At present it is impossible to say with any certainty exactly what the specifications of a future Xbox will be, but that doesn’t stop us from speculating! Technology is changing so quickly today that the games console of ten years in the future could be a marvel, almost beyond the comprehension of today’s gaming industry.

These changes are moving at an accelerated rate. The first Xbox was originally meant to be a console that ran on the Direct X gaming structure, so it was essentially supposed to be a PC in a console. The name came from the fact that it ran on a modified Direct X, therefore Xbox. An interesting story, and a goal that Microsoft has been pursuing slowly but surely with each generation.

The original Xbox didn't quite hit that PC feel, and the Xbox 360 had a web browser, but again, not the same level of power and quality as PC. Then the Xbox One came around and now the line is blurrier than ever. Microsoft recently announced that the Xbox One would soon be running on Direct X 12, and while this won't change the game as much as originally thought, it's still a major step towards a unified PC and console future.

Of course, hardware will always be the straw that broke the camel's back. PC rigs continue to outpace the consoles are new video cards, processors, and RAM upgrades become available. So, what does this mean for the Xbox Two? There are a couple possibilities.

Regardless, when you look at the specifications of the original Xbox compared to the Xbox 360, and the Xbox 360 compared to the Xbox One you start to realize just how far games consoles have come in the last couple of decades.

This page will be updated as and when we have any solid information to reveal about the potential specifications of the Xbox Two, but for now let’s consider some potential system specs.

CPU GPU RAM

Perhaps the biggest question when it comes to the Xbox One is what will actually power it. Will we see a similar escalation of RAM, taking us up to something like 64GB of memory? Will the processor come complete with 16 or even 32 cores instead of the eight included within the Xbox One? What about the graphics processor? Will AMD continue to supply new and improved GPUs for use in Microsoft consoles? It’s difficult to know at this stage, but we can certainly expect to see big improvements in the technologies that make up the Xbox Two’s innards.

The pace at which technology is growing allows for quantum (literally) leaps in both the processing power and the storage space. For example, the concept of 3D Stacked RAM promises more powerful options for less cost, which leaves more of the budget for improvements in other areas of the console.

At the moment we’re simply thinking of an escalation of the technology that already exists today, but could games consoles of the future be powered in a completely different way? Perhaps biological computing will take a great leap forward in the next decade, allowing elements of the Xbox Two to be powered using DNA in order to perform the complex calculations that games of the future may require.

By the time the Xbox 2 is released, we will have processors available that are smarter than the human brain. Our Xbox 2 console will probably run circles around the smartest minds the world has to offer. Let's hope if they decide to use a Kinect, that it benefits from this increased power as well.

The Xbox 2 could also ditch much of this hardware in favor of cloud computing and streaming games. There's a distinct possibility that your "Xbox 2" could just be a small box that receives signals and sends them back out. You may never own a disc for it, instead everything will be stored and powered on a remote server, A.K.A. the cloud. All of that RAM, CPU, GPU, it will be in a place you will never seen in person.

Storage

We’re used to having masses of storage at our fingertips today, and yet there is a very real possibility that the Xbox Two will actually come equipped with less hard drive space than its predecessor, the Xbox One’s 500GB. Is this because we’ll have found some way to be ultra-efficient with graphics and processing in the future?

Another possibility is an emerging hard drive technology called Shingled Magnetic Recording. With this technology, in conjunction with other advancements, we could be seeing hard drives as large as approximately 100 terabytes! That's a million gigabytes compared to the measly 500 you get with the Xbox One. Of course, games are becoming larger in size too, so will this be enough?

Microsoft had a desire for the Xbox One to be an always online games console; however the internet technology was not really at the level that could support such a dream. That won’t always be the case however, and as internet technology improves we may well become a world with all of our games, all of our movies, all of our music and basically all of everything stored within the cloud.

The technology is already coming, and it's called Light Peak. It promises speeds of up to 100 gigabytes per second! If that’s the case, we won’t need a lot of inbuilt hard drive space.

Controller

Back when the Xbox One was just a rumor some speculated that it might be the console to do away with the classic controller, instead replacing it with some other device or relying entirely on the Kinect to control our favorite games. Instead, Microsoft launched a new and improved classic controller to go with the Xbox One, with design and functionality very similar to that of the Xbox 360, just slightly tweaked in many different areas to give a better overall feel.

But if rumors were already abounding about the possibility of a controller-less console could this be a reality a few years in the future? Will we ever be able to play first person shooters in our homes without some sort of classic controller? We’re not sure about that; getting the controls right could be a difficult job to do, and yet it seems obvious that Kinect and motion sensing technology is bound to play a larger part in the future of gaming. We may even see the next generation of console step into the realm of virtual reality, with technology like the Oculus Rift allowing us to step inside of the games that we play.

We can't rule out the HoloLens either. This augmented reality headset was recently announced by Microsoft and it looks to be a way of expanding the functionality of your Xbox One into everyday life. The headset has been shown being used to play games, but also to examine 3D models, check emails, and video chat with others. All of this is projected onto your vision, thereby augmenting what you see around you. It's quite fascinating, and it's a technology Microsoft is pursuing with great excitement, so we could expect to see this move into the new console as a main controller or something to use in conjunction with an improved Kinect.

Do you have any thoughts about the specification of the Xbox Two? What do you think will power the future of gaming? Will we still play using controllers, or will everything be controlled by motion or voice?

Have your say in the comments below.

You don come again...

You obviously don't understand how technology works, and probably think it's magic or most likely you're deliberately writing these sensationalist articles for some weird reason.

khalhokage:
You obviously don't understand how technology works, and probably think it's magic or most likely you're deliberately writing these sensationalist articles for some weird reason.

You cant predict technology, it doesnt have a way it works. All you have to do is visualize it. What youre trying to say is that the specs arent possible or what? Could you ever believe that the specs of xbox720 be possible. Or you dont fathom my post. Tell me, id explain

Renji:

You cant predict technology, it doesnt have a way it works. All you have to do is visualize it. What youre trying to say is that the specs arent possible or what? Could you ever believe that the specs of xbox720 be possible. Or you dont fathom my post. Tell me, id explain

All i'm saying is, when predicting future technology don't overdo it, make it realistic for it to be interesting, how to do that is to base your predictions on currently existing and obtainable technology especially in the case of game consoles which has almost never debut with groundbreaking tech.

If I were going to make a prediction of the next console generation I won't be far off to say that they'll definitely release wit ssds as opposed to hdds owing to the advances in storage technology, price reductions in the ssd market and also it's advantage for gaming because of it's speed.

But saying things like they'll probably come with biological cpus and trasmit data over the air at 100gbs in consoles that'll come out in less than a decades time?

Just make realistic predictions that'll grab people's attention and encourage them to get involved in the speculations.

khalhokage:


All i'm saying is, when predicting future technology don't overdo it, make it realistic for it to be interesting, how to do that is to base your predictions on currently existing and obtainable technology especially in the case of game consoles which has almost never debut with groundbreaking tech.

If I were going to make a prediction of the next console generation I won't be far off to say that they'll definitely release wit ssds as opposed to hdds owing to the advances in storage technology, price reductions in the ssd market and also it's advantage for gaming because of it's speed.

But saying things like they'll probably come with biological cpus and trasmit data over the air at 100gbs in consoles that'll come out in less than a decades time?

Just make realistic predictions that'll grab people's attention and encourage them to get involved in the speculations.

This is what you should have typed earlier. Next time, id try to be more realistic . But wouldnt it be cool if these were to be the real spec

Renji:


This is what you should have typed earlier. Next time, id try to be more realistic . But wouldnt it be cool if these were to be the real spec

They would be really cool, and that's the problem I had with your article, they're cool conceptual and or theoretical technologies that should be analyzed individually instead of all being jam packed into one small box.

Good laid specs. Nice job bro. But its too much na, you wan kill sony and microsoft

dammyjust:
Good laid specs. Nice job bro. But its too much na, you wan kill sony and microsoft

ill make modifications