Right now some of the rumors are pretty fantastic including the possibility that it will contain an x86 AMD CPU and drop all backwards compatibility with older games. The rumor is interesting in that on the surface it could be a reality. We know that Microsoft wants to find a way to bring Xbox games to their other platforms including Windows 8 and Windows RT. Moving to an x86 base would allow these games to port very easily. However, here is a very big downside to doing this. If Microsoft drops any x86 based processor into the next generation Xbox it would be an admission that the PC is a better gaming platform than the RISC CPUs that have been used before. Of course this is Microsoft and they do not always listen to or do what is best. On top of that particular rumor Microsoft was backing away from a few tweets that were made by an alleged Microsoft employee which claimed that the new Xbox required an always on connection to work. This is another thing that would upset more than a few gamers.
Still as with everything there is probably some truth to these rumors. We do expect the next generation Xbox to require a connection to at least validate games. After that you could disconnect if you want, but the days of online authentication are well established and with Microsoft’s push to the cloud will factor into this at some point. As for the AMD CPU that is still a possibility, but we have our doubts that this will be an x86 CPU. It would be very foolish for Microsoft to alienate their customers with their next generation console. They should know this from Sony’s example when they did the same thing a few years ago.
There are things going on at Microsoft that just do not seem right. Windows 8 is not being accepted as well as Microsoft wanted and Windows RT could end up being a failure. If they keep up their trend of pushing an eco-system that most people are not ready for or do not want Microsoft could really be in trouble in the next few months.
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