Next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft exist, says EA

More and more rumours keep popping up every day about the next generation of consoles. It is a widely agreed upon fact that the current generation of consoles - the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii have run their course, this being well into the generation’s seventh year. Recently, President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau confirmed the existence of Microsoft and Sony’s next consoles.

According to Gamespot, Frank Gibeau mentioned in his keynote speech during Gamescom that he has seen both of them. During his speech about the future of the gaming industry as he sees it, Gibeau said, “Ten years ago we used to measure our market in terms of 200 million people. Now we are at a billion people playing games and we have a straight line view on 2 billion.”

Even though there is no word on a “PlayStation 4” from Sony so far, Microsoft had mentioned a “new Xbox” in an interview. In the interview, general manager of Windows LIVE in Microsoft, Brian Hall, mentioned the existence of “the new Xbox”. Hall referred to “the new Xbox” as one of the many projects that could be integrated with Windows 8. He said, “We’ve had Hotmail and operated Hotmail for about 16 years. We obviously have Exchange, and Outlook, that people use at work,” said Hall. “We just decided it was time to do something new and bring the best from each of those and put them together and release it right in time for the new wave of products that we could have coming out with Windows 8, with the new version of Office, with the new Windows Phone and the new Xbox.”

The seventh generation will be coming to an end soon

While this was the first time anyone from Microsoft had openly acknowledged the existence of the next generation console, Microsoft later backtracked in a comment to IGN.com, “The comments to The Verge were not understood in their intended context. When Brian mentioned a ‘new wave of products,’ he was referring to the full lineup of products coming later this year from Microsoft, including Windows 8, Office, Windows Phone and of course our fall Xbox update which will bring a host of new consumer experiences like Xbox Music, Videos, Games on Windows 8 and Xbox SmartGlass.”

In July, a supposed Xbox 720 “Durango” developer kit was posted on a developer forum and was introduced to the public for a price of $10,000. The developer kit resembles the traditional PC tower running a debug launcher, which caused many people to be cautious and skeptical about whether the prototype is authentic. EuroGamer’s Digital Foundry reached the source of the leak. After following up on the story with multiple developers, who are working on next-gen projects, it came to the conclusion that the hardware was real.

According to an earlier report, the next iteration of the Thief franchise, Thi4f is likely to release late next year, when the Xbox 720 is expected to launch. Thi4f is said to have been in development for four years.  The game has seen many problems during development with the audio director and lead level designer recently leaving the studio, along with many other concept artists and designers.