Written by: Steven Setser

Hello, SpecTech followers, and welcome to another wonderful Thursday! This week, Xbox increased the amount of controllers the One can have, and LG announced a device before it was supposed to, so let’s dig right in.

First off, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One will be able to have eight controllers, but not all games will make use of this feature, similar to the PlayStation 3.

Microsoft did, however, announce that we will not be able to use external hard drives with the new system at launch. That feature will come in an update after its launch, but there are a lot of people worried about using up the 500GB hard drive quickly since the system demands game installs.

Microsoft also announced that it has acquired Nokia’s Smartphone Division for over $7.1 billion; the deal will be completed in 2014. This means that all future Nokia phones will have Windows operating systems. This is not a surprise since Nokia has been making Windows Phones for about two years now.

Rumors are also flying about a Nokia tablet and a Nokia phablet. The Nokia “Bandit” is the rumored Nokia Lumia 1520, a very large cell phone, much like the Samsung Galaxy Note. It seems to have more space for icons and will run Windows Phone 8, not Windows 8 for PC.

Last week I reported on the rumors of the LG G-Pad 8.3, and LG decided to talk about it before it has been officially announced. It is the first 8-inch tablet to have a 1920 x 1200 HD screen, a 4,600mAh battery, 2GB RAM and a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor. It will come later this year with 16GB of storage and will be available in black or white.

When the PlayStation 4 was announced, Sony talked a lot about Gaikai. Gaikai is a service that will allow PS3 and PS Vita games to be streamed to the PS4. Sony has announced that this service will come to North America in 2014, but the company is unsure about the rest of the world—especially Europe.

The best thing about BlackBerry is BBM. We have known for a long time that BBM will be coming to iOS and Android, but a video about the use of it in its almost-finished state leaked recently. This means that BBM is very close to launching.

If you were interested in purchasing any of the Microsoft Surface tablets, you are in luck. The Surface RT, Surface Pro and covers all have permanent price cuts. The Surface is $799, Surface RT at $399 and Touch covers are $79.

Finally, the rumor last week was true. Apple has sent out invites for an Apple event on Tuesday. At the event, expect to see at least one new iPhone and the release of iOS 7. A second iPhone could make an appearance as well.