There have been rumors for months on end about the next generation of consoles from both Microsoft and Sony. However, Sony has been the only one to talk about the future of their next console. Microsoft has been ablsolutely quiet about their next generation console, they haven’t even confirmed that they were working on a new console until today.
During an interview talking about the new “Outlook.com” general manager of Windows Live Brian Hall brought up the “next Xbox”. Here is the official statement from Hall:
“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.”
I know this is not earth shattering news, considering the next Xbox is suppose to be out by the end of next year. However, this is the first time any member of Microsoft has even brought up that they are even thinking about the next generation. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this poor guy Hall is fired for just breathing a word of the “next Xbox”.
We know for a fact that companies are already working on next generation games that will only be released on next generation consoles. For instance CD Projekt Red’s new cyberpunk based game is set to be released simultaneously on PC and next generation consoles. Not to mention games like Watch Dogs and Star Wars 1313 are said to being worked on for next generation consoles as well. However, these companies just can’t announce anything until Microsoft and Sony confirm both systems are in the works.
Next years E3 is probably when we will get an official announcement about both Sony and Microsoft’s next generation consoles. At this point though I just wish both Microsoft and Sony would officially announce their next generation consoles so we can start talking about the next generation games instead.
