The eagerly-awaited launch of the new Xbox 720 console will not now take place until 2013. So says a Microsoft bigwig in France, anyway.
The Xbox 720 is slated to dwarf the performance of the current – and much-loved to many – Xbox 360, with new features to include the potentially lip-reading new Kinect 2 and Blu-ray functionality.
It had initially been hoped that the next-generation model would be on show at the 2012 E3 show in early June.
But Cedrick Delmas, the marketing director of Microsoft France, has lifted the lid on the real timeframe expected by the computer giant – although it’s a bit unclear whether it’s official Microsoft policy or just idle chatter from one of their suits.
In an interview with Lepoint.fr, translated by the good folk at Eurogamer, Delmas said, “We’re in an industry that talks a lot, that likes telling stories. I am not convinced that things will happen this year. The Xbox 360’s cycle is not over at all. The proof is that we haven’t price cut this year.
“Afterward, what will happen at E3, it’s still too early to say. What’s certain is that there will be nothing new in 2012. If we wanted to counter Nintendo, we would have to be in a position to release something immediately, and that is not at all the case.
“We’re not here to counter Nintendo and they’re not here to fight the other manufacturers. Nintendo has put itself in a different cycle, it’s going forward to its own rhythm, with success as we have seen with the Wii, and now it’s their turn to present their innovation.”
The new PlayStation 4 console from Sony will also not be released before this summer’s E3 conference, leaving the way clear for Nintendo to steal an early march on its gaming console competitors with its updated Wii, the Wii U.
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