Microsoft has responded to recent reports officially announcing that it will not release the heavily rumoured Xbox 720 later this year.

Batting off comments that the Xbox 360 manufacturer was to rush out production of its next console to compete with the upcoming Nintendo Wii U, Microsoft’s French Marketing Director Cedrick Delmas has openly declared that the PlayStation rival will launch “nothing new in 2012.”

Xbox 720 E3 2012 Rumours

Following in the footsteps of Sony and confirming that there will be no next-generation console release during 2012 Microsoft’s Delmas has, however, not ruled out the Xbox 360 follow-on being officially unveiled during June’s E3 convention ahead of release in 2013.

“What will happen at E3, it's still too early to say. What's certain is that there will be nothing new in 2012,” Delmas announced in a recent interview. “If we wanted to counter Nintendo, we would have to be in a position to release something immediately, and that is not at all the case.

"We're not here to counter Nintendo and they're not here to fight the other manufacturers. Nintendo has put itself in a different cycle, it's going forward to its own rhythm, with success as we have seen with the Wii, and now it's their turn to present their innovation."

Insisting that the now aging Xbox 360 still has what it takes to lead the console wars for another lucrative Christmas period Delmas added: "We're in an industry that talks a lot, that likes telling stories. I am not convinced that things will happen this year. The Xbox 360's cycle is not over at all. The proof is that we haven't price cut this year.”

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News via: TechRadar