Is Microsoft already teasing us with a "next Xbox" countdown?

Microsoft has been attending the Electronic Entertainment Expo video game-based trade show, better known as E3, since it started in the mid-1990s. This year's E3 will officially be held on June 11-13 in Los Angeles but typically Microsoft holds a pre-E3 press conference in LA the day before the trade show officially starts.

Today, the Major Nelson website, run by Microsoft's Larry Hryb, did something that it has never done before. It posted a countdown clock that will reach zero when E3 2013 begins. Hryb's only statement on the post was, "And it’s on…"

Already many commentators on the post are speculating that Hryb went ahead and posted the countdown clock so early as a tease that Microsoft has some extra-special planned for E3 2013. Unless all the Internet rumors and leaks prove to be bogus, it's likely that Microsoft could use E3 as the first place to show off the third generation Xbox game console.

Some rumors, including one report in one of the last print issues of Xbox World in November, claimed that the next Xbox would in fact be revealed well before E3 2013. However, we suspect that may not be correct as Microsoft still has a number of major Xbox 360 first and third party games that are due to be released before June, including Gears of War Judgement in March. We don't think Microsoft would risk revealing the next Xbox before all of those games ship to stores.

Source: Major Nelson | Image via Microsoft

http://www.neowin.net/news/is-microsoft-already-teasing-us-with-a-next-xbox-countdown

Edit:  XBox Next/720 silicon production day arrives

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=152169&page=1#

That's exciting, I hope it's awesome!

Have they ever done this before?

159 days away.......bit early id say

No

But if they announce it at E3 that will be the first time any console has been announced at E3 which means my prediction would be wrong..... I'm still thinking a march or may announcement but who knows I could be wrong. i know, as hard as that is to believe :P

Obviously referring to the Next Xbox. No way they would have a countdown that far out for anything else

wasnt WiiU announced at E3?? im pretty sure it was at E3 2011

No it was announced months before E3.  E3 is used to present the new hardware but their has never actually been an announcement at E3.

I guess this means MS has already won E3 2012. Unless Sony announces PS4 at E3 or Wii U gets Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, and another First Party title,( I mean all of those have to be announced for Nintendo to even have a shot at winning E3) not that who does the best at E3 really matters.