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Rumor has it that Microsoft is planning to release a Kinect-like device that’s so powerful, it can read lips, which makes it twice as powerful as most normal human beings. The developer plans to ship the Kinect 2 with their next gen consoles, because hardware limitations of the current generation would make it impossible to implement. The main limitation is the 360’s reliance on USB technology, which would effectively bottleneck the data stream to such an extreme that the Kinect 2 could have no increased functionality. The crew over at Eurogamer got in touch with a development source who explained the issue: “[the Kinect 2] can be cabled straight through on any number of technologies that just take phenomenally high res data straight to the main processor and straight to the main RAM and ask, what do you want to do with it?” 
The first will be a cheap “paired-down” unit that is meant to be released for the lowest price possible. The second will be “more fully-featured,” including an optical drive, hard disk, backwards compatibility, etc. Both units would be compatible with the Kinect 2. Industry insiders are also speculating that the upcoming incarnation of Microsoft’s Xbox will be revealed at next year’s E3 and released in 2013, though some sources have recently been claiming it won’t launch until 2014. By Josh Engen |