XBOX 2 Specs Leaked, Then Retracted, Then Confirmed?

Over the past week, the successor to the XBOX has been the talk of the gaming world. First, questionable XBOX 2 specs are leaked. According to the "leaked" info, the XBOX 2 will have a 3.5GHz IBM Power PC Processor, a 500MHz ATI graphics processor, 256MB of RAM, and a 12X DVD drive (but the XBOX isn't supposed to be a computer, right?). Then a report was released that the XBOX 2 would not be backwards compatible with any current-gen XBOX games.

Finally, Microsoft jumped in and basically stated that nothing has been announced yet in regards to the new console, codenamed "Xenon". However, they did not confirm or deny anything. Well, after speaking with a few major developers over the past couple of days, it is beginning to sound like those leaked specs are a reality. Many are reporting that the games currently in development for XBOX 2 are in fact expected to run on a machine similar to what was leaked.