If you were holding out hope that Microsoft was going to launch a new Xbox game console by the end of 2012, your hopes are now officially dashed. Eurogamer.net reports, via a French language web site, that a Microsoft official has said the company has no plans to release a new game console this year.
The article from Lepoint.fr quotes Cedrick Delmas, marketing director of Microsoft France, as saying:
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.
Delmas is referring, of course, to Nintendo"s already announced Wii U, which made its first appearance at E3 2011 and is currently scheduled to launch before the end of 2012. Delmas also talked about Microsoft"s philosophy as opposed to Nintendo, saying:
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.
While Microsoft may not actually launch a new Xbox console in retail stores this year, they could announced some preliminary details about their next gaming console at E3 this June with an eye to launching it by the end of 2013. A recent rumor claimed that the next Xbox console will have a graphics processor that will be six times as powerful as the current Xbox 360.