Keen observers might have noticed that we did not carry the latest rumoured Xbox 720 spec and now we can tell you why. It was fake. (We're saving the real spec for later. Ed)

The hoax was pulled off by a lone prankster, who sent the “leak” to several tech sites, posing as a Microsoft employee. Some fell for it, some did not, but there is no reason to gloat, as we fell for some pranks ourselves in years gone by.

The fake leak pointed to an eight-core APU, 800MHz GPU and whatnot – basically a compilation of believable specs leaked over the last few months. The prankster claims the specs were posted with zero validation and no fact-checking, based on an anonymous email in which he claimed to be a Microsoft employee.

We have to side with the duped tech sites in this case. The sites clearly stated that the spec sheet was not and could not be confirmed, so therefore it could be false. So why on earth did they publish it? Well, they did it because readers like juicy rumours and that’s what pays the rent these days.

More here.