You did an excellent job writing this article! I love the screen shots you decided to use, too. That picture of Gohma is awesome. Unless Link dumps the sword and grabs an arrow, he is up Crap's Creek.

Excellent grammar valuable subjects discussed in detail very nicely. Most people nowadays think these game companies have a primary goal of outselling their competitors. In reality, these corporations are businesses looking to make a profit — period, just as you said.

Keep up the great work!

I think they unveil it sometime this month (April). Im hopeful the Kinect will not be included!

We agree on many things
I too am hopeful MS will stop shoving Kinect down my throat and telling me it’s my gaming future. Also it’s very smart of you to treat anything you hear about the next Xbox as just a rumor because that all any of it is at the moment.

Again I agree about new ip’s as well, I’m hopeful MS has Rareware on the job as we speak creating brand new ip’s to launch with the next Xbox. As for ray tracing, from my reading it has been hard to implement in real time gameplay up until recently. Some rumors are saying Xbox will have an SoC built in dedicated to ray tracing, sorta like the way newer pcs have dedicated physics cards built in. We ll see!

There’s just no denying though that the PS4 is a powerhouse of a machine that I can’t wait to get into my home! And whether the next Xbox is a little less powerful or a little more its all good for us gamers! We are the winners in the end, whether we choose to buy only 1 or all of the next gen systems, there will be some great times ahead!!!!

Thanks again for the comments Kyle, I look forward to chatting with you again soon! Take care.

All the articles on ray-tracing state that it is so processor intensive that it means you can only achieve 15-30fps without a $6000 PC, would microsoft risk this? Alternatively, if they aren’t using ray-tracing and had a similar specification to the recent PS4 stats, but with DDR ram instead of the superior GDDR ram in the PS4, surely it would be too late to change the specifications and make a holiday release.
I think that until the Microsoft reveal I’m going to treat every rumor just as it is, a rumor and nothing more.
The best thing about the PS4 is the ease of development, this obviously means that now multi-platform developers can spend more time making the best game possible and less time struggling with the Cell architecture, which in the hands of the first party developers was fantastic.
Next gen, I want Microsoft to focus more on new IP’s, they had too much reliance on Halo/Gears/Fable and as has been proven the sales on all three franchises has dropped. I don’t mind them continuing with Kinect, as long as they don’t keep trying to tell me that it is the “Future”, because it isn’t.

Whatever happens I look forward to reading about it here

As I stated above, most of what I write about the next Xbox all over this site is speculation. And while its true that at this point all signs lead to the PS4 being the more powerful hardware, based on the power of 1 Xbox (Durango) dev kit. Nothing can be taken off the table at this point. As I mentioned about the various Dreamcast dev kits and boards, the same applies for the next Xbox, as there are rumors that a newer dev kit called LOOP has made its rounds as well, along with some others.

One thing I wonder is why Sony felt they had to announce the PS4 this early without having a whole lot to show. Many of the games at Sony’s presser were running on PC hardware that was close to PS4 specs, that info comes from eurogamer.com. Sony announcing the PS4 this early was a questionable move in my opinion as it shows Microsoft, Sonys hand. Microsoft now has the opportunity to up its specs. Also, Sony may have went this route because of the Durango specs rumors and may be thinking that they have now surpassed Microsoft specs, of course that couldve been Microsofts plan all along, we just dont know if it was a slight of hand by MS, so to speak.

As for Ray Tracing graphics, the first developer to really talk of Ray Tracing in gaming is CryTek, you can find many stories of that on google. As for tying ray tracing with the next Xbox, again, its all speculation but it is starting to get some traction on the internet as of late….

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1769561/nextgen_huge_xbox_720_ps4_specs_report_by_insider.html?
http://www.thisisxbox.com/360/next-gen-xbox-to-use-ray-tracing-technology/
http://www.gamesthirst.com/2013/01/17/it-begins-xbox-720-will-be-more-powerful-than-ps4-says-report/

and heres an image rumored to be from the next Xbox featuring some form of Ray Tracing: http://i3.minus.com/iWyCGSHw8PYmG.jpg

Again Kyle, i own all current consoles and most from the past, including every Sony console ever made. And I will be buying PS4 and the next Xbox just as I have bought the Wii U. So a fanboy I am not. But I do love writing and talking about all things gaming, including speculating. I just want you to know that im only sharing this speculation and links just to say that nothing is set in stone yet by Microsoft, so the possibility still exists that they could bring the more powerful next gen system. But its true that at the moment, it seems the PS4 has the upper hand. Time will tell and I cant wait