With the likes of Google Stadia and other advances in streaming technology making video games more accessible than ever, who needs a dedicated piece of hardware to feed game discs into?

The Dualshock 5 controller will apparently favour a touchscreen over a touchpad.

Is the Watch Dogs franchise dead? Maybe, or maybe it’s merely resting as it bides its time and prepares for a new life on new consoles. That’s the rumour floating around currently as Skullzi TV dug up a trademark listing from Ubisoft for Watch Dogs 3 from the tail end of 2018.

The current console generation is undoubtedly winding down, as the existing Xbox One and PlayStation consoles begin showing their age. It’s more than likely that we’ll see something from the next generation this year, whether that be the successor to the PlayStation, or the next Xbox systems. When they do arrive, how important would backwards compatibility be to you?

It’s the calm before the storm. A strange lull in activity, that kicks off just before Microsoft and Sony take to the stage to announce that something new is on the way. While the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are far from dead (BRING OUT YER DEAD), their days are most definitely numbered. The time for a new console generation …

We want to be bold, we want to be brave and we want to throw our own hats into the ring with a few ideas of our own, that will see the gaming industry undergo some radical change this year. Are we even remotely psychic? Not a chance, but we’re feeling pretty confident that none of these predictions will come back to bite us in the ass. None of them.

2018, in so many ways, is a year marked by controversy. Many great games, mind you, but a level of silliness and backward business practice so astronomically confounding – so very boggling to both mind and wallet – that most of us are still reeling from the impact; or cringing from the taste on our tongues. Luckily then, that particular dumpster fire has more or less sailed. 2019 is geared to deliver a stellar lineup in general. But gaming’s titanic trio in Sony, Microsoft & Nintendo respectively are left in something of an unsure position as they either look to the future, try to find their place in the present or both.

I am not enamoured with the DualShock 4. It’s a decent enough controller, and it’s far better than the controller included with the PlayStation 3, but it could still use some tweaking. One of the most innovative, but severely underused aspects of the current PlayStation controller though is the front touchpad. In the early days of the system, it was …