The past week has been full of rumors and stories about when Microsoft and Sony might launch the next versions of their game consoles. One rumor said that Microsoft and Sony would at least announce their next-generation game consoles at E3 2012 in June, perhaps as a way to take away some of the attention from Nintendo's Wii U, which was shown at E3 2011 and is scheduled to launch sometime before the end of 2012.
Now IndustryGamers.com reports that they have contacted what they call "a well connected source" who claims that at least one, if not both, of Microsoft and Sony's successors to the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 could actually be released to the market by the end of 2012, rather than by the end of 2013 as most industry insiders have predicted. The unnamed source said:
The 'trick' to these rumors is not the console manufacturers themselves, but rather the chip makers. All indications from them are that things change significantly (ie next generation) come November of this year. As such, it has been my presumption since the middle of this past year that we would see new boxes in the market for Christmas of 2012.
We personally doubt that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will all release their next generation game console hardware by the end of this year. However, Microsoft did launch the Xbox 360 in 2005, a mere four years after the launch of the original Xbox. It's a long shot but it's possible that Microsoft could spoil Nintendo's Wii U launch plans and launch the next Xbox ahead of the predictions of the industry prognosticators.
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