Last week a story on the, usually very reliable, Japanese Nihon Keizai Shimbun claimed that Microsoft's Steve Ballmer had stated that XBox 2 would be released in 2006 in Japan. Today the paper posted an apology claiming that the comments were not Ballmer's but were expert analyst expectations. The same paper also apologized for misprinting the date involved since the correct date was 2005 and not 2006.
The article, last week, produced a slight shock effect among analysts since most had expected a 2005 release date for the console. To most analysts 2005 seems to get the balance right by allowing the Japanese competition to release their PS3's and N5's while still giving MS enough time to unleash their box with a power advantage before losing much of the market. Such a theory would be consistent with current Microsoft strategy which did give themn a power edge over the competition although, many would argue that they may have left it too late by allowing Sony to establish too wide a user base.
A 2006 launch would endanger Microsoft's console of facing the same problem when competitn with Sony's product.
So we still have no clue of when XBox 2 will be launched but following the story last week we have found out the implications a 2005 or 2006 release could have on the future of XBox's successor.
