Microsoft might be in the process of making the Xbox Surface, a 7-inch gaming tablet, as pointed out by a fresh report. Apparently, initial plans for the hardware that will go into the slate are already underway.
Specifications for the Microsoft gaming tablet were leaked in June this year, and The Verge has learned from multiple sources familiar with the company’s plans, that those specs are indeed correct and will very closely mirror what ultimately goes into the device, if ever such a device is made.
According to speculation, the Xbox Surface will most probably incorporate a custom-made ARM processor which will work together with high-bandwidth RAM. This is supposedly to help keep up with the daily rigors of gaming. And who knows what it says about the next Microsoft home console?
That’s another issue though, and the rumored tablet reportedly won’t run on a conventional version of the company’s Windows OS. Instead, the report says it could work on a custom Windows kernel. The tech web site also believes that the 7-incher will be produced at the same factory and in a secret manufacturing process which the company uses for its Surface tablets.
Another cause for the flames having been stoked is that Microsoft has apparently ‘locked down’ a good number of Xbox-related buildings at its offices in Silicon Valley. And people now take this as an indication that the company definitely has something in the works, and that it is possibly the gaming slate.
The rumor is so far along, that it even touches upon the Redmond, Washington based giant building games and other software for the device. At this stage, it wouldn’t be too far out to believe that the speculated gadget could also result in a full-blown 7-inch Windows tablet.
It should be noted that The Verge report on the specifications refer to the tablet portion of the specs sheet that showed up on shifted2u.com. The stationary computing device, as indicated by the sheet would figure 5GB of DDR3 memory, while the custom AMD graphics processing unit would have 1.2GB of DDR5 memory.
Microsoft has chosen not to comment yet, but there is also the off chance that this would end up being a controller for the Xbox 720, as it’s called, not unlike the Wii U’s GamePad.