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Established technology blogger Paul Thurrott has made several claims about the new Xbox – and chief amongst them is the scrapping of a second disc-less SKU.
"We have talked for a while about this notion that there might be another version of the Xbox that was just aimed at entertainment – a non-gaming device,” he said on the What The Tech podcast, as subscribed by All Games Beta.
That device was code-named ‘Yumo’ and they’re not making it. They may make one in the future, but it’s not happening this year.”
News of this disc-less console was first broken by MCV in March of last year.
Thurrott also made claims about the name of the new machine, as well as suggesting it will not be backwards compatible and that a new version of Xbox 360 is also on the way
"So the new Xbox that comes out this year will [called] just be the Xbox,” he added. And I mentioned before they’re also going to sell a new Xbox 360 code-named ‘Stingray’ that will be $99.
And you might look at that as two things: backwards compatibility, obviously, suggesting – I don’t actually know this for a fact, but based on the fact that they’re making one – I don’t think that the new Xbox will play 360 games. But that I don’t actually know.
But, the other one is that, $99, that’s a real cool price. And so we know that the Xbox 360 does Netflix, Hulu Plus, yada yada yada, and you can make the argument that’s kind of a low cost entertainment device, too.”
But what of the Xbox 720 itself? Yes, Thurrott has heard it WILL require a permanent internet connection.
"Durango is going to be expensive – you know $500, $300 for the subscription model, that kind of thing,” he added. But you know, Blu-ray, blah blah blah, but the thing that interest me, going back and looking at some of the stuff I got a long time ago, it actually says ‘must be internet-connected to use’ in the notes. And that’s all I have, but it does say that.”
He also claims that plans to reveal the machine in April have been scrapped.
"Originally, they were going to announce this thing in April 24th, now they’re going to announce it May 21st,” he said. We know there are events occurring this year where we’re going to learn more about Durango.”
Adding that a November release is on the cards, the blogger also lashed out at those who have been slating Microsoft’s plans online.
"So I think there’s a lot information to come, but I look at all this stuff that I’ve seen about Durango and I think, ‘it’s all positive’,” he argued. I don’t really see any bad news here at all. Like to me, everything I’ve seen about this is really positive.
It’s amazing to me that, based on like no information at all, everyone is like freaking out about everything. Aside from this online thing, by the way, the number one question I’ve gotten from people is, ‘What does it look like?’ Who gives a shit what it looks like?
"I’ve actually heard from, by the way not one or two people, several people who’ve said, ‘based on what I’ve seen, Sony is going to blow them away.’ Based on what you’ve seen? You’ve seen nothing. What are you talking about? No, but you’ve seen literally nothing from Microsoft.”
