Xbox 720 is 22 months away, will ship with Kinect 2, and brings games to life using technology straight out of Star Trek. it's already designed - this we know. You can't keep a lid on a story this huge.
XBOX 720 CONTENTS:
It's on the case. The new Metro Xbox 360 Dashboard and apps are turning the 360 into a device capable of halting those company's living room aspirations, while the next machine will be ground-up designed to be the centre of your home entertainment.
XBOX LOOP?
The real story is, of course, inside the box, and in Microsoft's research labs around the world.
Regular Microsoft secret-exposer MSnerd ties the next Xbox to the internal project 'Loop.' This is not the first time that codename's been applied to an Xbox prototype - we know Xbox Loop was an Xbox device once before (it was never released), and this lends the rumour credibility as it's insider knowledge. Unless it debunks it completely because it's an out-of-date whisper...
WHAT WILL XBOX 720'S SPECS BE LIKE?
MSnerd also reckons that like 360 the next Xbox has a multi-core central processing unit (CPU), but this time with a 'main' core supported by secondaries to compute graphics needs, AI, Kinect and all other stuff Microsoft are using to differentiate this from the 'old' gen.
For months the new CPU was rumoured to be 'Obed,' but our own sources suggest otherwise - take tech site semiaccurate.com seriously when it say the next CPU is 'Oban'. Our sources confirm the site was the first to get the name right, which strengthens its claim that Oban is finished and due to enter production in December 2012.
Oban is thought to be a PowerPC-based processor from IBM - similar to the 360's CPU - but there's good evidence to suggest AMD is involved with the next Xbox. In either case, this processor is built by ATI, which means 360's backwards compatibility problems will not be repeated.
And don't underestimate Epic's clout. When Microsoft was designing the 360 it was Epic's Gears of War demo which forced MS to increase RAM from 256Mb to 512Mb, and that was then. This time Epic's Euro-boss Mike Gamble has called Samaritan a "request to the hardware manufacturers for what we'd like to be able to do." Where Epic's Unreal Engine leads, the hardware simply has to follow.
Historically, Sony has always built the most powerful machine: PS2 was more powerful than Dreamcast, PSP more powerful than DS, PS3 more powerful than 360, and Vita more powerful than 3DS.
Don't expect the next generation to be any different - Sony won't be bundling an expensive Kinect sensor in every box, and PS4's processor won't need to dedicate time to Kinect processing. PS4 will almost certainly overpower the next Xbox.
But you don't win console wars with power. You win with ingenuity. The Wii and DS proved platform manufacturers don't have to knock out the beefiest machine to win. The 360 beat PS3 and the DS beat PSP, despite Sony's powerhouse processors.
XBOX 720'S GRAPHICS AND KINECT 2
Microsoft's strength is innovation. It can beat almost any other tech company on the planet in a battle at the patent office. Nobody but Microsoft can build a Kinect, and that's important when Kinect is about to take over the world.
Research into tracking specific parts - fingers and eyes - is working now with only marginally upgraded Kinect tech, and a MS research paper explains how the future of Kinect will be in transparent Kinect 2 displays.
That tech was demonstrated in Microsoft Research Cambridge's Holodesk - stackable objects rendered in 3D behind a sheet of glass, powered by Kinect head and finger tracking. Holodesk is closely related to Microsoft's Omnitouch system which can project a touchscreen anywhere.
Comments
38 comments so far...
Pedromr on 25 Jan '12 said:
It's not entirely true. PS2 was less powerful than CG (RE4 on ps2 was eye bleeding ugly), and GC was less powerful than the first Xbox, so you could say that (Putting dreamcast aside, bcos it didn't live long enough to see the end of its own gen) sony had the less powerful machine on the previous generation. Despite of that, was the most sucessful playstation product so far. Tells a lot about the processing power vs good games.
FixBeatGames on 25 Jan '12 said:
i think you're jumping the gun abit tbh. even by your own guesswork in this article, there's 22 months (nearly 2 years, i like how you use months for more impact lol) until the next consoles see the light of day. and with the ps3 and it's bloated exclusives list over the next couple of years, compared to xbox's couple and drones of drivel kinect games, could well just even out those sales of 'xbox vs ps3' over the next 2 years, don't you think?
StonecoldMC on 25 Jan '12 said:
Interesting article but its all just hearsay and speculation.
Roll on E3 2012 I say (and were not even out of January yet
).
z_surf_z on 25 Jan '12 said:
I'm thinking the next Xbox will be f**king awful, given how Microsoft have acted the last year with kinect and that new awful metro dash, the new Xbox will probably continue down that same set top box for the masses path, heres hoping PS4 is a pure hardcore games machine like the Xbox360 during the first 5 years of release
Sentinator on 25 Jan '12 said:
"Don't expect the next generation to be any different - Sony won't be bundling an expensive Kinect sensor in every box, and PS4's processor won't need to dedicate time to Kinect processing. PS4 will almost certainly overpower the next Xbox."
I honestly wouldn't like to say. If the rumours about the power of the next Xbox is true then do Sony really need to put out a massive power house? They definitely won't want to repeat the same mistake they made with PS3. I'm curious what Fr33kye thinks of this. I still think they'll duct tape two PS3s together this time.
I'm still reading the article btw. Its nice to see CVG celebrating the rumour and speculation. Next gen here we come
tassletine on 25 Jan '12 said:
I'd really like to see some hard data on Xbox sales. Every single person I know who bought one at launch now has a replacement model due to failure, so any claim made about outselling another console should reflect this. The actual SALES aren't in dispute but I'd like to know how many owners there are out there.
StonecoldMC on 25 Jan '12 said:
http://www.oldfortchurch.com/upload/Do-You-Care_main-logo.jpg
Barca Azul on 25 Jan '12 said:
Im no industry expert, but it sounds like they would alienate the people that have made the 360 the success it is, if this is true!
Are they trying to be the next Wii?
Either way, it could be bad for core gamers, dumbed down versions to fit both consoles without innovation?
Im sure they will sort 1st party out, but 3rd party has always failed so far in the innovation stakes, outside of party games!
Plus, shouldnt we have seen some AAA games by now making use of the innovative tech? Did I miss them?
Ill certainly wait before parting cash on a next console.
Chris_Shanahan87 on 25 Jan '12 said:
thank god somebody understands that power means squat. Someone point a Sony exec to this article so they can get a clue. Or not, doesn't matter to me as I will never buy into their awful vision of gaming.
Barry316 on 25 Jan '12 said:
jtthegame spreads his wisdom far and wide.
Sentinator on 25 Jan '12 said:
If MS want to keep core gamers they will need to strike a balance between core games and casual games consistently. Its a hard task to accomplish. Even Nintendo couldn't pull it off. Shame because you guys missed out on some great games (those who parted with Wii at least).
Black Mantis on 25 Jan '12 said:
Stands to reason that Microsoft & Epic would be working closely together, if they can reach the level of the Samaritan demo (or somewhere near it), I'll be satisfied. Yes, that demo was created on a beast of a PC, but a refined console dev-kit wouldn't need all of those gubbins.
As for which direction Microsoft will go in terms of games, it'll clearly be both casual/core from the off. The casual market is just too big to ignore and all of the big 3 would be foolish to ignore it. Personally, I can't wait to see this new version of Kinect in action.
Roll on E3, or MTV showcase!
B_G_G on 25 Jan '12 said:
Not to be a c**t, but you should probably realise that ATI stopped existing as a brand in 2010.
So it'd be tricky for them to be building anything.
Its been two years since ATI disappeared guys. Maybe do just a little research? Hmm?
ted1138 on 25 Jan '12 said:
I can't see Sony rushing to repeat the same mistakes they made with the PS3. My money would be on them pushing the PS3+PS Vita for a few more years yet...
Masterspy on 25 Jan '12 said:
Exciting stuff, can't wait to see the first tech demos start to trickle out!
Bright-Light on 25 Jan '12 said:
I just hope and pray that neither Sony os MS mess it up and end up making a balls of this. Right now the two consoles are so finely balanced that the competition it creates is great. It makes each company strive to make the best of what tech is out there.
Imagine Sony get it wrong and the ps4 dies a death. We will be left with 1 main console provider, and if history tells us anything, its that no competition, means no innovation, and no price wars.
billysastard on 25 Jan '12 said:
i read all of that and the only thing missing was the tagline "paid advertisment by microsoft" at the bottom.
billysastard on 25 Jan '12 said:
if sony does get things wrong again and pulls out there will still be the new advertbox to compete with the wii u so still competition
NGP on 25 Jan '12 said:
Those consoles were released after the PS2. At the time of PS2's release it was the most powerful console.... although Dreamcast graphics remained competitive while coders learned the tricky workings of PS2.
Izo on 25 Jan '12 said:
GC and Xbox were in development at the same time as PS2 though they didn't just appear after it's release so it's a bit misleading, console release doesn't really make it a true statement tbh.
daveyboy2000 on 25 Jan '12 said:
What you have failed to mention is the PS2 was released in 1999 and the Game Cube and Xbox released two years later or so, in 2001. So naturally given the technology leap, two or more years later, it was natural that the Game Cube/Xbox would be slightly or more powerful than the PS3!
B_G_G on 25 Jan '12 said:
If that were true I'd expect none of the "facts" in the article to be so obviously, stupidly, wrong. And they are.
gmcb007 on 25 Jan '12 said:
s**t i'm bored of these next gen articles. I'll just wait until they're offically announced to pay attention instead of getting worked up every time some stranger sends you an email with specs and rumours.
yuggenst on 25 Jan '12 said:
You know what would be cool - a combination of a computer and a console, with a simple set up that any person can upgrade it. We all agree (hopefully) that computer parts get upgraded extremely fast.
Would not it be nice if I could go and buy a new processor and switch with the current one, or update a graphics card?
I believe some PC owners never get into consoles because they produce sub-par graphics than the monsters that are quietly purring under their desks.
At the moment building your own PC is a distant world to most, but it is a world of bragging rights. I know that. I'm one of them. How many times have you mentioned to your friends or people you've met that you built your "Beast" yourself and saved a whole bunch of "monies". And then you start talking about the specs (not to confuse with "spectacles") and lose the majority on RAM and/or HDD or i7 processor which you overclocked, but to do that you had to put in liquid cooling.
And how many of you spent thousands on Alienware or other gaming machines which you could've built cheaper if only you knew how. Unless you are one of us, builders, you don't really care. Not everyone has time to research. But if you could make it easy, idiot proof, then you might have a new market.
A message of peace, as always.
Oh, yeah, Xbox 720, it's all speculation, we'll wait and see. But it would be nice if all consoles are released on the same day. Then you can really see the competition at it's best.
Two Pennys Worth on 25 Jan '12 said:
This article was lifted from the amazing magazine XWORLD 360, not wrote by CVG. Even so i do not think they have been too bias towards microsoft as they clearly state that in there opinion SONY will have the more powerful machine.
"paid advertisement by XWORLD 360"
Kinslowdian on 25 Jan '12 said:
I always thought things looked a bit jagged and bleached out on the PS2, don't think they blurred their textures as much as the Dreamcast.
Pedromr on 25 Jan '12 said:
Not really. PS2 was announced in 1999, released in 2000. GC and Xbox were both released in 2001, only one year later. And Dreamcast was released in 1998, 2 years before ps2. So, by the same logic, what was the point in saying that ps2 had more power than DC? Given the technology leap, it was also natural that ps2 would be more powerful than the DC.
I think that makes much more sense (if comparing consoles by brute processing power makes any sense at all) compare all consoles within a given generation, but I see your point.
DoucheVader on 25 Jan '12 said:
Did Computer and Video games hire a guy from the Xbox Next Gen PR team? Seriously this is hogwash. You are proclaiming Xbox the next winner and it hasn't been announced yet.
If you think Kinect is the ONLY tech that does motion control you are dreaming. Various other solutions are available now and Kinect still hasn't really done much more than PS-Eye did IMHO.
oc34 on 25 Jan '12 said:
"But both must surely be tough enough to run Epic's Samaritan demo from 2011's GDC"
Why must they surely be tough enough to run that? Please explain how Microsoft will manage to afford getting a gpu, which currently retails for upwards $500 (the gtx 580), in their next console?
There should be a caveat here that the epic demo will drive Microsoft to greatly increase their tech, not that the next console out of the box will "surely" be able to run a tech demo that not even most pc enthusiasts can run. The costs are too great, this is inflating the possible capabilities of the next console with no evidence as to its actual capabilities.
1Nightmare1 on 25 Jan '12 said:
It seems to me that the next gen xbox should have plenty of graphical power to run games on high level visuals. I don't know much about the processor, but you can only go so far with it before you reach a plateau with developers. I think ram is what matters the most, and it kind of surprised me when I read that "it was epic who pushed MS to increase 360 ram from 256 to 512 mbs" -paraphrase. You would think they would have given some thought about would could happen in the future, granted since ram isn't that expensive and a lot of processing power bottle necking occurs because of ram.
Personally my biggest concern would be whether Microsoft is going to have enough guts to chase the hardcore fans, whom helped their very first console sell in the first place. Because currently it seems to me that hardcore fans are sort of left in the dark when MS went crazy after casuals with their mediocre kinect games, while Sony went strong on the hardcore with bunch of nice exclusives. I guess we will find out in the next E3, whether MS is serious about hardcore gamers or not.
alan666 on 25 Jan '12 said:
Hmmm
flyfletch on 25 Jan '12 said:
True, i really wish people would stop going on about how the new dashboard is crap, how MS a changing for the worse blah blah blah, the above is true, you can not expect a company to completely ignore a huge market like the casual market, its never going to happen, and you can be sure Sony will follow their lead to some extent. And as for the dashboard, i actually like it, its clean fresh and to the point in my eyes, its not like you can get lost on it, it has heading above everything!
Now as for the lack of games, have you considered that maybe MS have changed priority to producing games for the new machine, and leaving it to 3rd party games to prop up the roster, which in my opinion is ok, considering the quality of a lot of these games? This is never going to please everyone, but it happens every time, GET OVER IT
markyR on 25 Jan '12 said:
I think it's still games that win console wars, not innovation. Take the Vita, sure it has the front and back touch screens but people were crying out for dual analogue sticks first and foremost! A joystick is a joystick, mouse a mouse, driving wheel and peddles driving wheel and peddles.
Whilst I would say the Kinect etc are great products and help get your fat ass off the sofa, the hardcore in us all wouldn't play shooters or driving sims with them? The big two offer great media integration, but can improve on these, above that what can they innovate? It seems a bit gimmicky, kinda the reason we have stuck with the same forms of input for many years.
Bah, I guess? we will find out come E3 although I am going to state no new PS4 will be shown until the end of year Japanese game expo. It can keep it's cards close to it's chest, make the announcement on home turf, and still prevent Wii U sales.
But personally I would choose MS for next gen home console, for me Xbox Live just kills everything else and is where the real innovation is.
Shadmeister on 26 Jan '12 said:
So, in November 2013 the when the next XBOX is released, it will have at least a 3 year old graphics chip ?
Doesn't seem very Next Gen.
Will it be able to perform as good as a PC now such as when running BF3 ?.
I do not have BF3 or PC, but played the demo on XBOX - lots of frame rate issues when there is a lot of action occurring. Posts from developers stated that it was a combination of max data rate to the console (multiplayer), memory and grapics processign with the destructible environment.
So will this new Next Gen XBOX be able to perform adequately ?
In 2 years time we will get a console that will not be able to play games that are effectively 2 years old ?. using a 3 year old GPU.
Not really Next Gen.
sjholland87 on 26 Jan '12 said:
I'm not clued up on business things. I'm no Richard Branson and anybody like that. I may own my own business but I leave the maths side to my friend. I'm no spin doctor either but...
Is a sale not a sale no matter how it comes!?!
Just a suggestion but if you are really that bothered about numbers, may I suggest you buy a calculator and butthurt over that!?!
And for all you who are mentioning about the price... They'll attempt to put themselves in a loss lead situation like they did with the 360 and as Sony tried with the PS3. Both companies can afford to (unless you believe the crap what is written in The Guardian where, according to them, MS are in massive trouble, Sony are non existent but Apple reign over us all).
jtthegame on 26 Jan '12 said:
Wish people would stop talking about the next xbox and playstation one nothing has been announced and two and most of all xbox 360 and ps 3 are powerful enough for the games being made in general now so there is no need for a upgrade at the moment. i believe both xbox and ps 3 can stick around for the whole 10 years so that would mean no new xbox till 2015 or if they want to be early with it 2014. the only console not powerful enough for games being made these day is the wii hence the wii u announcement.
Axman41 on 27 Jan '12 said:
Awesome! I've been waiting on some legit 720 news.
ps3james on 7 Feb '12 said:
What to believe... What not too...