If you thought there was a new Xbox on the way — one that's sitting in the offices of game development company Crytek — well then you thought wrong.
Or so say the folks over at, well, Crytek.
The company has officially denied rumors that they are working with the successor to the Xbox 360 and that they believe the new machine will be revealed at next year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Crytek sent the following statement to game site IGN:
Relating to the recent rumours, Crytek do not have any next generation hardware from Microsoft, nor do we know when Microsoft may announce future hardware or what that hardware will entail. Crytek are working at pushing the boundaries of what current technology can bring, including our focus on DX11 which will be released shortly as an update for Crysis 2, and we believe this work, added to our estimations of what the new hardware will provide, set up CryENGINE as a next generation engine for all consoles.
The rumor mill kicked into overdrive last week after VideoGamer.com reported that "a high-ranking industry source at Crytek" who has worked with the machine, told them Microsoft wants to reveal its new console ahead of rival Sony and will do so in the next 12 months and likely at next year's E3 event.
The unnamed source also told VideoGamer that Crytek is already developing a new "TimeSplitters" game for the next generation of consoles. (Speaking of which, we can't help but notice that Crytek did not deny rumors that they are working on a new "TimeSplitters" game in their statement above.)
This is just the latest Xbox successor rumor to make the rounds. Last month, anonymous sources told gaming sites that the new machine had been spotted in the Electronic Arts offices. EA, of course, said that was untrue.
Meanwhile according to some other recent gossip, both Microsoft and Sony are planning to launch their next generation of game machines in 2014.
Yes, yes, the rumor mill and its many unnamed sources are a notoriously unreliable bunch ... but really, is there anyone out there who thinks Microsoft isn't already working on the next Xbox? Yeah, I didn't think so.
(Thanks to IGN for the heads up.)
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Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter .