Next Xbox to arrive before 2014, Microsoft ad suggests
The advert, seeking a Central Marketing Group director, claims that "over the next eighteen months Microsoft will release new versions of all of our most significant products including Windows (Client, Server, Phone and Azure), Office and Xbox, along with completely new offerings like Microsoft Surface"
This could be a Xbox 720 or more likely
it's referring to a Xbox 360 refresh that was mentioned in the Xbox 720 Powerpoint. The IBM Fab Dec 2011 tapeout and production of 10,000 disks @32nm containing PPC CPU-AMD GPU-edram rumored made for Microsoft with GloFlo8 also producing the exact same chips must be for the Xbox 360 refresh not Xbox 720 which is now, from multiple sources, known to be X86 and parts likely to be identical to parts of the PS4 SoC. Two Fab plants making the same Silicon for Microsoft means it's very important for Microsoft and they second sourced it or they expect Sales for the new design to be very high. But sales of the Xbox are dropping as expected in the Xbox 720 powerpoint.
At a minimum a 2012 Xbox 360 refresh is taking the Xbox 360S @45nm one step further and now eDRAM will also be on the same 32nm SOI silicon with CPU and GPU. If it has HDMI pass-thru (Xbox 361) and low power modes then it will be significantly more advanced using hardware designs that support low power modes and that along with the other features (1080P, 3-D) needed might require a more modern GPU.
My wild speculation
Wouldn't the cheapest solution be to use a AMD APU (SOI) design, scale down the GPU CUs and replace the X86 CPU packages with two 1PPC3SPU+cache multi-processor packages. Wouldn't software emulation of both PS3 and Xbox 360 be cheaper than a complete new hardware design with power modes, this already in AMD APU designs. BC for both PS4 and Xbox 720 would use nearly the same emulation and the same two 1PPC3SPU multi-processor design packages in addition to two Jaguar multi-processor packages (4 in each package for a total of 8 CPUs). This gives a total of 4 multi-processor packages which appears to be a standard Crossbar switch design for AMD.
My speculation required both Microsoft and Sony next generation be X86 and both using similar AMD APU designs with core silicon exactly the same being the most cost effective.
This would explain Microsoft-sony.com and would have had AMD pointing out this possibility to both Microsoft and Sony in
2010 which was when, according to one rumor, Microsoft switched from PPC & AMD GPU to X86 & AMD GPU. I assume cost, HSA Fusion libraries and standards had a part in the choice. 2010 was when Sony patented a SPU multi-processor (1PPU4SPU) design.
Any way that's my guess and in such a scenario a picture of the Xbox or PS3 would have In & Out HDMI ports. The South American "TechnoBlog" has pictures they claim is of the PS3 4000 chassis and it does not have In&Out HDMI ports or even a Depth camera Kinect Like port which the Digitimes rumor seems to imply.
So we have a jeff_rigby alert, my wild speculation is completely wrong and Technoblog pictures are real or my speculation is mostly accurate and the Technoblog pictures are fake.
End wild speculation
The Digitimes rumor stated Sony (Change PS4 in 2012 to PS3) plans to sell 20 million the first year. This means something about it is very attractive, much more so than the current PS3 3000 chassis which is taking a downturn, as is the Xbox 360, in sales. Rumors have Sony not announcing the PS3 4000 chassis at Gamescom because stock of current PS3s are too high. This 1) supports a downturn in sales higher than expected and 2) That something about the 4000 chassis will disrupt PS3 3000 chassis sales. It can't be price as Sony has control of that. It can't be the ugly design of the PS3 4000 chassis or the top loading blu-ray player which some like but many find looks cheaper and would be a reason for a PS3 3000 chassis at a slightly higher price to co-exist with a PS4 4000 chassis.
XTV is coming in a big way Sept of this year. Khronos states that programmers can leverage the native libraries for Browsers to support Augmented Reality and it's also coming starting Sept. It makes sense to support BOTH a depth camera and HDMI pass-thru to support what's coming Sept.
Sony will have a Webkit2 browser with WebMAF HTML5 apps, HTML5 <video> with Microsoft Playready DRM as well as SVG support and WebGL. Microsoft will have a HTML5 browser and apps also. Both may have gesture and voice recognition control.
Sony's rumored PSN expansion we have all been waiting for will finally be reveled and the Sony IPTV Preview app (proof of concept) will be replaced with a WebMAF HTML5 <video> app. When will this happen and when will the PS3 4000 chassis be announced, at the same time is likely if I'm correct and would be a better reason for delaying the announcement.
At the end of this month Gstreamer 1.0 will be announced and the next
Gnome/Webkit cycle is September 28.
Oh, Steam is going to start selling applications in addition to games this Sept 5th.