More rumours are surfacing about the follow-up to Microsoft's Xbox 360, with industry publication Develop predicting that the new console will be unveiled next year and will gone on sale Christmas 2013, and they've even gone as far as suggesting its code name is Xbox Next.
Microsoft Xbox 360 is 5-years-old, and turns 6 in November, and there's no doubt its an impressive beast, but it's starting to show its age. Several games being released over the winter, including EA & DICE’s BF3, which requires the game to be installed to be played in full-hd. This throws up the question: Are we now reaching the end of the line for the 360?
Looking back at the 360's reign, the console has come along way in the 5 years, with numerous additions to the service including Last FM, Sky Player, Kinect, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Indie and plently of other tweaks heading for this falls dashboard update. Microsoft has done a commendable job in making it last this long, but can we really be expected to believe the current party line from Microsoft that it will last 10 years?
According to people in the know…..
According to industry publication Develop, who have spoken to numerous industry folk, they reckon that the new Xbox will be unveiled at the Electronic Expo next year, with a Christmas 2013 release date.
Develop also reckons that UK games studio, Lionhead, is already working on a launch title dubbed Fable Next, and that EA has already got its mits on early prototypes of the hardware. Of course both EA and Microsoft have failed to comment. But if we dig a little deeper - a new console could be with us sooner than many think.
If you look at some descriptions for several Microsoft employees, the next-gen Xbox development is well underway at the Xbox skunk-works.
According to Microsoft employee Jeff Faulkner’s profile, he has been tasked to work as “Xbox Next Gen Creative Director” since January 2011, where he “guides the vision for Xbox’s User Experience Design across Social Media, User Experience, Entertainment, Gesture and Voice Input, Information Design and Brand and Visual design.” While this description isn’t the smoking gun we’ve been looking for it does show that Microsoft are well on the way to developing the follow-up the Xbox 360.
Similarly, Senior Creative Director for Xbox, Jonathan Harris, job description says he’s been “designing the next generation of entertainment” for the past 14 months.
Microsoft even has their interns hard at work on the new console. Joe Lagevin, the Xbox Hardware Intern at Microsoft, has “designed and simulated high speed data buses to prevent electromagnetic interference in next-gen devices.”
Finally, the icing on the cake goes to Patrick Corrigan, who worked at Microsoft from February 2011 to June 2011 “Providing groundwork and integration for branding elements for next-gen Xbox on all forms of media. Ranging from print to UI across future releases of the Xbox platform.”
What the 3rd party developers reckon…..
There are rumours also coming from a variety of different 3rd party developers too. Matthew Karch, CEO of Sabar Interactive, who are currently working on Halo: Combat Evolved anniversary, recently told CVG that he would be shocked if Microsoft didn't get its console out before Sony.
While remaining tight-lipped about the new hardware, he reckons that the new hardware will be capable of "phenomenal things". Citing features such as AI, physics, crowd technology, and the way games characters are simulated will be greatly improved.
Xbox 720 outed by Hollywood blockbuster…..
Another interesting rumour, which surfaced last week, was from an unlikely source. A eagled-eyed movie go-er spotted the Xbox 720 logo in Hugh Jackman's upcoming sc-fi film Real Steel.
Spotted during a futuristic scene set in a sports arena, the Xbox 720 logo appears on digital banner ads alongside popular brands such as Cadillac, Budweiser and Coca Cola.
But what can expect from the new console specs-wise? Well, this actually isn't that hard to pin down. If you luck at the current crop of top PC games this is what you can expect from the next Xbox console.
What DICE reckons on the specs……
Peter Bach, from DICE has gone on record and said the next-generation is a case of more horsepower – in particular multiple processors and graphics cards in a single unit.
He reckons that the PC version of first-person shooter Battlefield 3 is what gamers should expect from the next-generation of consoles.
“If anyone would build a new console today, that would be the result,” Battlefield 3 executive producer Patrick Bach told Eurogamer in reference to the PC version of the game.
“At least. Probably more, because it’s classic PC technology. We know everything about multi-threading now. We know everything about multi-graphics card solutions now. If someone built a console where the specs are that or more, we have the technology to do something. We could port the game to that console tomorrow.”
DICE built Battlefield 3 using its new Frostbite 2 engine, designed to future proof the studio and work with the next Xbox and PlayStation.
“There’s nothing we know about now that the new consoles would do differently, rather do more,” Bach explained. “More processors. Bigger memory pools. Everything we have and more.
“The big step is to go from single processor to multi-processor. Single graphics card to multi-graphics card. To multi-memory. Do you do multiple memory pools or one memory pool? Since we can handle both consoles now, we control that as well. We have all the streaming systems. We have whatever we might need for the future.
“I would be surprised if there were something we couldn’t do with the next-generation of consoles.”
The only remaining questions for the next generation of the console remains whether both Microsoft and Sony are willing to ditch physical media for digital downloads.
There’s no doubt that this model could work, the success of Valve’s Steam is evidence enough, but with the games demanding larger and larger file sizes, it’s a tall order to expect a consumer to download a 50gb games over the UK’s creaking broadband networks. We’re getting close to being able to download those sorts of file sizes, but we’d expected digital and physical formats being offered to consumers.
What do you want to see in the next generation? Hit the comments and let us know.
And check footage from the PC version of BF3, which releases this week, to get an idea of what next-gen home consoles should be able to achieve. Impressive?
One thought on “Xbox 720 Given Code Name Xbox Next? Christmas 2013 Release?”
I always think PC’s produce better graphic but Consoles are value for money when their prices are compared to a gaming PC