Xbox One To Get More CPU Power And Secret Projects For Improved Technology—Report

As far as system updates were concerned, the Xbox One had a rather quiet December. Xbox head Phil Spencer has already given fans a heads-up on how the year-end would be focussed on offering more games at discounts than rolling out another update, and Microsoft has delivered when it came to the Christmas and New Year deals.

But even with the month-long lull in system updates, it appears that the Xbox team has still made some preparations for the next-gen console, as a new wave of software leaks has given fans a peek of what's to come for the Xbox One. Eurogamer reports that the hacker group H4LT, which also provided some new Xbox One dev tools leaks last November, has also revealed that the Xbox One ia now making the seventh CPU core accessible to game developers. What this means is that the Xbox One may be trying to put a focus on performance, as it goes beyond what the PS4 is currently offering devs, which is access only to six of eight CPU cores.

The source adds that while the upgrade has already been reaping benefits, as seen in some titles which have made quite a significant jump as far as resolutions and performance go, it is also not without its downsides. The CPU power supporting the operating system in the background has been lessened.

However, for game developing, there are also a handful of restrictions, including specific voice commands for game and limitations on the Kinect's functions. Another future SDK update for the Xbox One is already in sight, with one of the upcoming features set to address the lingering problem of the variation of CPU time availability from moment-to-moment.

That's not all that Microsoft has planned for the Xbox One, and as early as now, there seems to be something more brewing, this time in the area of game-related content and function. DualShockers has spotted a job vacancy post for Microsoft for a senior software engineer.

According to the job ad, Microsoft appears to be looking at new options of how they can push the technology for the Xbox via the Xbox Live and Kinect. Interestingly, the company does not seem keen on divulging any information until the interested applicant has already become part of the team. Delving further into the job ad, the senior software engineer will also be focusing on the Kinect and developing its technology for more experiences that would involve embedded systems, data mining, AI and voice recognition, among others.