Microsoft eyeing up Xbox 8 naming for the next Xbox console?

There has been a great deal of speculation about Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox console, widely believed to be called the Xbox 720. Although more speculation has now emerged in the wake of Microsoft winning an arbitration dispute, initiated in May, allowing it to acquire some domain names with interesting clues.

The domain names that were seized from Chinese citizen Cheng Juan include XboxPhone.com, XboxTablet.com, XboxLiveTV.com, XboxCompanion.com, Xbox8.us and Xbox8.org. Microsoft’s interest in the domains XboxPhone.com, XboxTablet.com, XboxLiveTV.com and XboxCompanion.com, all seem pretty run-of-the-mill as perhaps indicators of potential new products and services.

However, the acquisition of Xbox8.us and Xbox8.org domain names seem to point in the direction of something less obvious. In fact speculation about whether the next Xbox would be called the Xbox 8 is not totally new, a few news stories sparked up about this in early May. The 8 branding marks a sensible move for Microsoft to keep the naming strategies of all its products clean and simple with Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and now Xbox 8: brand recognition certainly shouldn’t be an issue.

Microsoft has been busy filing complaints against many domains using the Xbox branding, such as Xboxliverewards.com, Xboxsports.com, Xboxsmartglass.com and Xboxmusic.com. Surprisingly, Microsoft is not currently engaged in an arbitration proceeding with the owner of Xbox8.com who appears to be a resident of China. Seemingly counter-intuitive given websites of globally important products tend to go by the .com domain extension.

One thing that does spark up from this new naming strategy for the Xbox console is that if it follows the Windows OS number sequence then will the release of new Xbox models speed up to keep pace with the Windows operating systems or will the Windows operating systems have to be released slower to stay in check with the Xbox consoles?

All very interesting stuff, please let us know what you think and leave a comment!

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