released this year. In fact, the PC version is now in its closed beta.

Few hours after Whipple tweeted the update on Diablo III, a representative emailed Wired.com saying that Whipple’s tweets do not directly confirm that Diablo III will be coming to consoles.

“Bashiok’s response on Twitter was intended as a confirmation that we’re actively exploring the possibility of developing a console version of Diablo III, as we’ve mentioned in the past. This is not a confirmation that Diablo III is coming to any console platform,” the message goes.

Blizzard has always been reluctant to release its games to consoles but it will, this is not the first time.

Back in 1998, Blizzard teamed up with Electronic Arts to port the first Diablo to PlayStation but it wasn’t received warmly by gamers and critics. The PC version was just too good that gamers were frustrated with the outcome after the company successfully made the game run on Sony’s PlayStation.

But that’s not all, Blizzard also ported its StarCraft to Nintendo in 2000 but the game suffered the same fate as the previous porting.

Lead designer Jay Wilson said they are developing the console version from ground up. However, he understands why people simply don’t trust them when it comes to porting their strongest titles to consoles because it happened before.

“I understand why they don’t believe us, because we’ve tried this before. We’ve also never invested in it to the degree that we are doing now, and we’ve never had a product we felt was appropriate for it,” Wilson said.

Despite all the rumors that run around the web, there is no specific date as to when Diablo III will be released.

Activision believes there is a need to frequently release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) downloadable content (DLC) so that gamers’ love for the game won’t fade out. It is common for everyone to feel a little bit empty after playing the same game over and over without variety and from there the love for the game will slowly die as gamer tries to find something new.

MW3 already achieved the highest recognition and sales projection more than any other game. Being dubbed as “Game of the Year” while recognized as the highest-grossing entertainment product is impossible for other games to achieve and Activision couldn’t just allow it to fade without doing something.

Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, said they are planning to make MW3 a constant  incremental game wherein gamers couldn’t be stuck in just playing it but getting more than what it offers. This includes setting up new challenges and various environment to play on, thus, new DLCs are needed.

“The idea of giving people constant incremental playable content and making it so you’re never more than a few weeks away from the next new experience within the Call of Duty universe is part of what we’re experimenting with,” Hirshberg said in a phone interview with Wired.

Activision sees really great potential on MW3 to earn more before a new Call of Duty game will be released. MW3 hasn’t reached its peak yet as fans are just starting to make their way into the deeper side of the game. As it continues to capture more fans, the company sees more dollars coming into its pocket through DLCs.

Modern Warfare 3 earned $400 million in day 1 setting up a new record in its category. Sixteen days later, it hit a $1 billion mark which no other game ever achieved and there’s a great possibility the sales projection will be doubled and Activision just knows how to do it.

“One of the things that was most appealing when we were researching these ideas with consumers is the idea of breaking up the DLC so that it comes more often and more regularly,” Hirshberg said.

For MW3 fans, missing out a single DLC would means getting left behind but that rarely happens especially for social gamers. These types of gamers want to play with friends; the more, the merrier. Therefore, there is also a need for them to purchase new DLC so as to keep the excitement going at the same level.

“We want to provide DLC to people more often and also experiment with more of a variety in the forms of playable content,” Hirshberg added.

And one way to achieve that is constant iteration.

In a bid to maintain balance in Star Wars: The Old Republic, the developer Bioware has been busy issuing warning to temporary bans to players who have been repeatedly looting on Ilum’s casks.

Old Republic’s Ilum is a high level PvP planet allowed only to players level 40 and up but other many low-level players discovered that it is possible to take advantage of Ilum’s rich resources even at lower levels.

Stephen Reid, community manager, confirmed that many players have received warnings and temp bans. Once warning is issued, the violator is closely monitored and when the same exploit is done, warning could become a ban, although he said that ban could always come to those who “systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers.”

Reid, however, explained that low-level players will not receive warnings or bans for just traveling to planet Ilum. This practice is one of the most popular in SWTOR especially for those who haven’t achieved level 40 yet.

“No accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level,” Reid explained.

Looting in Ilum in a large scale breaches Star Wars: The Old Republic’s terms of service, according to Reid.

“Our Terms of Service team is extremely careful and thorough in their investigation of any potential exploit or unusual activity in-game,” he said. He added that the development team is working delicately on this matter and with the use of accurate metrics to determine user’s activity, they were able to find those who have unusual activities.

Issuing warnings and bans would bring balance to TOR community. It also ensures that all players will experience fair game which is just equally important.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was a success. In fact, it has gone beyond what every gamer expected of it. Despite some problems on the technical side, majority of gamers believe that MW3 is better than its closest rival, Battlefield 3. Activision doesn’t want to let gamers’ love for the game die without a fight that’s why it has scheduled to launch the first ever downloadable content (DLC) to keep fun going.

In December, Robert Bowling announced the release date of MW3 DLC putting it on January 24th, although Xbox 360 gamers would be blessed with it first. While there information has not been sufficient, it surely did stir the excitement of the gamers because in less than 3 weeks, a much better or a new MW3 game would be seen.

Bowling promised that more detailed information about the DLC will be released in early January so it won’t be long now before Infinity Ward, the developer, would be releasing the technical side of the package.

Reports say there are 5 maps gamers can expect but what every want to know is how good those maps would be. Bowling promised that the first DLC offers not just maps but “variety of things that players have never seen before.”

The package is expected to play around $15 price or 1,500 MS points but let’s see if it’s all worth it.

Just recently it comes to the attention of gamers, especially Call of Duty lovers that a new CoD is coming. A website ironwolfproject.com was launch to serve as a teaser for the upcoming game but our researchers have valid reasons to believe it is fake.

The website was not registered under Activision, which is the official publisher of Call of Duty series ever since the first iteration was launched. The whois record shows that a person who registered the domain has protected himself from being known.

Activision’s callofduty.com’s whois record shows that it is registered under the name Mary Tuck who is also the registrant of activision.com domain. Besides, all new CoD websites are attached to callofduty.com which means Activision does not launch a new site for a new release but it simply adds a sub-domain except for the Modern Warfare 2 which takes on modernwarfare2.com.

Call of Duty is a registered trademark and should depict registered ® sign not the copyright © sign. The logo on the website, however, says otherwise so there is a clear inconsistency. Perhaps the website owner hasn’t done his homework well.

The Iron Wolf website’s homepage shows the logo with a link that says “Watch Trailer” beneath it but it doesn’t work. Our researchers say that it could be because the site has just been launched and there are no further details available for the moment. However, Activision is not a type that reveals its new projects prematurely and that exactly what happened in this website.

Now, if you are keen on the details of the site, you will notice that Treyarch’s (developer) logo was mispelled which is very alarming. How could a business partner misspell its partner’s business name?

It is not new to us that companies spend thousands, if not millions, of dollars to acquire domain names from individuals who have first registered them. And maybe the owner of ironwolfproject.com is hoping Activision will come after it.

The popular and notorious hacking group Anonymous uploaded a threat video for Sony and few celebrities on December 29th warning the Japanese electronics company of yet another hacking plot after it has aired its support for Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). If it happens, this is the second time Anonymous will be interrupting Sony’s operations.

In April, Sony lost hundreds of millions following a hacking incident of its networks. It was after the company sued few people who allegedly hacked its systems including PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable.

The company had to make its networks more secure after the hacking, some of the services and operations were stopped, more than 50% of its online customers were lost and so it has to spend millions for retention promos.

Anonymous is quite serious this time telling Sony that when the attack is initiated, it could be the end of the company’s presence online.

“Your support to the act is a signed death warrant to SONY Company and Associates,” Anonymous said.

This time, the group is looking forward to totally destroying Sony unlike the first attacks which were just a denial of service.

“We have decided to destroy your network. We will dismantle your phantom from the internet. Prepare to be extinguished. Justice will be swift, and it will be for the people, whether some like it or not. Sony, you have been warned,” added the group.

Popular celebrities like Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian who also aired their support for the act were also threatened by the group.

This isn’t the first time the group threatened people or agencies and for the record, it has always been successful in its attacks.

Few of the agencies and establishments that were hacked by the group is The United States Department of Defense, The Bank of America, The United Nations, and Lockheed Martin.

Here is the video uploaded by the group: