Xbox 720, Durango, the new Xbox – whatever you want to call it, Microsoft’s next-gen home console is coming soon, and in fact it’s already in the hands of some fortunate developers.
Kotaku has received information from one such developer, giving away a few new juicy details about the upcoming games box. Firstly, and for reasons unbeknown to many, both the console itself and the controller are covered in black and white stripes. This is suspected to be some sort of way to disguise the shape and colour, but may also be a way for Microsoft to identify the culprit of any leaks.
Details of the new console’s controller have been given away by an unnamed source, although there’s no sign of any fancy glowing lights or touchpads like on Sony’s DualShock 4 pad. We’re told that the button layout and shape are nigh-on identical to that of the 360 controller; D pad, dual analog sticks, shoulder buttons and triggers, X/Y/A/B buttons, start and select and of course, the Xbox button for power.
Whilst the layout and button labelling will remain the same, presumably to help with brand familiarity, Microsoft is expected to overhaul the quality and responsiveness of the controller overall. Kotaku’s source could not confirm this, although we would expect more responsive and sensitive analog sticks, and some shoulder buttons that don’t get stuck in after a bit of use.
So, no new buttons will be added and no fancy touchpads or lights. The controller itself is said to be ever so slightly smaller than the Xbox 360 one, but will look much the same. As for the console itself; that’s said to require an upgraded Kinect sensor at all times, offer multitasking and pack a powerful 8 core x64 CPU with 8GB of GDDR3 RAM and a 500GB hard drive.