Rumour: Skinny Xbox 360 announcement coming in December

Posted by Al Warmington on Tue 30 Sep 2008

PRs rush to retract

Although there have been more than a few rumours of a slim Xbox 360 model doing the rounds, there has been no official confirmation of any such device and so this news should be treated with your usual dose of scepticism.

This time though, the rumour has been credited to a proper Microsoft source, Microsoft India's Retail Services Manager, Rahul Datta. According to one site, Mr Datta let slip that an announcement about the Xbox 360 Slim could be expected in December.

It isn't a huge surprise to learn that a PR representative scurried to undo the exec's loose-lipped utterings, stating that he had simply pointed out that the business is evolving and that there may be some kind of announcement (not necessarily related to this strange Xbox 360 Slim that everyone keeps on about) which might be made in a few months. Maybe.

Sounds pretty promising, and Microsoft would want to keep a tight lid on such news when there's the important business of Christmas to deal with. Frankly though, you'd be daft to hold out in wait of a slim model when there's so many mega-titles coming out in the next few months, including Fable 2, Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3.

December would seem like a very peculiar time to make an announcement of this kind though. It's a busy time of year for making sales, not unveiling new hardware. Our guess is that CES, kicking off at the start of January, would be a considerably more likely timeframe for a major announcement like this. And after last year's rumours of an integrated HD DVD Xbox 360 model failed to materialise (probably for the better!), Microsoft may well be eager to make a decent splash with the console in the coming event.

(via ElectricPig)