New Xbox 720 details emerge: Holiday 2013 release confirmed

If you're eagerly waiting for some crazy Xbox 720 announcement, or hoping that you'll get a glimpse of it in the coming months, you'll still have to wait a bit longer. Don't get your hopes up yet though, since it seems to have a confirmed release date for Christmas 2013. Though that's just a few of the facts that were revealed thanks to VG247

Though we've previously reported that GameStop execs are saying that the next Xbox is unlikely to have technology which wouldn't allow for used games, it seems that the next Xbox will require a constant internet connection to combat piracy.

This isn't anything new in the video game world, though it was previously relegated to PC games only. Ubisoft tried it with the Assassin's Creed 2 and boy was the internet in an outrage. And why not? Purchasing a $50-$60 game should entitle you to play it when you want, how you want, and not under constant supervision of the internet.

It now looks like that the Xbox 720 will indeed use something similar. A required internet connection will ensure that gamers are indeed playing real copies of the game. Does this mean that used games get the shaft as well? Probably not, but if something this serious is being implemented, it wouldn't be surprising for Microsoft to go to those lengths.

In other announcements, the Xbox 720 is said to have a Blu Ray drive as well, which is quite surprising since the Blu Ray technology is patented by Sony, and of course was there from the beginning in Microsoft's rival console, the PlayStation 3. It sounds like a smart move however, since the Blu Ray discs can hold so much more information than standard DVD's, and I will admit, that for the first time, I hated the constant switching of discs when I played Mass Effect 3.

The bigger issue with Blu Ray is how it's handled. Though Sony has gotten a better grasp on it, there is no denying that it still sometimes falters in comparison to standard DVDs. A majority of multiplatform games just don't hold up as well on the PS3, with slight lag, longer loading times, etc. and this is something devs will need to figure out, so the same doesn't happen for the next-gen transition.

Lastly, some more detailed specs regarding the guts of the 720 were announced as well. It will be powered by AMD Hardware, equal to AMD's 7000 series GPUs and the graphics units will be able to work separately from each other, and being able to draw separate items at the same time. There will also be four to six cores in the CPU, one reserved for the Kinect, and one for the OS. Also Kinect fans will be pleased to know that this time around, it will be built into the actual system.

So there you have it, it's still ways away, but it's shaping up to be quite the system…except for that damn DRM.