The  chipset for the 360′s older cousin, the 720 was put into production earlier this year, and will be going into mass production by the end of 2012 according to a technology news report.

The website Fudzilla stated “Recent speculation that the new main System on a Chip (SoC) for the Next Xbox began production is apparently accurate; the SoC did indeed start production in late December of 2011. Sources tell us that the code name for the chip is Oban, and it is being produced by both IBM and Global Foundries for Microsoft.”

The report also goes on to add “the power behind the next Xbox will be a PowerPC CPU that is married to an ATI Southern Islands GPU, or modified 7000 series.” Which is all very exciting. This comes as a punch in the gut to rumors stating that the Graphics Chipset will be from the early 6 series. This overall boost in power will make the 720 almost 6 times more powerful as it’s predecessor. Very exciting.

Similarly, the Xbox 720 will probably not be announced at this years E3. But the chances are, it will be in stores by Christmas 2013 onwards. And earlier release would result in a huge negative impact on upcoming releases such as Halo 4, Mass Effect 3 and the recently announced God Of War 4 that is currently in development in Sony’s Montreal Studios. Furthermore developer kits will be distributed later this year, so the public won’t be getting it anytime soon.

Personally, I hope the console doesn’t come out until 2014.  This is because most people are taking advantage of the decreased console prices, and an early release would result in it not selling well because of it. Despite this news, the Wii U is still scheduled for release December 2012. Hopefully Microsoft will cave in and pop a Blu Ray player onto it. This will mean they have to pay royalties to Sony, but still. We have to watch our Star Wars Blu Rays on something.