The Xbox 720 has leaked online, and it has blown away Xbox fans. No, Microsoft is not making a proper successor to the Xbox 360, but it was at one point before it transitioned its plan and came out the other side with the Xbox One, a controversial console that saw Xbox lose substantial market share to PlayStation. How do we know this? Well, a leaked Microsoft document from 2012 has revealed before the Xbox One, Microsoft was planning the Xbox 720, which was different than the Xbox One. And judging by the reaction of the Internet, better.
According to the document, the plan was to release the Xbox 720 at a price point of $299.99 and with six times the power of the Xbox 360. The pitch for it was to be an all-in-one entertainment device, not too different from the broad pitch for the Xbox One. To achieve this, the console was not only going to be a hub for console games, but allow users to cast their phones to the console and play mobile games on the TV.
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It was also going to have full backward compatibility with the Xbox 360, something the Xbox One never had, and it didn’t have any backward compatibility until later after its launch. There’s also no mention of forcing users to always be online or preventing game sharing, two things that played a huge role in sinking the Xbox One’s controversial reveal.
Of course, this is a leak, so take it with a grain of salt. It’s all official information, but it’s hard to know what should and shouldn’t be made of it because obviously none of this came to fruition, and we have no idea how close it came to releasing. To this end, we also don’t know why plans changed.
So far, Microsoft has not commented on this leak and the speculation it has created. We don’t expect this to change, but if it does, we will be sure to update the story accordingly. In the meantime, you can join Xbox fans in disappointment this console was scrapped.
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H/T, Whimsu.
