A Microsoft employee has referenced “the new Xbox” for the first time. In an interview regarding the new Outlook.com, Microsoft’s Brian Hall (general manager of Windows Live) referred to “the new Xbox” as one of many projects that could be integrated with Windows 8.

“We’ve had Hotmail and operated Hotmail for about 16 years. We obviously have Exchange, and Outlook, that people use at work,” Hall told The Verge. “We just decided it was time to do something new and bring the best from each of those and put them together and release it right in time for the new wave of products that we could have coming out with Windows 8, with the new version of Office, with the new Windows Phone and the new Xbox.”

While this is the first time a Microsoft employee has openly acknowledged the new console, it’s not exactly a secret considering that we’ve already seen the system’s development kit. We know the console is codenamed Durango (or, more casually, Xbox 720) and we’ve seen several Microsoft studios reference a next-gen console in job listings, including 343 Industries and Rare.

Microsoft still hasn’t officially announced the console, but we’re certainly getting closer, as developers tell us the next generation of consoles will begin in 2013. Until that happens, read about the few details we know so far in IGN’s analysis of a recent Microsoft patent filing.