No Xbox 2 in “Next Year”

Speaking at the annual Microsoft financial analyst meeting, company CEO Steve Ballmer has made the apparently unequivocal statement that “There’s no new Xbox in the next year.” Taken at face value, this would seem to imply that the long assumed Christmas 2005 launch in America is no longer part of the company’s plans. However, in reality, the statement is far more ambiguous than first appears, especially as Microsoft officials have refused to comment on it. The term “the next year” could simply refer to the literal next 12 months or it could, as seems most likely, refer to the company’s next financial year – which ends June 30, 2005. Ballmer’s comments may likely be an attempt to encourage continued interest in the existing Xbox console, although the refusal to confirm whether the new console will be shown at next year’s E3 is perplexing – considering that both Sony and Nintendo have done so already. Source: GameSpot