There’s been rumors aplenty in regards to Microsoft’s new home console, codenamed “Durango.” Thanks to leak from NeoGAF, we now know everything. The leaked document came out in 2010 and details Microsoft’s plans for the Xbox 720.
The main details that you need to know from the document is that the Xbox 720 features a new Kinect, blu-ray player, backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 and a price point of only $299. There’s more to this story, however, from the information contained within the leaked document. Some of it is extremely surprising while some of it just makes plain sense.
So, the first question is obviously, “How powerful is the Xbox 720?” Microsoft is playing around with the idea of six to eight x86 or ARM processors with each one clocked at 2GHz. The power would be more than enough to power the next generation of games while keeping costs low. The system will also feature 4GB of RAM which is a major upgrade from the 512MB of RAM in the Xbox 360. It will also reportedly use a single GPU clocked at 1 GHz. The components will only cost $225 and will be 8x more powerful than the Xbox 360.
As for the other interesting things contained within the document. How about Project Fortazela? While the Xbox 720 will be out in 2013, Microsoft will launch its main assault on the living room and everywhere you go with a pair of Kinect Glasses in 2014. The document says that it will allow “seamless integration of the digital world with the physical world.” Using Xbox Live, the glasses will provide “real time information on people, places and objects.”
Microsoft’s recently announced SmartGlass works into this as well. The document says that Microsoft is going for a three screen approach in 2014 with the television, tablets/phones and Kinect Glasses providing a consolidated Xbox 720 experience across all devices. The TV experience will be all about Xbox TV apps that work similarly to how Google TV and Apple TV work now. It will just feature a decidedly Metro design. SmartGlass will be expanded to provide “premium experiences on existing and inexpensive hardware.”
What about the new Kinect? It’s called Kinect V2 and features better accuracy alongside stereo imaging instead of mono. The biggest improvement over the last Kinect, however, is that the new one features its own on-board processor. The original Kinect device featured its own processor but was later cut to lower costs. The current Kinect piggybacks on one of the three processors in the Xbox 360. Another improvement has the new Kinect being able to track up to four players at once instead of the current two.
What we have here is a new console that might actually be somewhat revolutionary. The games console has to adapt to survive and that is what Microsoft is planning to do here. They want to make it more than just a games conosle and turn it into an integral part of the living room. While that is the intention of any games console, Microsoft seems to have a pretty good grasp on it here.
It’s bears mentioning that this document is from 2010. Things change and this could be a proof of concept. We just don’t know. For now, let’s put this safely into the rumor box, but I really want this one to be true.
Check out the entire document below to see what Microsoft has in store for the Xbox 720:
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