Report: Microsoft’s next Xbox due out by Thanksgiving 2013

A new Bloomberg report claims that Microsoft's next game console will hit shelves in time for the Black Friday 2013 rush but it's still unclear if Microsoft will release its high tech Xbox 720 or the budget priced Xbox TV.

The holiday season is typically reserved by video game companies to tout big sales numbers and roll out major sequels. 2012’s been no different. Nintendo proclaimed this week that it sold 400,000 Wii Us during the week of Black Friday, Sony boasted 525,000 PlayStation 3s sold, and Microsoft reported 750,000 Xbox 360s sold, particularly impressive since the Xbox is celebrating its seventh birthday this November. This is not the Xbox 360’s season, though, as each day a new rumor about the console’s successor circles the Internet. The latest is that the next Xbox, sometimes called Xbox 720 and sometimes Durango, will definitely arrive in time for Christmas 2013.

Bloomberg reported on Friday morning that its sources, who naturally asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that Microsoft is planning to release the next Xbox almost exactly one year after the Wii U, to capitalize on Black Friday and Christmas 2013 sales. The source also said that Microsoft has yet to decide whether it will debut the next Xbox at a trade show like E3 2013 or the Consumer Electronics Show or if it will hold an independent event.

Microsoft famously debuted the Xbox 360 in a television special back in 2005, showing off “target” demos of games like Madden NFL 2006 that didn’t look anything like the games that shipped alongside the console later that year. Since then Microsoft hasn’t shied away from bringing new products to trade events. Kinect debuted as the codenamed “Project Natal” at E3 2009 before re-emerging one year later with its proper name.

Just what Microsoft will announce for release in 2013 is up in the air as there are two successors to the Xbox 360 rumored as of now. The first is an expensive, powerful new gaming machine codenamed Durango that will ship under the simple name Xbox. This console will play Blu-ray discs and run graphically intensive games similar to those seen in tech demos like Star Wars 1313.

That machine will sell alongside a cheaper device called the Xbox TV, a Windows 8-powered set top box that focuses heavily on entertainment apps like Netflix and Microsoft’s own rumored television service as well as video games. There are even suggestions that the Xbox TV will retain the game playing technology in the Xbox 360.

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