The hullaballoo about the possibility of an always-online Xbox 720 has yet to die down; however, its main rival, Sony says the company didn't even consider making its upcoming PlayStation 4 always-online.
"Did we consider it? No, we didn't consider it," Sony worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida says to Game Informer (via by Gaming Everything). Yoshida categorically stated that Sony's next-generation gaming console will not require an always internet connection as many countries don't have the robust internet connection necessary to support it. "The main reason being that many countries don't have robust Internet connections. It makes sense for people to have Internet connections to play online games, but for offline games there are many countries that we saw do not really have robust Internet," he says.
While the gaming world continues to remain lost in utter confusion with endless series of rumours and off-the-record comments about the likelihood of the always-online feature on Microsoft's next Xbox versus not, Sony has cleared its position on the matter with Yoshida's clarification.
However, according to an internal Microsoft document obtained by Ars Technica, the next Xbox, often called Xbox 720, won't require a constant internet connection for single-player games. "Durango [the codename for the next Xbox] is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today's Internet." The memo read. "There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should 'just work' regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game."
