A steady stream of rumors surrounding Microsoft’s next gaming machine have been hitting the internet, not the least of which revolves around always-online functionality and the use of activation codes – much like current PC gaming – for each Blu-ray disc, potentially prohibiting secondhand game sales. GameStop share prices have already fallen seven percent.
In a report published this morning, “sources with first-hand experience” claim that although the future console will operate using 50GB Blu-ray game discs, it will require an always-on connection to the internet, and games will ship with activation codes, rendering the discs useless beyond their original purchase.
As a result, GameStop share values have seen a 7% decrease since the end of NYSE trading yesterday, opening at $24.96 per share and trading at $24.93 at the time of posting, having recovered from a low of $23.83. A majority of GameStop’s profits come from a robust, continuous, and highly prioritized pre-owned game sales campaign.
Further details from the report suggest the next Xbox specs to be as follows:
- AMD eight-core x64 1.6GHz CPU
- D3D11.x 800MHz graphics processing unit
- 8GB of DDR3 RAM
- Undecided hard drive capacity – rumored to be largest to date to accommodate digital delivery
- New and improved Kinect unit to ship concurrently with new system
Microsoft has not yet confirmed any of these these rumors, and is expected to reveal its new console this June at E3 in Los Angeles.
[EDGE]
