Rumor: Microsoft developing two next-gen Xbox 720 consoles

[Shawn Knight]

Microsoft could be preparing two gaming consoles to replace the current-generation Xbox 360, according to industry sources. It is believed that the new consoles could arrive sometime in 2013 which would give Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) ample time to test and refine their 28nm manufacturing process.

Redmond is said to be developing an entry-level system as well as a true next-generation hardcore gaming console. Multiple consoles aren't a new idea as Microsoft sells the 360 at multiple price ranges but the differences typically are minimal: various capacity hard drives, limited edition offerings and game and accessory bundles.

The lower-end model will come at a very low price point and positioned much like a set-top box. The report says this unit will target streaming media services like Netflix and cater to more casual gamers, described as a Kinect-themed portal.

The mainstream Xbox would be a true upgrade in every sense for hardcore gamers, featuring an optical drive, hard drive storage and backwards-compatibility with existing 360 games. Such a system would carry a premium over the entry-level model, with price and graphics performance reflective of it.

It is also believed that Kinect will receive a substantial upgrade, perhaps in line with what Microsoft is planning to do with the Windows version sometime next year.

We could see hard evidence of the next-gen console as early as January at CES. Rumors suggest the 720 could contain a six-core CPU, AMD graphics and 2GB of DDR3 memory.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/46409-rumor-microsoft-developing-two-next-gen-xbox-720-consoles.html

 

[yukka]

Backwards compatibility. Great if it comes to fruition. I will buy one of those pretty fast if the price isn't ridiculous.

 

[Mister_K]

Hmm I always wondered, what if you get a GPU from a PC and somehow connect it to your xbox? would it work? same goes for other parts =/

Or would be cool if they made an xbobx OS (emulator would do) for PC so I could play with friend that use xbox on my PC.

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

Ram is so cheap! 4GB minimum cmon guys!

 

[Guest]

2GB of RAM? I just bought 8GB of DDR3 for my laptop, cost me $50 with shipping. Why cheap out on the RAM?

 

[Guest]

i thought there was going to be xbox game playability on windows 8?

 

[Mister_K]

Guest said:
i thought there was going to be xbox game playability on windows 8?

If there is, that is just one reason why id buy W8.

 

[Wendig0]

xclusiveitalian said:
Ram is so cheap! 4GB minimum cmon guys!

I'd say at least 8gb minimum, but this is why PC gaming is better, and will be for years to come. Hardware customization till your heart's content.

 

[Mister_K]

Wendig0 said:

xclusiveitalian said:
Ram is so cheap! 4GB minimum cmon guys!

I'd say at least 8gb minimum, but this is why PC gaming is better, and will be for years to come. Hardware customization till your heart's content.

Wish we could use PC hardware for consoles... but then might as well just use a PC :X

 

[Cota]

xclusiveitalian said:
Ram is so cheap! 4GB minimum cmon guys!

Not a lot of games really use all that much memory

 

[Mindwraith]

an optical drive in 2013? lame...

 

[hahahanoobs]

I wouldn't mind seeing 4GB in a console. For the gaming part it's probably not needed, but since when has XBOX been just a gaming machine?

 

[lchu12]

I guess its time to save up for a new console!

 

[Guest]

..I guess considering the XBox 360 and PS3 both have 512MB of ram, 2GB is a considerable upgrade.

ps; I don't know what company is referred to as 'Big Blue', and I never remember what HP stands for. Arg...

 

[DeliciousPie]

About time. Games are being held back because of the current generation is ancient and awful.

I'm just interested in this because at least my crappy PC ports will be less crappy for a bit :/

 

[Wendig0]

Mindwraith said:
an optical drive in 2013? lame...

I imagine optical drives will be around for a while, till more people have access to high speed internet. In some parts of the country that's still non-existent, so people will need to purchase games/movies in a physical format rather than waiting till 2015 before their download finishes.

 

[jameslangley]

2GB of RAM? I just bought 8GB of DDR3 for my laptop, cost me $50 with shipping. Why cheap out on the RAM?

They don't need it, when you are using disks, all of the processing is done directly by the processor, there is no need to copy it to the RAM. If they are only using 2GB of RAM, I would guess at least some of the HDD is solid state, to cache data for faster performance and less heat generation. If they are using 6 cores, it is likely there will be 3 dedicated CPU cores, 2 GPU processing cores and a ODD/HDD shared core, in addition to the GPU's processing power.

You have to remember that consoles work differently to PCs, in that you get a close as you can to a "system on a chip" in a console, as it is all built to a propriety schematic with the exact same parts.

 

[Guest]

Mindwraith : "an optical drive in 2013? lame... "

how would you play ur old 360 games without one?

 

[herpaderp]

2GB of RAM should be more than enough, seeing as how consoles run minimalist OSes and the games are optimized to hell and back....We've seen the impressive work console devs put out even with the paltry 256MB of system memory each console has, they should have no problems putting out much more impressive work with 8x the RAM. On the GPU front, seeing how affordable graphics cards that can play @ 1920x1080 are, I'd expect at least something on the level of an HD6770/GTX 550, if not better, but that's only assuming they'd price the consoles somewhere around the usual $299/399 price point.

I personally can't wait for the next gen systems to come out, if for nothing other than to raise the bar for console to PC ports. This next system cycle, we might actually start to get ports that can stress our multi-hundred dollar graphics cards, not because of crappy optimization, but because they'll be genuinely resource intensive.

 

[RH00D]

jameslangley said:

2GB of RAM? I just bought 8GB of DDR3 for my laptop, cost me $50 with shipping. Why cheap out on the RAM?

They don't need it, when you are using disks, all of the processing is done directly by the processor, there is no need to copy it to the RAM. If they are only using 2GB of RAM, I would guess at least some of the HDD is solid state, to cache data for faster performance and less heat generation. If they are using 6 cores, it is likely there will be 3 dedicated CPU cores, 2 GPU processing cores and a ODD/HDD shared core, in addition to the GPU's processing power.

You have to remember that consoles work differently to PCs, in that you get a close as you can to a "system on a chip" in a console, as it is all built to a propriety schematic with the exact same parts.

You seem to be mislead, the six-core CPU would not have cores dedicated to graphics because it's a CPU not a GPU. (Unless they used one of those CPU's with the GPU integrated into the CPU, but even then it's still not the literal CPU doing the graphics work) RAM still needs to be filled with what ever is actively being processed by the CPU. And the RAM dedicated to graphics cards still needs to be filled with what ever is being actively processed by the GPU. The difference is that on a console the data is going DVD -> RAM -> CPU/GPU whereas on PCs it's HDD -> RAM -> CPU/GPU.

Next gen consoles should have 8GB RAM because it's extremely cheap and for should have it just for the headroom. Current games like RAGE and BF3 have to resort to gimmicks like "streaming" textures because the consoles don't have *enough RAM* to hold all the textures in RAM. And you have to remember, 2GB is already a low amount, if they want consoles to have 10 year lifespan, putting in 2GB in 2013 and expecting 2GB to STILL be viable in 2023 is taking a huge stretch.

Consoles are becoming more "general" entertainment devices so the 8GB RAM should be in, right out of the gate in my opinion. Compare the 360 from launch to now, they have a lot more services integrated that they didn't before, such as Netflix. If the trend of consoles becoming general computing devices continues then that's just another reason to have more RAM in them.

 

[jameslangley]

Yea, I thought 1 or more of the cores was integrated with the GPU chip to allow faster processing time with as little latency as possible?

 

[Guest]

herpaderp said:
2GB of RAM should be more than enough, seeing as how consoles run minimalist OSes and the games are optimized to hell and back....We've seen the impressive work console devs put out even with the paltry 256MB of system memory each console has, they should have no problems putting out much more impressive work with 8x the RAM.

Thats so true. Unfortunately most people don't see it that way. A good example is if my PC had only 512mb of ram to work with, I would have the crappiest graphics ever.

 

[Guest]

Im not buying one till i know if the build quality and reliability matches the impressive specs. The early model 360's were the ford pinto of the console world. The latest model 360 I own isnt bad. I actually feel confident it wiil last a few yrs.

 

[kamz999]

these are just rumors dude...

 

[jeffz6]

Aslong as its runs my tetris