New Xbox to cost $500 without subscription?

The Tech Report picked up some new rumors about Microsoft's next-generation Xbox console. Bloomberg heard from its sources that the console will have an AMD APU that combines Jaguar CPU units with graphics chips, which sounds a lot like the hardware configuration of Sony's PlayStation 4. There's also word that the next Xbox may cost as much as $500, but that it may also be available for $300 in a bundle with some sort of Xbox Live subscription.

That sounds an awful lot like the PS4's custom AMD APU, which has eight Jaguar cores and Radeon-derived graphics. There's no telling what combination of cores and units the Xbox's APU will feature—or whether it, like the chip inside the PS4, will be fed by an 8GB pool of GDDR5 memory. Still, it sounds like developers may not have to optimize for wildly different architectures when making cross-platform games.

Paul Thurrott, meanwhile, spoke about the next Xbox's pricing and release schedule on the What The Tech podcast last week. Referring to the system by its code-name, he stated, "Durango's gonna be expensive . . . 500 bucks, 300 dollars with a subscription, that kind of thing." Thurrott added that Microsoft has scheduled the launch for May 21, but the new console won't actually be available until "early November."