MS Rumors 360 1/2?

With all this new stuff coming out here and there, its kind of easy to overlook the fact that we haven't had a new gaming console come out for a long time. Long gone are the days of the rinse and repeat 3 year cycles, the 360 is coming up on 5 years almost and still going strong with titles like Modern Warfare 2, Forza 3, and Fight Night 4 coming out soon, not to mention your random motion-sensing game for the Wii which everyone seems to buy for their kids and even the PS3 is starting to get back on it's feet with games like Last Guardian and FFXIII being released. This doesn't even include the DLC we've had and will be getting in the future which in itself has proven it is a viable source of gaming.

Now if MS came out and said "The Xbox Allard is coming out in 2XXX, BAM!" it certainly would peak an interest, but it would have to be substantially better than the 360/PS3 for it to sell right? No one would buy a new nex-nex-gen console if it didn't look at least 2x better, better games, control, everything. I mean, that's how it's always been. Can you think of a better Xbox 360 that you could get for around $500? Hard, huh.

Now imagine that with the pricepoint so low of todays nex-gen consoles, you could moderately "upgrade" the internals of the same system. Then announce that it runs faster, better, and is backwards compatible plus features new hardware that can let future games take advantage of. Then...bundle it with a new motion-sensing capability that was previously lacking from the original console. Would you buy it for $499?

All of this is regarding a rumor that 1UP digged up about Microsoft planning to release a new Xbox next year.