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Next Xbox will include Blu-ray, Kinect 2.0, and AR glasses: report

A British magazine has published details on the next Microsoft Xbox video game console. Just don't call it the Xbox 720. 

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Reuters
The next Xbox will get an improved Kinect platform and Blu-Ray capability, according to a new report. Here, gamers at a show in Tokyo play the Microsoft Xbox 360.
  • By Matthew Shaer

Xbox World, a video game magazined headquartered in the UK, has published details on what it claims is the next Microsoft Xbox console. 

According to the editors at Xbox World, the new device will be called "Xbox," and not, as others have speculated, "Xbox 720." The magazine says the new Xbox will include improved voice controls, an upgraded Kinect platform, Blu-Ray capability, some sort of "innovative controller," and the ability to record and playback broadcast television.

Down the line, augmented reality glasses could even be part of the equation. 

Microsoft, for its part, has not commented on the Xbox World report, and it's not clear where the magazine obtained its information. 

Still, as Andy Robinson of CVG notes, Xbox World has generally been on the money with this kind of thing in the past, and it makes sense that news of the next Xbox – which is probably due sometime in 2013 – would begin to leak out now. Moreover, the details revealed by Xbox World generally line up with what we expect to see in the next wave of consoles: A premium on expanding the realm of video games beyond the traditional two-controller-and-box-set-up. 

The next Microsoft and Sony consoles aren't likely to have hugely improved graphics (although the graphics engines will certainly improve), if only because graphics on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are already really good.

Instead, developers and console-makers will work on snagging more casual gamers, and on making the console a Swiss Army knife device: A machine that can be used for playing games, but also watching multimedia content. 

In related news, Xbox Live, one of the first online gaming hubs, turns 10 years old this week. 

"How time flies!" Larry Hryb, the Director of Programming for Xbox Live, wrote in a blog post. "Ten years ago today, Xbox Live officially launched and today we all celebrate this milestone.  On behalf of everyone here on the Xbox team… thank you for your support over the past ten years." 

For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.

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