*puts bet on Superchunk*

The Halo 4 thign is weak bro, if that's your main reason.

How often have Sony or Microsoft released their biggest established franchise with their system?

Few companies want to "waste" their most important game on a system that has no userbase, has limited supply, and will likely sell nearly as quickly as you can produce it for months.

Typically you get the "big guns" for the holiday season after the system has been on the market for 6 to 12 months. There is usually a decent game or two for a system at launch, but they typically belong to a new IP; and this is (in part) a way to build up a new IP because it immediately becomes an important game.

 It could be " Twilight Princess-ed" or 'DQX'ed". Theres no reason they can't make graphics/image quality scale up for a next gen system but keep the game on both consoles compatible with each other for multiplayer. Plus remember the whole forward compatibility thing people were going on about this gen.

Besides,  what better game is there for MS to launch alongside than a Halo?

launching about a year before Sony would also be great for MS to continue pushing the brand power they gained this gen.

But still, there's the question of wether MS would have enough games for a launch in 2012.

I guess it could go either way, but personally I am leaning towards a 2012 launch right now.

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The thing is Halo 4 is such a massive game I think it would directly compete and hurt the Nextbox's sales.  Not to mention GTA 5 as well.  I just don't think any next-gen consoles are ready to compete with them.

I really don't think so ...

Most "big" games have a significant impact on the market for (maybe) 6 weeks or 8 weeks, a new console will likely sell (about) as well as it can for the first 6 weeks to 3 months regardless of competition, and these games may be released weeks or months before the console is released. So, suppose Halo 4 is released early October and the next XBox is released late November, how much of an impact will Halo 4 have on the next XBox in January?

Microsoft is doing more exciting things with gaming than Both Sony and Nintendo are. 

"But Halo 4 could launch on both the 360 and the 1080 simultaneously, ala Zelda: Twilight Princess (Gamecube and Wii)…"

Does everyone just assume the next Xbox won't have backwards compatibility?