To be available in Jet Black, the PS4 will retail $399/€ 399/£ 349 when it goes on sale this holiday season in both Europe and North America. More importantly, Sony has informed just what’s in the box this time around, which includes some surprises.

We get an HDMI out port and Digital out port, but more importantly with the console and one DualShock 4 controller, there will be a mono headset and HDMI cable provided. This will help address one of the bigger concerns with the launch of the PS3. The AC power cord and USB cable round the rest.

Wireless DualShock 4 controllers will retail separately for $59/€ 59/£ 54 with the PlayStation Camera retailing for $59/€ 49/£ 44.

Check out some brand new images of the PlayStation 4:

One of the more promising Vita titles, Dungeon Defenders, has been canceled, reports CVG.

For those of you with extraordinarily good memories, Dungeon Defenders was announced for the Vita when the system was originally unveiled as the Next Generation Portable, back in January 2011.

No reason was given for the game’s cancellation, even as the developers tried to defend the Vita and express confidence in its viability.

“While we believe the Vita is a very capable platform, we’ve decided to shelve the Vita port of the game,” Trendy said in an official statement on its forums.

“Many fans, including myself, would like to play Dungeon Defenders on the portable device, but ultimately, we’ve decided to divert those resources to other pursuits.”

The cancellation comes in the wake of a troubling lack of games for the system, which have led to it struggling in the worldwide market.

Trendy did not talk about what new project it was working on now, though it did promise that the game would be “worth the wait.”

The first step towards solving any problem is admitting that the problem exists, and after a lot of denial, Sony has finally done just that, admitting that the Vita might not quite be going as well as they had planned.

“Three months, forty titles in. I think it’s a fantastic machine. Of course we’d like to sell more of them, and we have key plans to do that,” said Sony’s VP of Product Development and Worldwide Studios, Scott Rohde. When it was pointed out that Vita sales so far had been nothing to write home about, he had this to say:

“We’re building a lot of additional titles internally. A lot of good third-party support, you saw that announced at our press conference. So, we think that it’s certainly on the rise. Still doing well. Would we like it to do better? Of course. And we’re doing everything we can in terms of providing great new content -sixty titles next year- to insure that that will happen.”

“You know that Sly will also have a PlayStation Vita presence. Some things that we’re not announcing yet. You saw LittleBigPlanet Vita … if I can sit here and say you’ve got PlayStation All-Stars, you’ve got Sly, you’ve got Assassin’s, you’ve got Call of Duty, and you’ve got LittleBigPlanet- that’s a pretty nice set to build a foundation on,” Rohde added. “And there are a lot of other bigger and smaller things that we just haven’t announced yet,” he said, when he was asked about the conspicuous lack of any Vita games and announcements at Sony’s E3 presser earlier this year.

Rohde is proud of the Vita, apparently, as he maintains that the system itself is perfect, and he wouldn’t change anything about it. However, he does believe that Sony probably bothced the Vita launch, and that they should probably have spaced out the front loaded launch lineup a little. “If I could go back in time, maybe I would’ve spread out some of the software releases a little bit,” he said.

I’m not sure if that would have solved all of the Vita’s problems, but it’s a start.

Uh oh. Well, this doesn’t sound too good.

As TheSixthAxis reports, a Japanese website is stating that Sony Computer Entertainment has halted all development on the next generation Playstation home console, colloquially referred to as the Playstation 4.

Apparently, the Playstation 3, which only just became profitable for Sony last year, has bled the corporation dry, and they are now looking at keeping the system relevant for as long as possible. Also, it seems that Sony seems to believe that the future of non PC gaming lies in the handhelds, and not in home consoles, as they are, for all purposes, betting on the NGP to become the next ‘mainline’ Playstation system. As the quote says:

‘Hiroshige Goto says SCEI suspended PS4 development. They were working on a PowerPC based system at IBM Rochester after the Larrabee fall out, then shelved it. They are betting the farm on PSP2 as they expect handhelds to displace consoles.’

This, of course, raises several questions. Just what was the Playstation 4 going to be? A PowerPC based system developed by IBM? That sounds very intriguing. Why was development halted?  Were the costs of R&D too high for Sony to afford right now, when they just became profitable after so many years of sustaining heavy losses? Does this indicate that the NGP may just be named the ‘Playstation 4?’

What will also be interesting to watch will be how Sony attempts to keep the Playstation 3 relevant to publishers after the gates to rampant piracy were opened following the Geohotz leaks. As long as Sony can keep piracy to a minimum, publishers will continue to support the system, as they are fully comfortable with its architecture by now, and as the system itself is well designed enough to last well into the twilight years of the current decade.

The Playstation line of systems is the bestselling hardware line of video game consoles in history. The first Playstation, released in 1995, sold 100 million units, whereas its legendary successor, the Playstation 2, recently crossed the 150 million units shipped mark. The Playstation Portable, Sony’s first foray into handheld gaming, has sold 60 million units so far, whereas the Playstation 3 currently stands at 47 million units sold.

Whether the Playstation 3, and the conspicuous lack of Playstation branding on the NGP and Xperia Play indeed indicate an end of the most successful hardware brand in gaming history remains to be seen.