Sony Playstation 4 marks the fastest growth in the history of the gaming!

Sony announced that it sold more than 20 million Playstation 4 units as of March 1 (20.2 million to be more precise). The hefty number indicates units in customers’ hands, not ones that have been shipped to retailers.

Unsurprisingly, Sony Playstation 4 marks the fastest growth in the history of the gaming franchise. And yes, Sony executives are quite pleased with the achievement.

With a number of high-profile gaming titles set for a release this year, there is plenty of reason to believe that Sony will continue with its momentum going forward. It latest gaming console is currently on sale in 123 global markets.

Source

GTA V for PC is delayed until March, Here are the recommended PC specs! (Update: Now up for pre-order)

UPDATE:

GTA V for PC is now up for pre-order, offers neat perks and a bonus game

Rockstar Games has officially opened pre-orders for its upcoming Grand Theft Auto V for PC title. This is due to be released on March 24.

So that’s quite a wait. But if you pre-order GTA V for PC before February 1, you’ll get $1.3 million in-game currency and a free bonus game too.

The currency is spread as follows: $500,000 for GTA V, and the rest for GTA Online. The bonus game will be given to you in the form of a digital download, and you’ll receive the code for this immediately after you pre-order GTA V. The titles you can choose from include GTA IV, Max Payne 3, LA Noire, but also much older games such as GTA III and Manhunt.

If you’re interested in pre-ordering GTA V for PC, know that when you do you’ll be charged a 15% deposit. The remaining amount will be automatically charged when the game gets released, and you’ll receive the activation code for it via email.

Grand Theft Auto V is already available for consoles, but if you’re a PC gamer you’re still in for a wait. Originally the PC version of the game was supposed to come out on January 27, but there’s some bad news today – that release date slipped.

And not by a few days, either. Rockstar Games, maker of the GTA franchise, has officially announced that GTA V for PC will only become available on March 24. So that’s quite the delay, almost two months in fact.

Rockstar says it’s necessary for it to put in some extra testing and polish in order “to make it as good as can be”. The company has released the first screenshots from the PC game, one of which you can see above. For the rest, make sure you hit the Source link.

GTA Online for PC will support up to 30 players and it will launch alongside GTA V for PC, as well as GTA Online Heists. This will be making it to consoles “in the coming weeks ahead of the PC launch”.

Today Rockstar has also given us the list of minimum and recommended PC specs for playing the upcoming GTA V, something you’ve surely been looking forward to if you’re a PC gamer. So, without further ado, here’s what you’ll need in order to play.

Minimum specifications:
• OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 64 Bit Service Pack 2* (*NVIDIA video card recommended if running Vista OS)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs) @ 2.5GHz
• Memory: 4GB
• Video Card: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1GB / AMD HD 4870 1GB (DX 10, 10.1, 11)
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
• HDD Space: 65GB
• DVD Drive

Recommended specifications:
• OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
• Processor: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 CPUs)
• Memory: 8GB
• Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD7870 2GB
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
• HDD Space: 65GB
• DVD Drive

Source

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 new colors: Red and Rose gold

On Friday Samsung Argentina spilled the beans on upcoming new color options for the Galaxy Note 3phablet – red and rose gold. Today Samsung has issued a press release announcing not two, but three new editions of the Note 3 color palette.

Basically there is just one new color options – the Merlot Red. The other two are new accents of the popular Jet Black and Classic White flavors called Rose Gold Black and Rose Gold White. Those editions keep the base color, they just replace the silver elements (the framing around the phone, the camera, the Home key and the S-Pen) with Rose Gold ones.

The new Rose Gold White edition will hit the Chinese market this month, while the other color options will roll out gradually within the next few months on the international markets. There won’t be any difference in the pricing and internals of those devices, of course.

Microsoft sells over one million Xbox One in under 24 hours !

The next generation console war has officially begun and by the looks of it, it is off to a great start. After Sony announced last week that they sold over a million PS4 in the first 24 hours of launch, it’s now Microsoft’s turn to brag.

Turns out, the Xbox One also sold over a million units in the first 24 hours of the console going on sale. According to Microsoft, this is the biggest launch in the Xbox history. This is a good show considering the console has had a rough start from the time it was announced because of some of the decisions Microsoft made (most of which were eventually reversed), not to mention the $100 price premium over the PS4 considering it comes bundled with the Kinect sensor.

It remains to be see if the two consoles can maintain their sales momentum from this point onwards. Naturally, the sales in the first couple of months will be dominated by the fans of the consoles, who’d have bought them even if they had launched without any games. But later, it will be your average consumers who will be purchasing them and for them features and a good library of games is what will matter before making a purchase rather than the logo on the box. Both consoles have launched with a rather disappointing collection of launch titles. Hopefully, developers will pick up the slack and release some good games in the coming months that will decide the future of these consoles.

Nearly one-third of iOS users upgraded to iOS 7 in the first 16 hours!

Adoption of Apple’s new version of iOS is off to a fast start. Nearly a third of iOS device owners have already upgraded to iOS 7 just 16 hours after the software was released. According to Mixpanel, by Thursday at 10:28am ET some 31.8 percent of iPhones, iPads and iPods had adopted the new operating system, noted for its flat design and a number of new features. Apple officially released the software on Wednesday at 1pm ET…

The Mixpanel announcement can be found here.

Go here for the interactive chart of iOS 7 adoption

By comparison, 24 hours after iOS 6 was released just fifteen percent of iOS device owners had adopted the new OS. Rival platform Android is saddled with a reputation of being fragmented due to the slow pace of OS adoption.

Compare this to Google’s most recent snapshot of Android OS version distribution.

As you can see, less than half of Android devices (or 45.1 percent) were on Android Jelly Bean version 4.1.x or 4.2.x, per data collected during a seven-day period ending on September 4, 2013.

Keep in mind that Jelly Bean was released alongside Google’s Nexus 7 tablet in June 0f 2012. Also important: Google’s data only counts Android devices that access its Play store, excluding gizmos that use forked Android version such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets and no-name Chinese cheapos.

In this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek cover story, Apple CEO Tim Cook mentioned both a NetAppliations survey that gave iOS devices a 55 percent share of all mobile web activity and an IBM research note saying iPads accounted for more than 88 percent of online shopping traffic from tablets during last Black Friday:

“For us, it matters that people use our products,” he said

And commenting on the widespread Google fragmentation, Cook said:

It will show up in developers. It will show up for people that no longer have access to certain apps. It will show up in security issues because if you’re not moving your customer base to the latest version, then you have to go back and plug holes in all of this old stuff, and people don’t really do that to a great degree.

Indeed, for developers, the solid support of iOS 7 means they can be assured apps written for the latest version of Apple’s mobile OS will be widely installed. While the vast majority of Apple’s user base quickly adopts the latest and greatest version of iOS, some people still use older hardware.

For them, Apple’s made it possible to download the last app version that was compatible with their hardware and iOS build. Also, the company today issued a note telling developers they can easily manage availability of apps’ previous versions using the iTunes Connect web portal.