New details about the PlayStation 3's successor: First, Orbis isn't the final name, but PlayStation 4 is out. Second, games will look like Lucasarts' Star Wars: 1313. Finally, no backwards compatibility in the new console but classics will be in the cloud.

While the PlayStation 3 celebrates a major milestone even as its sun starts to fade, rumors about the heir to the PlayStation throne continue to leak out of the game development world. The latest details about the fourth generation machine come from Europe, shedding new light on how the PlayStation 4 or Orbis will support 4K resolution output, how used games will be handled by the console, and just how Sony will leverage the recently purchased Gaikai cloud-gaming service in its machine.

British magazine PSM3 (the details of which were reprinted by German website The G Net) provides a wealth of new information to supplement a recent story about the console that confirmed Sony will not call its console PlayStation 4. The reason: The Japanese word for 4 is “shi,” which also happens to mean death. While it might seem silly to break from nearly two decades of successful branding because a two words sound alike, it’s important to remember how branding has negatively affected the Xbox and Xbox 360 in Japan. Where “X” marks the spot in the US, it’s a negative sign in Japanese culture. (Hence why the circle button on PlayStation controllers is used to confirm most actions in Japanese games, not the X button like in the US.)

PSM3’s source claims that the device, which Sony refers to by the codename Orbis, will play games that look similar to recent tech demos for games like Star Wars 1313 and Square-Enix’s Agni’s Philosophy demo. These games, however, will not run in 4K resolution as has been hinted at in the past. If 4K playback support does make it into the final version of the fourth generation PlayStation, it will be for video.

Sony will be taking more severe measures against piracy. Previous rumors about the Orbis suggested that Sony might try to block used, disc-based games from working on the console. This new report claims that it will do so by linking each individual game to a specific PlayStation Network account.

Unlike past Sony consoles, Orbis will not have backwards compatibility with PlayStation 3, at least not with Blu-ray disc games. Sony will instead offer classic games through a cloud-based streaming service run through Gaikai’s infrastructure.

Of all the rumors surrounding the next PlayStation, its lack of backwards compatibility is the most disappointing. PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi was insistent that every PlayStation made be able to play the previous consoles’ discs at a hardware level. Obviously Sony started moving away from this philosophy swiftly with the very first hardware revisions of the PlayStation 3, but it’s still sad.

The PlayStation 4, Orbis, or whatever Sony decides to name it, is expected to debut at E3 2013.

It took Microsoft's Xbox 360 seven years to hit 70 million consoles sold, but Sony's PlayStation 3 managed it in six years according to a new press release. Impressive numbers, but both companies' console businesses are in decline.

Sony began its current fiscal year but announcing a historic $5.7 billion loss, a blow dealt in part by the declining PlayStation division of its sprawling electronics and entertainment business. Things haven’t gotten better as the year’s gone on, as Sony’s recent quarterly earnings report saw its home console sales drop by 30 percent year-on-year. Even though revenues from the PlayStation business are dropping, Sony does have at least one thing to crow about. After six years on shelves, the PlayStation 3 has officially caught up with the Xbox 360 in terms of worldwide sales with 70 million consoles sold worldwide.

Sony made the announcement in a press release on Friday morning that it had crested the 70 million PlayStation 3s sold mark, just after the console celebrated its sixth anniversary on Nov. 11. What’s particularly impressive is that Microsoft announced just this fall that the Xbox 360 had reached 70 million units sold, but that machine hit the public a full year before the PlayStation 3, in November 2005. The Xbox 360 has been the best-selling console in the United States for 22 months running, a streak that’s been maintained thanks to the 2010 redesign and release of the Kinect motion controller. On the worldwide stage, though, Sony’s console is on track to overtake Microsoft’s. Will it catch up with its big brother, PlayStation 2? Likely not as that machine’s sold approximately 160 million units over the past decade, but for a device that was deemed a catastrophic failure at launch, the PlayStation 3 has done okay for itself.

Truth is, both Microsoft and Sony’s console businesses aren’t doing as well as their mutual stockholders might like. Last quarter, Sony’s PlayStation division brought in just $1.85 billion in revenue, down from $2.2 billion over the same period. Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division that includes the Xbox business as well as others like Skype, saw revenue stay static during that period compared with 2011, but the Xbox 360 itself was hit hard. Xbox 360 revenue fell by 24 percent last quarter, down by $418 million.

The long and short of it: The PlayStation 3 has caught up with the Xbox 360, but both consoles are running out of steam in the market. What’s the mean for we players out in the wild? It means that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720, or Orbis and Durango, will be out sooner rather than later.

TVii, Netflix, and other video services coming later for Nintendo's next-gen console.

With mere days before the launch of Nintendo’s Wii U, reports are surfacing that many of the promised features for the company’s next-gen console will not be available when the system hits shelves.

According to CNet, the Wii U will ship with limited functionality, missing many of the video services the company assured the public would be up and running at launch. Among the missing elements is the eagerly anticipated TVii, a live TV, DVR, and streaming video service that was intended to make the Wii U a comprehensive media center. Nintendo has now indicated that TVii won’t be available until December.

Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Instant Video, and Hulu Plus integration will also be missing at launch, with Nintendo promising that these video services will be available in the near future.

In the absence of many of the video features promised by Nintendo, the Wii U will likely be limited to just its gaming applications for anyone who buys it this weekend — though that probably won’t turn many people away. It’s worth noting that the Nintendo 3DS also shipped without many of its video services available at launch, and with limited functionality beyond basic gaming.

The Nintendo Wii U goes on sale this Sunday, November 18.