UPDATE: Or maybe not...

It might be a small thing, but anytime someone confirms a rumor in the gaming community it's time to sit up and take notice -- especially if we're talking next gen consoles.  In a video interview with The Verge Microsoft Windows Live General Manager Brian Hall has outed the Xbox 720, or at the very least confirmed what we already suspected to be true, that it exists.

“We’ve had Hotmail and operated Hotmail for about sixteen years, we obviously have Exchange, and Outlook, that people use at work. 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.”

While we may have "known" this information, this is the first time that Microsoft is acknowledging the new console in development, at least in the press.  We expected a big announcement at E3, and there was nothing.  Could there be something dropping at Gamescom, or are they really going to wait until next year to make their big announcement?

[via G4, source The Verge]