Microsoft getting ready for new event, may announce next Xbox

After the recent reveal of Sony’s PlayStation 4, all eyes are on Microsoft to see what the software giant will do with its own next-gen console. According to CVG, Microsoft is rumoured to be preparing to unveil the next Xbox in a couple of months. The rumour is further corroborated by Microsoft’s partner Eventcore registering the URL www.xboxevent.com. Eventcore has earlier aided the company in events like E3 2012. So far, Microsoft has remained quiet about its next-gen console.

An unnamed Sony official told CVG that Sony had caught Microsoft off guard with its PlayStation 4 announcement. “We definitely ruffled some feathers,” the person said.

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We can’t be very far from an announcement by Microsoft, especially since it rushed out the Xbox 360 before the PlayStation 3’s release to get an early head start. Microsoft of all companies would know the importance of such a head start, as that would let it dominate the next-gen console market early.

Still waiting for an announcement.

It was earlier rumoured that the next-gen Xbox may come out in October. The rumour mostly stems from the release date being leaked for Bungie’s upcoming sci-fi/magic, always-online FPS, Destiny. The game is rumoured to be one of the launch titles for Microsoft’s next console, and its release date may be an indication of when the Xbox 720 (or whatever it’s called) will come out.

It was recently revealed that the next Xbox is set to have Siri-esque voice recognition capabilities. The technology is very similar to the Siri experience on iOS products. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Xbox project told The Verge that the next-gen console, codenamed Durango, will support wake on voice, natural language controls and speech-to-text.

Microsoft may also be looking to revamp the Kinect sensor, but rumours suggest that the sensor “will detect individuals in a room and suggest appropriate multiplayer games after a user queries the Xbox using voice.” A Kinect revamp has long been needed to better explore the potential of the motion controller. It is hampered by the Xbox 360’s low USB bandwidth capacity and as a result only streams low-resolution videos to the console.

Microsoft is also revamping the search service on the Xbox, and the console is expected to announce the results back to users. According to the website, natural interaction and context will be a big aspect of the speech recognition technology in the new Xbox.

Before that, it was revealed that players may have to be constantly connected to the Internet to play games on the next Xbox. The always-online requirement comes because of a new version of Xbox Live—the console’s online service. There were other rumours about the purported specs of the next Xbox. It will apparently run on an eight-core x64 AMD processor clocked at 1.6GHz and a D3D11 x 800MHz GPU. It will also supposedly have 8GB of DDR3 RAM.