Could a New Xbox One Be Announced at E3 2016?

A new Xbox One might be announced at E3 2016, one of the world's biggest game conferences. According to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings made by Microsoft, and unearthed by users of popular gaming forum NeoGAF, the Redmond-based company is testing a new wireless chip for the Xbox One for FCC approval.

"[I]f we check the Exhibits for those two models we can see that model 1683 includes a document named "User Manual 1525" which is not yet available and thus under NDA but the name gives away that this is basically a new Xbox One which will use the safety information manual from the OG Xbox One," posted NeoGAF user ekim. It was noted that FCC filings show two consoles tested using the same WiFi chip where one is referencing the manual of the Xbox One and the other does not.

One of them alludes to a possible E3 reveal as the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for the filing expires on June 25. The other could possibly be a totally different console altogether from Microsoft.

"Model 1682 has the same wireless chip tested but the NDA expires late in July 29 and has it's own host manual linked but not the 1525 reference. Also there are quite some more Exhibits available here which makes me think this is the rumoured Xbox Next or whatever it is called."

With Xbox head Phil Spencer speaking out against an incremental console update like Sony's PS4K, it is more likely that these filings could relate to a slimmer version of the Xbox rather than a brand new console, possibly one without a disc drive. In addition to this, AMD - which supplies internals to Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony has stated new consoles from Sony and Nintendo are expected. It failed to mention Microsoft, making a smaller form factor variant of the existing console all the more likely.

Nonetheless, we won't have to wait too long to find out, Microsoft's E3 2016 conference is on June 13 at 9:30am PT (10pm IST).