J Allard reveals new Xbox 360/Xbox Next details. Just not many of them.

Nope, it's not the grand unveiling which is still expected for E3 in May (and which will jockey for the attention of lusty fanboys along with the PS3 and the Nintendo Revolution), but Microsoft VP J Allard finally pulled back the curtain a bit on the next Xbox at a speech at this week's Game Developers Conference. First off, he didn't get too much into the actual specifics of the hardware (which means we can't confirm or deny those leaked specs that are floating about), but it does sound like it is going to be called the
Xbox 360. Even though he wouldn't reveal a whole lot about the actual hardware of the machine (except to say that it will have optional support for high-def and a teraflop of computing power), he did talk a lot about the new features
Xbox Live is going to be getting, like an online marketplace where players can buy and sell their online creations.

P.S. Joystiq editor Ben Zackheim has a good blow-by-blow of Allard's speech
here.

[Thanks, David Crowe]