Xbox rumors are moving faster than iPhones in China.
On Monday, there was a single-source story about plans to replace Xbox Live points with real currency. That seems inevitable to make everything consistent with Microsoft’s phone and PC app stores, but a Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.
Then today there’s more on the hardware that will power the Xbox 720, or whatever the new console will be called when it arrives in the next year or so.
IGN reports that mass production of the console’s graphics system, based on AMD’s 6000 series graphics processor, will begin by the end of 2012. The report notes that a comparable retail GPU supports DirectX11, multiple displays, 3-D and 1080p output.
Graphics power “is expected to be six times that of the Xbox 360″ and 20 percent greater than the Wii U, according to the report.
IGN’s report follows a series of leaks this month about the guts of the 720, which will have system-on-chip architecture with IBM PowerPC processors, according to a detailed Jan. 18 report by Charlie Demerjian and a Jan. 19 report by Fudzilla.
IBM began producing the “Oban” chips at the very end of 2011, with the first batch heading to developer kits, according to Demerjian’s report at semiaccurate.com.
Consumers apparently won’t be able to buy the new consoles until 2013, but the hardware suggests the boxes will be a lot smaller and quieter when they finally do arrive.
