Project Durango (Microsoft's 3rd console)

[Talon87]

I could've sworn we had a thread about the fan-dubbed "NextBox" for ages, but I couldn't seem to find it despite going back to Page 5. *shrug* If we do have one, feel free to merge this thread with it. Otherwise ... let's go ahead and discuss Microsoft's next video game console!

While Kotaku has become something of a laughing stock in gaming journalism, in this article here, which is currently making the rounds around the Internet, they claim to have quite a lot of insider information about the new console. Summarizing the biggest claims:

• all consoles will ship with a Kinect 2.0
  • it's much better than the Kinect 1.0
  • but it has to be plugged in at all times; unplug it and the console won't work
  • supposedly this is to make developers less scared about making portions of their games require Kinect functionality, but the thought of a camera facing your living room and on at all times is more than a little eerie ^^;
• all consoles will ship with a hard drive now
  • the standard size is 500 GB
  • all games must install to the hard drive to be playable
  • some games may support dynamic "install as you play" functionality, whereby the rest of the game installs in the background while you play the earliest portions of the game which have already been installed
• the console supports multiple games or applications to be open at the same time, like a computer or smartphone would
• new controllers
  • they will probably be very similar to 360 ones
  • 360 controllers won't work on the new console
• stuff about the Companion App *shrug*
• final retail model specs

For those specs, see here: Gawker link, Imgur link. They include:

• CPU: 8 cores, 64-bit, 1.6 GHz clock speed, and 4 MB of CPU cache space
• GPU: 800 MHz clock speed
• System Memory: 8 GB DDR3 RAM
• and more!

Pretty sure the next XBox is more powerful than my computer. And people in the comments section are saying its specs fall short of a mid-level PC on the current market. >_<

[Amras.MG]

This is the part that would freak me out if there was any chance at all of me buying a Durango:

It's also because the Kinect will always be watching you. The new version of the camera is able to track up to six individual "skeletons" in the same room at all times. This has clear gameplay implications, such as allowing a game to instantly identify a person, but could also be related to a recently-patented Microsoft system for monitoring and maybe even charging users based on who is watching what. SuperDae's Kinect documentation also makes mention of automatic player identification becoming part of a gameplay experience.

[Talon87]

Yeah, didn't want to bias too heavily in the OP post of the thread, but I quite agree. Seems companies are getting way, way too comfortable inching into every facet of our lives these days. Can you really trust Apple with your iPhone given it has a built-in microphone and pretty decent video camera? Can you really trust Microsoft with a Kinect that is able to tell different human beings apart in the household and insists on always being plugged in to a machine that is ostensibly always connected to the Internet? ('Cause seriously: who plays XBox games and doesn't also buy into XBox Live? .......... *sheepishly raises hand from back when he owned a working XBox*) Obviously, one has to wonder how silly we're being, but ... I dunno. It is a bit of a creeper Orwellian thing for them to do, and that does turn me off.

But the thing is, people act like you have to leave the camera facing you at all times and, afaik, you don't. All they ask is that it be plugged in. Not that it be plugged in and watching you. You can ...

• turn it to face the wall 2 inches away from it, or put it down facing the television frame or television stand
• put a tea towel over it

Stuff like this. There's no reason you have to let Microsoft have a camera into your living room or bedroom 24/7. But yeah. It is pretty creepy.