For the gaming sector, the week's gotten even more interesting. A day after a new set of rumors surrounding Microsoft's (MSFT) next Xbox made the rounds, a report originating in Japan was speculating about Sony (SNE) and the PlayStation 4, specifically how much it's going to cost.

According to The Asahi Shimbun, the starting price of the PS4 game console "has yet to be set, but it is expected to exceed 40,000 yen." The report didn't quote the Tokyo-based electronics seller or sources for that estimate, but at current exchange rates, 40,000 yen would translate to right at $430. Considering where the last iteration began, that would be quite a step down.

When the current version of the console, the PlayStation 3, reached gamers in November 2006, two versions were available, starting at $499 for the base model in the U.S. and rising to $599 for the more powerful version. [Initial yen pricing was about 59,800 for the PS3, and with the yen around 118 to the dollar then, that would have

By Ron Haskins

After its failure to defeat a vulnerable President Obama and to retake the Senate in the 2012 elections, leading Republicans and conservative thinkers have conducted a searching critique of their Party. National Review, Commentary, and the Weekly Standard, three of the most important voices of conservative thinking, devoted nearly entire issues to dozens of penetrating and often scathing critiques of the Party by major right-leaning thinkers.

Although it would be a stretch to say that a consensus developed about any single factor accounting for the Party’s poor electoral performance, a prominent culprit was what might be called right-wing absolutism. In Rule and Ruin, Geoffrey Kabaservice gives an insider’s view of the cleansing of moderates from the Republican Party since the Goldwater/Johnson presidential election of 1964. The cleansing of moderates has in turn resulted in Republicans who win House and Senate seats being, on average, well to the right of the American