XBox 720 Release Date: Microsoft Answer to PS4 Comes in April

Impact
By Alex Marin

XBox 720, Microsoft's response to Sony's Playstation 4, will be announced in April after the  2013 Game Developers Conference in late March, reported CVG. 

The announcement highlights the 2013 "console war" between the two gaming giants as an anonymous senior Sony official boasts that the PS4 unveiling this week "at first caught Microsoft off-guard" and that "[Sony] definitely ruffled some feathers."

Meanwhile, Microsoft spokesperson Larry Hryb shot back at Sony's Playstation 4 by tweeting, "Well then. This meeting is running a little longer than expected," followed by "Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach."

Though the information is yet to be confirmed, expect Microsoft to announce the availability of XBox 720 in time for the holiday season — when it will be competing with PS4, which is officially due out this holiday season. 

According to an IGN report that surfaced earlier this year, the next Xbox will be up to six times stronger than the current one, which also seems to make it 20% stronger than the Wii U.

It has also been rumored that the future console will largely expand the role of motion controls, upgrading its current Kinect peripheral to employ increasingly accurate detection of body movement. It is also believed that, much to the chagrin of gamers, the system will discourage used game sales by requiring a code activation method that essentially locks each disk to one console. Other changes reportedly include a switch to Blu Ray and a greater focus on Cloud gaming.

Regarding games, the strongest indication has arrived for a new series by Bungie, the people behind the original Halo trilogy, which surfaced after some legal troubles with a fired contractor that essentially dropped the ball on their secret project, codenamed Destiny.

Also in the public eye now are job postings for future console development by Infinity Ward (Call of Duty) and Bethesda (Fallout). Former Max Payne developer Remedy has also revealed on its forums that it is hiring several developers for work on next-gen consoles.