The New Xbox Era Begins Today
The Xbox 360 launched in 2005 as a successor to the original Xbox. The console sold 75 million units and is finally getting a successor after 8 long years.
The Wii U and some details on the PS4 have already been released, making the new Xbox the last to be revealed.
We will get all the details starting at 10 a.m PT/ 1 ET. Here is a guide to all the rumors and information regarding the new Xbox.
What will it be called? What will the price be?
The Xbox Infinity, The Xbox fusion, Xbox 720, or simply “Xbox” are all possibilities. Most bets are on Microsoft going the Apple route and choosing just Xbox as the new name.
The other names have been faked on social sites and others have been called leaked by the media. No one really knows what the name might be.
There have not been any confirmed price reports on the new Xbox. Sony has not released pricing information either, possibly to be more competitive when Microsoft does.
A leaked document stated that the price of the new Xbox would be $299. With all the rumored internals and specs we highly doubt that price point.
A focus on games. Or not?
In 2005 we had an Xbox 360 that served as a device that we put our games into and not much else. Xbox Live was already an established service, but it was mainly for multiplayer and communicating with friends.
Every Xbox 360 even came with a cheap headset so that everyone could communicate with each other. What also launched in 2005 was the Xbox Live Marketplace. As a new place to download games, see trailers and get demos, and you could even get some movies and TV shows.
This is a signal of what might be coming for the new Xbox. At least once a year it seemed like the Xbox received face-lift in software updates and changes.
With the introduction of the new tile layout came a slew of Xbox apps. Major services started to appear on the console like Verizon’s cable network, Pandora, Netflix, Crackle and so on.
Games will be on the back-burner as Microsoft wants to, and has publicly stated, that they want to be your number one device in the living room. Microsoft has been courting many new partners and has been rumored to even be available in a set-top box form.
Always Online and a TV/Game Hybrid Console
The rumors of a set-top box experience on the new Xbox started when Nancy Hellens, a former CBS boss, was hired by Microsoft to head up a new entertainment division of Xbox.
We have already seen some minor implementation of this on the 360 but expect to see much, much more focus on TV and how the Xbox can transform your experience. The Verge has claimed that the new Xbox will have a feature to show internet content alongside cable content.
This is why many feel the always-on rumor of the new Xbox may be true. To always be connected to streaming services and your TV experiences, similar to what the Roku or Tivo do.
Games at the Show
Expect to see more of Call of Duty: Ghosts at the show, Fifa, a new Forza, and most likely some family friendly titles for the average consumer.
The shift to casual gaming and entertainment has been clear and we don’t expect to see a lot of AAA titles come out of this event.
A possible surprise may be Bungie showing of more of its new game Destiny.
Leaked Specs
Specs were leaked a long time ago and it has been all but confirmed that new Xbox will feature: an AMD x86 CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a much larger hard disk, and it has been rumored to have a Blu-Ray drive.
The new architecture could also mean that the new Xbox will not be backwards compatible.
Nvidia has also stated that the new Xbox will use PhysX.
There are many spec lists floating around but DenofGeek shared this one:
8 CPU cores running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz)
– Each CPU thread has its own 32 KB L1 instruction cache and 32 KB L1 data cache
– Each module of four CPU cores has a 2 MB L2 cache resulting in a total of 4 MB of L2 cache
– Each core has one fully independent hardware thread with no shared execution resources
– Each hardware thread can issue two instructions per clock
Storage and Memory:
– 8 gigabyte (GB) of RAM DDR3 (68 GB/s)
– 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102 GB/s)
– from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec
– Hard drive is always present
– 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive
Networking:
– Gigabit Ethernet
– Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct
Hardware Accelerators:
– Move engines
– Image, video, and audio codecs
– Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware
– Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing
Controller
The Xbox 360 has won so many awards over the years and it has been reported by Kotaku that new controller will be identical to the 360 controller.
Size and some small design changes may be made, but expect more of the same.
Used Games
A subject of heated debate: should the new Xbox let you play used games?
Every console has allows you take your game over to your friends house and just play. It has been rumored that both the PS4 and Xbox 360 will feature technology to hold a game to a single Xbox license.
No one has truly confirmed this or not, but this would be a major hit to places like Gamestop and Best Buy. We hope this rumor is false. Please!
Xbox Mini to compete with Apple TV, and Windows 8
Xbox wants to be the number one device that you go to in your living room. They could achieve this by launching a traditional console with a mini version that would stream games from the cloud.
The mini could be future proof, as streaming tech gets better and easier to use for the average consumer. Instead of a big and scary Xbox, they can buy something similar to a Roku or Apple TV.
Reportedly the new Xbox(s) will run a version of Windows 8. This means developers could develop for one platform and Windows 8 PC owners could possible see the same games become available the same day as the Xbox.
Hopefully..
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