While Sony may have grabbed the recent spotlight by hinting at a PlayStation 4 unveiling on Feb. 20, there's some new details about the Microsoft Xbox 720 that are just as interesting. It seems that Microsoft's next-gen console will require an Internet connection, second-hand games could be blocked, and that Kinect 2.0 will ship with the system.
"Sources with first-hand experience of Microsoft's next generation console have told us that although the next Xbox will be absolutely committed to online functionality, games will still be made available to purchase in physical form," writes Edge in a new report.
This constant online connectivity will be propagated by an enhanced version of Xbox Live, which will become even more of an "integral part of Microsoft's next console." It's not too hard to see Microsoft scrapping an offline interface for a completely online one, given the fact that it looks like the company wants to exercise more control over its games.
While Microsoft will be pushing online interactions, it seems that games will still ship in physical form, on 50GB Blu-Ray discs, but will come with an activation code that will render it useless to anyone but the first purchaser, and presumably, his or her Xbox Live account. This could spell the end of second-hand game sales, but before anybody blows a gasket, bear in mind that none of this has been confirmed by Microsoft.
Not much is known about Kinect 2.0, except that it is far more accurate (enough to read lips, some have speculated), and that it will allow for more players.
The Edge sources also apparently confirmed that the Xbox 720 specs as being an "AMD eight-core x64 1.6GHz CPU, a D3D11.x 800MHz graphics solution, and 8GB of DDR3 RAM."
Given that Sony is planning on revealing the PlayStation 4 soon, Microsoft will probably start rolling out some official details in the near future, so stay tuned as we see if these rumors are true.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
