Since 2000 Steve Ballmer has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft, so it's probably fair to assume that he has a pretty good idea of what's going on with the company, and the various products in development at any given time. Bear that in mind as you read on. According to TGDaily, in a speech given yesterday in Chicago to the Executives Club, Ballmer stated that a new Xbox console will be coming out in 2010. While he didn't mention Project Natal by name, he apparently did mention that the 2010 console would feature a built-in camera.

This would mark the first time that anyone out of Redmond has mentioned, or even hinted at, a release date for Project Natal, and it's certainly the first time anyone has stated that it would be available so soon. And although TGDaily was the first site to get the quote, several other outlets have picked up the story, enough that Microsoft had to issue a response.

In a blog posting entitled, "To clarify what Steve said earlier today...", Major Nelson had this to say on Mr. Ballmer's comments:

"A few people have emailed me regarding something Steve Ballmer said earlier today about a new Xbox coming in 2010. As the Xbox team stated at E3 two weeks ago, we are not even halfway through the current console generation lifecycle and believe Xbox 360 will be the entertainment center in the home for long into the next decade.  Project Natal will be an important part of this platform, but we have not confirmed a launch date at this time."

Aside from being a funny "please excuse Steve for putting his foot in his mouth" release, this statement speaks volumes. In particular, I keep going back to the line "we have not confirmed a launch date", which is a far cry from a flat out denial of what Ballmer said. It would seem that gamers can and should expect Project Natal (or whatever name it will retail under) to hit store shelves at some point during the calendar year of 2010, but MS wasn't quite ready to let that particular cat out of the bag. I would further surmise from the repeated cries of "not even halfway through... generation lifecycle" that Natal will not require a separate console, but can be added onto existing SKUs.

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