So much news has been tumbling into the gaming media over the
last month or so that it's hard to keep up with exactly what to
expect from next Christmas' most important purchase(s). Digital
Foundry seems pretty convinced that it's already in possession
of the specs for both the next Xbox, codenamed Durango, and the
PlayStation 4, codenamed Orbis, and everything they've found
seems to be backed up with a certain amount of believability.
Some rumours seem to have gathered so much traction that it's
hard to imagine them not being correct, for example the much
expected use of off-the-shelf hardware to form the core
components of Microsoft and Sony's next gen offerings.  Another
trend that seems to be gaining weight is speculation about new
input devices. The suggestion that Microsoft will bundle an
enhanced Kinect 2.0 device with its new console seems entirely
logical, but the one that really caught my eye is the rumour
that Sony are apparently dropping DualShock controllers from the
next PlayStation in favour of