On September 6, 2016 I attempted to log into PlayStation Network (PSN) only to discover that it was offline. This isn’t surprising for me and many others users who have faithfully stuck by Sony as its online services have gone down time and time again. PSN is a paid for service and users have to sign up for a paid subscription called PlayStation Plus in order to play online games.  What makes this most recent outage more frustrating is the fact that it was recently announced that the cost of an online subscription is increasing, making customers pay more for a service that is inconsistent at best. It is true that Sony has not raised the cost of PlayStation Plus in quite some time but why should users pay more for a product that lacks features and is unreliable? As far as I know Sony is offering no new features that warrant a price hike which is a shame because there are plenty of improvements that can be made. It would be nice if Sony would allow users to change their PSN user...

It was recently reported that Blizzard is planning on releasing an HD version of Starcraft . Starcraft is a widely successful real time strategy game that was released in 1998 and helped make Blizzard a house hold name in the game industry. Its success spawned the sequel, Starcraft 2 in 2010. Similarly, Nintendo released an HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the 3DS , and Microsoft gave the go ahead for the entire Halo series to be updated and released for the Xbox One . But why do game studios decide to re-release games from the past, instead of creating new games? One reason is that not all game sequels will be met with the same praise that their predecessors were. The Resident Evil franchise is regarded as one of the best in horror. Resident Evil 4 was nearly universally praised by reviewers and gamers alike but Resident Evil 5 and 6 were panned. They provide an example of how hard it can be for long running franchises to create fresh ideas that con...

Before the release of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, I was considering purchasing a gaming PC. It made sense, a larger selection of games, upgradable hardware and free online competitive multiplayer. But old habits die hard so I caved and purchased a PS4. I would have been happy with this decision if the current generation of consoles adhered to the old rules of the previous generation by remaining current for close to a decade. But both Sony and Microsoft have decided that in order to remain competitive they needed to release upgrades nearly at the beginning of the current console lifecycle. Essentially anyone who purchased an early generation PS4 and Xbox One have wasted their money. The Xbox One Scorpio and the PS4 Neo promise to bring upgraded hardware to improve the overall experience. The PS4 Neo will support 4k televisions, have better graphics, better processing power and cost more . While a new system is nice, there are multiple problems that arise from this. Firstly, wh...