Xbox 720 Announcement May Come In, Well, May. Maybe.

Steve Anderson : End Game
Steve Anderson
The Video Store Guy
| The video game industry has gone from a mole hill to a mountain in no time flat, Chris DiMarco is your Sherpa as you endeavor to scale Mount “Everquest”

Xbox 720 Announcement May Come In, Well, May. Maybe.

A new report from Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W. Baird, suggests that we may be seeing the last entry in the console wars' next generation in the next few weeks. While the report may not come off as planned, there's still a lot to suggest that it will.

Sebastian's report, which was part of a note to investors focusing on Electronic Arts, suggested that the announcement of the new Xbox would prove to be a "catalyst" for shares of EA, which would likely be one of the major developers for such a system. While Sebastian's report couldn't pin down the date or the venue of such an announcement, it does dovetail into earlier reports that suggest that, instead of waiting for E3 to land, Microsoft's next foray into gaming would be announced at a special media event in late April.

The early word has been somewhat mixed, with some word making for wild anticipation. GameStop's CEO called the console, reportedly a "very hot, compelling device" that would make the "world...stand up and take notice." Other reports, however, have left gamers very unnerved, like a requirement that a Kinect be involved in the system, as well as the still very real possibility that game registration would be required, removing the concept of used gaming from the market entirely. Still, it's looking like a very real possibility that we'll see the Xbox 720 get unveiled in fairly rapid fashion. There are certainly more than enough unanswered questions to go around about this device that need settling, and the thought that we may well get some answers in just a matter of a few weeks is terribly exciting in its own right.

Microsoft's console is, as yet, the lone holdout in the next generation console battle. The Wii U from Nintendo has had shelves all to itself for months, and Sony recently unveiled the PlayStation 4 without much in the way of future release dates. With the Xbox 360's successor unveiled, that will set up all the pieces for the next matchup. With PAX East set to kick off soon, and after that the always jam-packed events of E3, it's only a matter of time until more information arrives. Hopefully, with the next set of pieces ready to go, release date information will start arriving, and with it, more information about launch titles.

It could be a very exciting couple of months to come up here, and will certainly stand watching to see just what emerges next.
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