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Xbox 720 leaks, Kinect 2 and Kinect Glasses also on the way

A 56-page document has detailed Microsoft's plans for the next-gen console.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
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Joe Svetlik
2 min read

There was no Xbox 720 at E3 -- as we predicted -- but a 56-page document has just leaked detailing the console, as well as the successor to Kinect and a nifty glasses add-on known as Project Fortaleza.

The presentation dates from August 2010, The Verge reports, but considering it predicts such innovations as SmartGlass and a Metro dashboard, I've no reason not to assume these are on the money.

First up is the console. It's referenced as the Xbox 720 in the literature, and while it could be a working title, we'll presume it's the real name until we hear any different. The big news is it looks like it'll come packing Blu-ray functionality for playing 1080p HD movies, and it'll be able to play films in 3D. There should also be a huge jump in power -- with it listed as being six times as beefy as the current Xbox, according to the document.

An 'always on' state should mean lightning start-up speeds too. While the final specs haven't been disclosed, it could possibly arrive touting eight ARM or x86 cores, each clocked at 2GHz with 4GB of DDR4 memory, and three PPC cores each clocked at 3.2GHz for backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games.

Thanks to a Windows 8 base, you should be able to record TV shows, and it also should be easy for developers to make apps to work across multiple platforms, including the Xbox, and PCs and mobiles too. The price is predicted as $299 (£190), and Microsoft expects it to stay around for a 10 year lifecycle, selling more than 100 million units.

Kinect 2 should be more accurate, have stereo imaging, better voice recognition, support for four-player tracking, an improved camera, and dedicated hardware processing. Special controllers (or 'props') are also expected, such as a bat for a baseball game. But does that miss the point of controller-free gaming?

And Project Fortaleza are a pair of specs that will work over Wi-Fi or 4G and add augmented reality to the mix. Google Project Glass for games, anyone? The glasses won't launch until 2014 though, but they are designed for use away from the console too, which is pretty exciting.

It all sounds pretty great to be honest. You can read the whole thing here. What are you most excited about? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.