Documents leaks of Xbox 720 a $299 console with Kinect 2

After E3, it became pretty apparent that Microsoft was not planning on releasing a new console in 2012. That said, it was only a matter of time before the company released a new console as Nintendo had already announced its Wii U and the competition has the leg up over the Xbox 360 in graphical firepower. The folks at NukeZilla confirmed this. as they uncovered a 56 page dossier for the development of the Xbox 720, Kinect 2 and a Kinect Glasses project.
Starting with the console itself, the 56 page dossier calls the next Xbox, the Xbox 720 and states that the console should have a Blue-Ray drive, native 3D output and glasses, applications, more sensors and peripherals and a massive 6x bump in the overall performance from the Xbox 360. Other features outlined for the development of the new console include, FullHD 1080p playback and an always on state for the console. Microsoft wants the CPU on the new Xbox to have scalable cores and frequencies. It seems like the document is from a very early stage of the development cycle and Microsoft seems to be debating weather to use an ARM or x86 architecture with either six or eight cores clocked at 2GHz each with 4GB of DDR4 memory, alongside three PPC cores clocked at 3.2GHz each for backwards compatibility with existing Xbox 360 titles.
Microsoft wants to build a strong content story around the console and wants to bill it as the only thing one needs for their living room. For this, it plans to provide a baked in recording feature for TV content and a Windows 8 base to create a unified apps ecosystem for Windows Phone, Windows 8 and the Xbox. Microsoft intends to sell the console with the next Kinect for $299 over a ten year lifecycle and plans to sell over 100 million units.
As mentioned above, Redmond is even planning to release anew version of the Kinect called the Kinect 2. Microsoft wants to improve accuracy of the gesture input, but while doing so also wants to include features like stereo imaging, improved voice recognition, support for four-player tracking, an improved RGB camera, and dedicated hardware processing. Another aspect to the Kinect that the document references to multiplayer support for up to four with the user having the ability to improve the experience by way of accessories.
And this is not it, as Microsoft also has a Kinect Glasses project in development which has been codenamed Fortaleza. While, the document does not shed a lot of information on it, we do know that it will run on either Wi-Fi or 4G networks and will perhaps, incorporate augmented reality in a way that’s similar to Google’s Project Glass augmented reality glasses. This product might launch by 2014, and it does appear that it has been tailored for mobile use.

Posted in: Games,Microsoft,Xbox,Xbox 720