Looks promising. I look forward to the full reveal.

Honestly, we have to keep in mind that not all devs are created equal. It is entirely possible that the leaks about "always online required" are true and this developer just wasn't privy to that information.

It could be that a developer making a single player only game is given the information so they know about it and can plan for it, while a multiplayer focused dev wouldn't since their game would be online 90% of the time anyway. It could be the opposite situation as well.

If MS is really opening up the platform like that for indies....I personally don't see that as a good thing. If ANYONE can pay a $60 license fee and make a game, it is likely they will. Sure some great games will come out of it, but there will be far more shovelware garbage if it isn't regulated properly. There is a thing as too many developers. I could make a game for the system and the only good part would be the music.....I can't code, I don't know the first thing about balance in a game, I can't draw....but for $60? Why the hell not?

Also, they have missed out on some fairly big indie events recently. iDEAME in Madrid earlier this month (unless this was a Nintendo-only thing), Full Indie in Vancouver just yesterday and of course, GDC. Yes they were at GDC and probably had some people in the crowd at Full Indie, but being so silent while Sony and Nintendo take pot shots and AGREEING on indie support methods is not a great sign. If those two are just going to have a gentleman's war about it (good luck to you and may the best man win), and MS just kind says....hey us too!....it could be problematic.

As for the on board 360 SOC...I don't know why they would do that (other than the added power of course) when a far more reliable source than "This guy on NeoGAF" has said that they are going to make essentially a Roku360. Syncs to the 720 and is controlled by it and its controller so that you don't have to change inputs or anything like that. But seriously, why include that if they are making a $99 360 that does the same thing? It becomes redundant. Paul Thurrott is the "far more reliable source" I am referring to. The man has very good sources and doesn't hide behind the anonymity of the internet, is usually 100% right with his info too.

Grain of salt and all that of course. Being silent this long really doesn't help them, it just allows more rumors and negativity to swirl. When Sony started getting a bunch of negative rumors they just said, "Screw it" and revealed the PS4 to squash some of those rumors and mostly put an end to the speculation. MS is just sitting there.

I won't comment on rumors or speculatation.

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There have been a couple more rumors today that refute this one.....just thought I'd share.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-22-lords-of-the-fallen-is-a-challenging-pc-and-next-gen-consoles-action-rpg   (quote box on the left side of the page)

and

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1897054/next_xbox_will_not_be_compatible_with_second_hand.html

I guess we'll see what happens.....

Whether or not always-on sticks is something, but there's no way all of the rumors would have circulated if MS hadn't considered it at one point.

Both PS4 and Xbox 8 will be "always on".  Always On has to do with a low power state.  It means the device never shutsdown completely.  It always operating in some capacity.  Most likely to decrease the boot time, but also to allow the device to respond proactively to input.

Well yes, there's that. What most people refer to is "always-on DRM", meaning you have to be connected to the internet at all times in order to play any games (regardless if they use the internet or not).

Always on has meant the same thing since the original roadmap leak, low powered state, can always be connected. The only reason this rumor persists is because the devkits have always online drm due to security measures. Which we only know because superdae hacked ms and stole a devkit.

Also this rumor is crap. The nextbox would be superhard to program for since you have 4 different chips to program for; 2 different gpus and 2 different cpus. Also this would not give the console all that much power since the xbox 360 has a total flop count of 355.2 gigaflops.

I do however believe the dual apu rumor. I imagine the system will have a large soc with both apus and a modified amd jaguar that can enter a low power state and an xbox 360 soc for bc. Also I do not believe that they will still be using ddr3, especially since they joined hmc and it has been finalized and ready for production. That set up would give them lots of power, low power usage, low heat, and low cost. Those are all the things MS wants from the next xbox according to the yukon roadmap and the superdae leak.

I hope this rumor is not true. BC is nice but if Vgleaks is right I feel like it could be underpowered. And I don't think its possible to use the power of the 360 SOC for games. At best maybe it could run the OS and Kinect so no ressources of the APU have to be used to do those things.

I hope MS finally says what they intent to do.