Microsoft’s French marketing director has done on record to silence any rumors of an early release date for the next generation Xbox entertainment console. Some rumors stated that we might see it soon, but it looks like we aren’t getting anything special this year.
“We’re in an industry that likes to talk a lot, to tell stories…The Xbox 360’s cycle is nowhere near finished. The proof of that is that we’re not planning to lower its price during this year. One thing which is certain is that there will be nothing new in 2012,” Cedrick Delmas, Microsoft’s head of marketing at Microsoft France stated.
Well, there you have it. Recent reports have even suggested that the next generation Xbox, dubbed Xbox 720, will have six times the power of the current Xbox 360 and will be available in the fall of 2013. This coincides nicely with a previous report of the GPU being based on a Radeon graphics engine. That’s all we really know about the next gen Xbox console.
As far as the 360 goes, Microsoft has a few plans up its sleeve for this year. “We want to extend the reach of Xbox Live across our installation base by developing a range of different services,” Delmas added. Delmas also added that the Kinect has helped the Xbox 360 reach a whole new audience and that “more than 50%” of the Xboxes sold in France over Christmas were bought with Kinect packs.”
The Xbox 360 is the highest selling gaming console of 2011 with 66 million units sold. Kinect has sold over 18 million units since its launch.
