While not exactly Nintendo news, IGN today has revealed that the next Xbox (how bout we DON’T call it the 720, shall we?) will be based on the AMD 6000 series of GPU architecture which was introduced last year. While we don’t know exactly what will ship inside the next Xbox, IGN cites that the GPU will be similar to the Radeon HD 6670, which sports DirectX 11, 3D, 1080p output, and multidisplay output. Their sources tell them that the console will be around six times as powerful as the Xbox 360, and will yield 20 percent greater performance than the Wii U. Allegedly the console will launch in late October or early November of 2013.

What does this all mean? Well, actually nothing right now. All of this is just rumors for now, not to mention that final specs for Wii U have yet to be revealed by Nintendo. Taken at face value it looks to mean that while Wii U looks to be running on Radeon R770 which doen’t look to be quite as powerful as the new Xbox, both consoles will be more than capable and will most likely allow developers to develop for both simultaneously.

I don’t pretend to understand all the technical aspects behind what makes Mario’s suspenders look so nice, but at the end of the day, I think Wii U will be able to stand toe to toe with whatever Microsoft and Sony decide to throw at it. Bring on E3.

What do you think about this latest rumor? How do you think Wii U will fare in comparison?

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The Microsoft conference has come and gone and you know what? Their presser seemed very….Nintendo.

The majority of titles at the Microsoft presser seemed to be geared toward the market Nintendo has worked so hard to capture the last couple of years. Also, there seemed to be a lack of any new IPs from Microsoft aside from some Kinect stuff. ?If I was a kid, a lot of the Kinect titles would be super interesting and would probably be a ton of fun with them, but those titles just aren’t geared toward a gamer like myself.

By this time tomorrow we will know if Nintendo and Sony managed to do any better….and by better I mean not put the audience to sleep. Cloud saving is pretty neat though.

How do you think Microsoft did with their e3 press conference?

When the Xbox 360 launched four years ago, developers were required to make high-definition games. Not any more, says Split/Second developer David Jefferies, in a guest column for Develop Magazine. “Now we are free to make the trade-off between resolution and image quality as we see fit,” he said.

The news comes after a report revealed that less than half of Xbox 360 owners own an HDTV, validating Nintendo’s position to exclude HD when releasing the Wii in 2006. “The irony of all this makes me laugh,” said tipster Kyle Kale Menges in an email to Infendo. “Nintendo might know a thing or two about making game consoles, huh?”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–SquareTrade, the largest independent warranty provider in the world, today announced the results of a study comparing malfunction rates for the top three game consoles — Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) — and found that the Wii is the most reliable system on the market, with a failure rate just one-fourth of the PS3 and one-ninth of the Xbox 360. Even when adjusted for the lower rate of usage, the Wii leads the pack by a comfortable margin.

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Dead Space, the well-received space horror game developed by EA that’s slated to come Wii-side soon, was initially developed using original Xbox hardware.

Since the Internet is the consummate example of fairness and anti-hypocrisy, I fully expect all the people who whined about The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess being originally developed as a GameCube title to come out of the woodwork and apologize.

Only fair, right?

Oh, and this clever little blog joke just got real ironic.