The Xbox 720 will not be shown or released this year

Xbox Logo

There have been a lot of rumours and rumblings about the Xbox 360’s successor. We haven’t reported on most of them since this is a Wii U blog, after all, but this particular one is worth pointing out because it’s great news for the Wii U.

According to Bloomberg, Microsoft plan to launch the Xbox 720 next year, with a possible reveal at E3 2013, but have absolutely no intention of revealing the console this year.

What does this mean for Nintendo? The Wii U will have a full year’s head start on its competition, which – especially if it’s priced right – can give it the chance to really get out there and get into people’s homes, as it will be the only eighth-generation console for quite a while. Microsoft used this strategy with the Xbox 360, and the momentum the console picked up early on is still with it to some degree.

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Comments, Reactions, and General Hooliganism

  1. Gwelch

    To be honest this only comes as a slight surprise, for several reasons. But mainly due to the rumors of the systems ability to play used games, and no drive for backwards capabilities. The amount of negative feed back would definitely cause Microsoft to rethink its future strategy.
    Or at the very least Microsoft is trying to keep a lid on the can cause all the rumors of the next console from Microsoft are not even close to being what the system is capable of.

    Either way we’ll have to wait till E3 to find out. But I’m betting that no the system will not be shown.

  2. I’m surprised that Microsoft would do this. It’s not smart on their part, especially in light of the reports indicating rather radical changes they plan to make for their next console.

    It’s worse enough they won’t support a disc format and will force all their gamers to download those large-sized games (not to mention, no backwards-compatibility with 360 games). It’s another thing to not even announce and show something about the console this year.

    They’re either going to wait too late if they’re hoping for a mid-to-late 2014 release by announcing it next year, or they’re going to bring their console short-notice to game developers and consumers in 2013 if they release their console within the same year they announced it.

    But it doesn’t really matter much to me, personally. I was sold on Wii U from day one.

    • F0

      The Xbox 360’s successor will actually use solid-state cartridges like the DS, 3DS, and Vita. Making it a download-only console would truly have been a terrible move, but they didn’t go that far.

      What Nintendo have is an honest chance at an uncontested market. It’s something they haven’t had in a while. All they have to do is play their cards right and make good on every promise they’ve made.

  3. james braselton

    hi there your right i saw the xbox 720 specs on the internet microsoft is going with solid state flash drives over slow hard drives