As with all Durango news prior to Microsoft’s official announcement, take this with the appropriate level of salt, but Edge Online has reported several new details regarding the new Xbox. Citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the new hardware, Edge claims that it appears as though the rumors surrounding the inability to play used games on Durango may be true. According to the report, games will come with a single use activation code, similar to their PC counterparts. To that end, Durango allegedly will require an internet connection to function. Will this mean that the new Xbox will incorporate Steam-like functionality, allowing users the ability to install games registered to their Xbox Live account on multiple consoles? What about users in rural areas without reliable access to broadband?
The second rumored inclusion, that of a built in Blu-Ray drive, is a bit less earth shattering. It’s no secret that DVD media and graphically intense content doesn’t mix. Rather than elect to use a proprietary optical format (as Nintendo has done with the Wii U), the upcoming console is said to use a high speed Blu-Ray drive. Accordingly, this also implies that Durango will be capable of playing Blu-Ray movies from the onset. Third, and perhaps most exciting, if the source is to be believed, Durango will be packing some considerable technical muscle; including an eight core AMD custom CPU operating at 1.6ghz/core, D3D11.x graphics, and 8gb of DDR3 RAM. Lastly, as widely speculated, an incremental upgrade to the kinect hardware is said to be released alongside Durango, boasting increased responsiveness and more precise motion tracking. Following last month’s X-Surface debacle , an appropriate level of skepticism is a must; that being said, with all signs to the Playstation 4 being announced February 20, we expect to see Microsoft following suit soon after. The next console generation will be upon us sooner than you think!