Xbox 720: 6x Performance Increase, Kinect 2, 3D, 1080p
A leaked document has provided us with a heap of information about the upcoming Xbox 720.
With E3 done, we thought we'd have to wait until June 2013 before we learned all about the next generation of Xbox, the Xbox 720. That may be the case, but a recently leaked document has given us an awful lot to chew on in the mean time.
The 56-page document was hosted on Scribd until this past weekend, when it was spotted by the Verge. It details Microsoft's vision for the Xbox 720 and dates back to August 2010.
Microsoft's kept pretty quiet about its Xbox 720 plans since rumors started circulating about a 2013 launch, but thanks to this document we now know that the company has big things planned for the new Xbox. The Verge reports that before the document it was pulled, it promised a 6x performance increase with the Xbox 720, as well as true 1080p output, full support for native 3D output and glasses, an always-on state for the console, support for Blu-ray, concurrent apps, additional sensor and peripheral support, and the ability to record TV content in the background.
Xbox 720 will also bring us Kinect 2, which Microsoft's document says will have higher accuracy, stereo imaging, improved voice recognition, support for four-player tracking, an improved RGB camera, dedicated hardware processing, four player gaming, and a pair of augmented reality Kinect Glasses, which are apparently similar to Google's Project Glass.
Alongside a promised 6x performance increase, there's also mention of true 1080p output with full 3D support and an "always on" state for the console. A slide on core hardware indicates that the next Xbox will be designed to be scalable in the number of CPU cores and their frequencies. Microsoft appears to have been debating whether to use six or eight ARM or x86 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.
Of course, Microsoft hasn't confirmed any of this news, but then we didn't expect them to, really. However, if you're looking for proof that it's a genuine Microsoft document, you mind find it interesting that Scribd says the document was pulled at the request of Covington & Burling LLP. What is Covington & Burling LLP? Just a law firm based out of Washington. According to the firm's website, the company helped Microsoft out with its Skype acquisition last year.

this aint pc bro. xbox cant draw more than 100w from the wall or else they run into heat problems.
So wow, we are getting x6 performance out of 25x more transistors possible on the same area of silicon. So either, the cost of the new xBox will be way down due to smaller die sizes or the performance per transistor sucks.
or they will say
.... Profit!
performance does not correlate to transistor count, it in fact follows a inverse exponential curve, there is a theoretical limit to the speed at which a semi conductor can be pushed, beyond which thermal resonance starts to kick in at an exponential rate, not amount of transistors is going to solve this problem, thus the emphasis on multicore computing
The games wouldn't be able to render full 1080p because they don't support it.
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8 cores would be interesting for the 720 though.
On top of all that have a whole new app based OS that syncs wirelessly with my windows computer, and does all the TV and recording stuff that they are talking about. Have that new OS a 720 exclusive to drive buyers to the 720.
Their current players would love them, because Halo 4 and stuff would still be playable on the 360, just on the "shit" graphics settings, while everyone with the 720 can enjoy a full 1080p with AA and high textures experience.
this aint pc bro. xbox cant draw more than 100w from the wall or else they run into heat problems.
hopefully they make it so that gaming doesn't get held back by consoles. sounds like the cpu power will be plenty for gaming for quite a few years, it's the GPU that worries me. for a long life gpu, you HAVE to get a flagship card, and I doubt they'll be cramming a 680/690 (7970/7990) in there. though, my 460 has stood the test of time better than i expected so who knows. 2-3 years of solid performance is good enough, i'll return to PC gaming after that.
oh, and i really hope they dont call it the "720" or "xbawks" for that matter.
throw it in a HAF X case. Problem solved
lol ya i guess your right, forgot about the power draw part of it. The current system with 3.2 GHz triple core PPC CPU and x1900 must be feeling a decent amount of power. I'd bet the 7950 and 670 pull less power then the x1900. I have nothing to back that up though.
http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_1288/How_Much_Power_Does_Your_Xbox_360_Use
a single 670 uses around 130w under load
The should just use the 7970M if the desktop cards pull to much power. The 7970M performs in between the 7850 and 7870 (it's a downclocked 7870), so that would actually put out very decent performance.