According to "This Is Next," the next Xbox will share a common operating system with PCs and mobile phones.
According to their sources, the aforementioned operating system will succeed Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 and it will forego the "Windows" moniker in favor of a new one which "better reflects Microsoft's vision of the future." The new OS will launch within the next 4 years, which is in line with Windows 8's expected lifecycle of 3 years.
The report falls squarely in line with comments made by Windows Phone president Andy Lees during the Microsoft Partner Conference on Tuesday.
During the conference, Lees explained that we have reached the "inflection point" where all the key components of a PC can be placed on a single chip, which led to the proliferation of different devices that has the same capabilities.
"The key important thing here, though, is the change that's yet to happen, but it's about to happen - the bringing together of these devices into a unified ecosystem," he said. "Because if it's possible for the core of the device itself to be common across phones, PCs and TVs - and even other things because the price drops dramatically - then it will be a single ecosystem."
"Windows has always spanned different PC form factors, and with Windows 8 we're going to take this to a whole new level, including tablets... We are aiming to provide coherence and consistency across the PC, the phone, and the TV, particularly with Xbox."