Microsoft says all this talk about an upgraded Xbox 360 is not only wrong, it's missing the point. There won't be an upgraded Xbox 360 next year, and in fact, we're only halfway through the current console cycle. What's more, Project Natal, the company's no-controller 3D motion and voice recognition technology is being designed for the existing Xbox 360, not an imaginary "performance-upgraded" one.
In an official statement released to the media, a Microsoft spokesperson wrote
As the Xbox team stated at E3 two weeks ago, we are not even halfway through the current console generation lifecycle and believe Xbox 360 will be the entertainment center in the home for long into the next decade. Project Natal will be an important part of this platform, but we have not confirmed a launch date at this time.
And while games blog Kotaku makes assumptions I wouldn't about the Ballmer quote in the introductory paragraph to this article, the piece is worth scanning for the following quote, from Xbox Live Director of Product Management, Aaron Greenberg:
There will be no new console.
You can't get any less ambiguous than that, and unless you're into torturing semantics, that's book shut, case closed, speculation over.
But what about Natal? Will there be a version of the Xbox 360 with Natal integrated? Maybe, maybe not. Greenberg says they've looked into it, but that's all he's saying. What Steve Ballmer said yesterday doesn't help--it's simply too ambiguous to cite evidentially. Anyone claiming otherwise needs to rethink how this medium works.
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