The rumor mill never stops in the days before a console release, with everyone after specs and details for the latest and greatest consoles. Most recently, a wide range of details have been leaked(on slightly questionable authority) regarding Microsoft’s latest project, codenamed ‘Durango’. Truth be told, I’m having a hard time taking that codename seriously, as family friends of years past owned an SUV called a Durango. So now I can only wonder if the newest XBOX will be large, clunky and inefficient….
Right! On topic! Lets take a look at the latest rumors the internet has to offer on the newest XBOX, and see what all of them mean.
“The Durango console is designed to offer Game Developers modern hardware that is more powerful than the Xbox 360. It uses a similar x64 architecture and tool, and compared with the Xbox 360 development, will reduce development time and effort spent on optimization. Hardware accelerators, including “Move Engines” for common tasks, will be added to the console. Move engines can perform common game tasks like compression and decompression while moving data around the system. The console also has dedicated hardware support for common audio processing tasks that reduce the amount of CPU time that must be devoted to the audio. The GPU provides considerable computing power, and supports Direct3D 11.”
All of this sounds fairly standard, and is showing the same consideration towards developers that Microsoft has always had in abundance. One of the greatest advantages the XBOX held in the last generation was how easy it was to develop for in comparison to Playstation, so its nice to see Microsoft continuing this trend. But with Sony taking similar steps to ease development time, the playing field might be leveled in that regard. But from any perspective, easier development = better games(probably…).
“Durango will implement different power states so that it can always be powered on, but will draw minimal electricity when not in use. The console will be ready instantly when the users want to play, and will always maintain a network connection so that console software and games are always current. With this “Always on, Always connected” design, users will quickly and easily enjoy their connected entertainment experiences, with no waiting for the console to restart or install updates.”
“Firmware Updates” is one of those dirty words from this console generation, an inconvenience we never had to deal with before that earned itself no small degree of ire from the gaming community. Understandably so, it can be rather frustrating to sit down for a gaming session, only to have to wait ten minutes while your system trundles along updating. Pushing these to the background is a great first step. However, I really hope this ‘Always On, Always Connected’ feature isn’t mandatory. That it will maintain a network connection if one is available, but wont require it for play.
“Every Durango console will be sold with a new high-fidelity Kinect sensor, which will be required for the system to operate. The console will provide HD video, and will use new depth sensor technology to provide better screen resolution and noisy depth area. Active infrared illumination will provide high quality monochrome images even in low ambient light conditions. A wider field of view allows play in smaller spaces, and removes the need for a tilt motor.”
Microsoft is making it clear that they have no intention of abandoning Kinect support anytime soon. From what I can tell, the device seems to have been greatly improved, but that will never be the main argument. The argument will forever be Motion Controls vs. No Motion Controls. But with a Kinect sensor shipping with every console, you best prepare yourself for many more games with Kinect integration, as now developers can assume you have one.
“The Durango controller will make the best-in-class Xbox 360 controller even better. It will have low-latency wireless connectivity to the console, and improved ergonomics. System interactions that use the controller will be simplified to make them easier for noncore gamers.”
Rather vague and nondescript, we really wont know what to expect until we get our first look at the newest controller. But I wouldn’t expect a great deal of difference.
“Every Durango console will have a hard drive, although its exact capacity has not been chosen. It will be large enough, however, to hold a large number of games. All games will be installed on the hard drive. Play from optical disc will not be supported.
Durango consoles will have a Blu-ray Disc drive. Disc media will be used for distribution, but during gameplay, games will not use content from the optical disc. An installation system is being designed that will allow gamers to begin playing while the game is being installed on the hard drive rather than waiting until the installation is complete.”
Now this one is interesting. The “Not Supported” phrase is one that gamers never like to hear, and it does seem odd that you will no longer be able to play off the game’s disk, but I’m in the camp that is a bit more supportive of this. With the size that games are reaching, the delays associated with reading optical disks is going to become more and more of a bottleneck. If(and this is a big if) the play-while-installing feature is implemented well, you shouldn’t notice a great deal of delay when you first pop the disk in.
The issues that come to mind, however, is just how many games you’ll be able to fit on the internal hard drive. As well, this may effectively kneecap the notion of bringing a game to a friends console.
“Audio from Durango will be all digital–7.1 discrete PCM output through HDMI and S/PDIF. Hardware accelerators will be included for decoding and decompressing common audio formats. There also will be a dedicated sound processor to perform common digital processing in hardware”
Technical jargon. I’m sure it will sound nice.
So that is about all from the wide world of internet rumors. Nothing spectacular or groundbreaking on display just yet, but it will be interesting to see what Microsoft has prepared for E3. This console generation already seems to be about refinement rather than massive innovation, and isn’t exactly capturing the imagination of its users. From the looks of these rumors, Microsoft is doing much of the same. But who knows, perhaps they’ll prove us wrong at E3?
Source: VGLeaks
