New Xbox finally confirmed by Microsoft employee

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   August 7th, 2012   |  

News, Uncategorized

After years of speculations, it has finally been confirmed that Microsoft is indeed working on the development of a new Xbox console.

While the news of a successor to Xbox 360 in the works hardly comes off as a big surprise, the latest report is of huge significance as it is the first time that we are getting to hear about it from a Microsoft employee.

Speaking with The Verge about the company’s new Outlook e-mail service, general manager Brian Hall mentioned the “new Xbox.”

“We’ve had Hotmail and operated Hotmail for about 16 years, we obviously have Exchange, and Outlook, that people use at work. We just decided it was time to do something new and bring the best from each of those and put them together and release it right in time for the new wave of products that we could have coming out with Windows 8, with the new version of Office with the new Windows phone and the new Xbox,” Hall said.

It is not clear whether Hall simply got carried away while talking about the new wave of products and accidently dropped the name, something that he would probably be regretting now, or if it was intentional.

The statement may not look like a lot at a first glance as it pretty much states a fact that is being considered obvious by many. However, a deeper analysis reveals something that would definitely get everyone excited.

Hall mentioned the new Xbox in the same breath as Windows 8. We may not know when the next-generation console is coming, but what we do know is that the new Windows is coming out in October 26. This strongly suggests that the next edition of Xbox may not be as far away from release as we initially believed.

Both Microsoft and Sony have been showing a lot of interest in extending the life-cycle of their current-generation console. Microsoft has admitted that in order to achieve this, it had come up with Kinect to give players a controller-free experience. The company further made its commitment to keeping Xbox 360 alive by revealing the SmartGlass add-on for the console at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) that was held at Los Angeles in June.

Sony has also been apparently focusing on PlayStation 3, while openly stating that it will only move on to a new hardware once there is enough technological advancement to show a significant leap from the current-generation console to its successor.

While both the companies remained completely silent about their work on the next-generation console during their E3 conference, there is a strong chance that we will get to see and hear more of what they are cooking at next year’s expo.